The appearance of anthrax in three states has caused considerable alarm for intelligence officials, who know that biological weapons have been developed and produced for over 25 years in the Caspian Sea region. A now-closed factory thought capable of manufacturing two tons of anthrax per day in the 1980s was situated in the city of Stepnogorsk in Kazakstan, in the former Soviet Union. Over the last few years, knowledge developed at Stepnogorsk is thought to have spread to Iran, Iraq, and possibly as far as the Aum Shinrikyo cult in Japan. According to Dr. Ken Alibek, the former deputy director of Biopreparat, product lines the Russian agency worked on include anthrax, smallpox, plague, botulinum toxin, and tularemia.