20040321 We Have Briefcase Nukes

al-Qaida No. 2: We Have Briefcase Nukes
Mar 21, 10:02 AM (ET)

SYDNEY, Australia (AP) - Osama bin Laden's terror network claims to have bought ready-made nuclear weapons on the black market in central Asia, the biographer of al-Qaida's No. 2 leader was quoted as telling an Australian television station.

In an interview scheduled to be televised on Monday, Pakistani journalist Hamid Mir said Ayman al-Zawahri claimed that "smart briefcase bombs" were available on the black market.

It was not clear when the interview between Mir and al-Zawahri took place.

U.S. intelligence agencies have long believed that al-Qaida attempted to acquire a nuclear device on the black market, but say there is no evidence it was successful.

In the interview with Australian Broadcasting Corp. television, parts of which were released Sunday, Mir recalled telling al-Zawahri it was difficult to believe that al-Qaida had nuclear weapons when the terror network didn't have the equipment to maintain or use them.

"Dr Ayman al-Zawahri laughed and he said 'Mr. Mir, if you have $30 million, go to the black market in central Asia, contact any disgruntled Soviet scientist, and a lot of ... smart briefcase bombs are available,'" Mir said in the interview.

"They have contacted us, we sent our people to Moscow, to Tashkent, to other central Asian states and they negotiated, and we purchased some suitcase bombs," Mir quoted al-Zawahri as saying.

Al-Qaida has never hidden its interest in acquiring nuclear weapons.

The U.S. federal indictment of bin Laden charges that as far back as 1992 he "and others known and unknown, made efforts to obtain the components of nuclear weapons."

Bin Laden, in a November 2001 interview with a Pakistani journalist, boasted having hidden such components "as a deterrent." And in 1998, a Russian nuclear weapons design expert was investigated for allegedly working with bin Laden's Taliban allies.

It was revealed last month that Pakistan's top nuclear scientist had sold sensitive equipment and nuclear technology to Iran, Libya and North Korea, fueling fears the information could have also fallen into the hands of terrorists.

Earlier, Mir told Australian media that al-Zawahri also claimed to have visited Australia to recruit militants and collect funds.

"In those days, in early 1996, he was on a mission to organize his network all over the world," Mir was quoted as saying. "He told me he stopped for a while in Darwin (in northern Australia), he was ... looking for help and collecting funds."

Australia's Attorney-General Philip Ruddock said the government could not rule out the possibility that al-Zawahri visited Australia in the 1990s under a different name.

"Under his own name or any known alias he hasn't traveled to Australia," Ruddock told reporters Saturday. "That doesn't mean to say that he may not have come under some other false documentation, or some other alias that's not known to us."

Mir describe al-Zawahri as "the real brain behind Osama bin Laden."

"He is the real strategist, Osama bin Laden is only a front man," Mir was quoted as saying during the interview. "I think he is more dangerous than bin Laden."

Al-Zawahri - an Egyptian surgeon - is believed to be hiding in the rugged region around the Pakistan-Afghan border where U.S. and Pakistani troops are conducting a major operation against Taliban and al-Qaida forces.

He is said to have played a leading role in orchestrating the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.

PUBLIC DISCLOSURE: Tip on Nuke Terror Was Kept From New Yorkers - 020304

A month after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, senior Bush administration officials received an intelligence report that terrorists had obtained a 10-kiloton nuclear weapon from the Russian arsenal and were planning to smuggle it into New York City, a government official said yesterday. Confirming an account in today's issue of Time magazine, the official said the highly classified intelligence report had come from a source of questionable reliability and had circulated among a relatively few tuspected nuclear

op officials who concluded, after weeks of investigation, that it was false. The report was kept a tight secret Ñ former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, the New York Police Department and even senior Federal Bureau of Investigation officials were not told Ñ so as not to panic New Yorkers, Time said. It said a 10- kiloton bomb detonated in Lower Manhattan would kill 100,000 people, sicken 700,000 with radiation and flatten everything within a half-mile. (NY Times)

The officials said the man has declined to allow them to make public his name, but they said he is a U.S. citizen who claimed he overheard the alleged plot being discussed in a Las Vegas casino three weeks after the attacks of September 11. ROTFLMAO (cnn)

What you need to understand is that the Russians planned on having the munitions pre-positioned around the nation.

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MEDIA FOCUS: Nuclear sensors deployed around Washington D.C., at borders - Delta Force on standby - 020303

Alarmed by growing hints of al Qaeda's progress toward obtaining a nuclear or radiological weapon, the Bush administration has deployed hundreds of sophisticated sensors since November to U.S. borders, overseas facilities and choke points around Washington. It has placed the Delta Force, the nation's elite commando unit, on a new standby alert to seize control of nuclear materials that the sensors may detect. ...the Delta Force has been assigned the mission of killing or disabling anyone with a s

 device and turning it over to the scientists to be disarmed.

FBI focusing on portable nuke threat - 011221

The U.S. backpack nuke weighs 163 pounds and can be carried by one or two men. One Russian naval arms compilation talks about small portable nuclear weapons weighing from 59 pounds to 154 pounds. The yield, too, is hard to pin down. One former American scientist who worked at the Department of Energy labs said that the "Davy Crocket," which was the small bomb later converted to special operations, had a one-kiloton explosive power and would level the Capitol Building and everything in a half mile radius. It also would spread radioactive waste across a wide area of Washington. The bomb the U.S. dropped on Hiroshima was 15 kilotons. (Each kiloton has an explosive power equal to 1,000 tons of TNT.)

"According to Soviet military plans, very well advanced, maybe a few months, maybe a few weeks, of course, a few hours before real war would be placed against his country (the U.S.), Russian Special Operations Forces need to come here and pick up weapons systems, because they will fly here as tourists, businessmen. "According to their tasking, in a few hours they need to physically destroy, eliminate American military chains of command, President, Supreme Commander in Chief, Vice President, Speaker of the House, military commanders, especially to cut the head from the American military chain of command," Lunev said. He said that the Russians had a plan to sabotage industrial, communications and power targets as well.

Muslim Moderate Kabbani Firm on Terrorist Nuclear Threat - 011119

Newsmax archive

Part of that strident alarm sounded by Kabbani in 1999: "We want to tell people to be careful, that something major might hit quickly because they [Islamic extremists] were able to buy more than 20 atomic nuclear [war]heads from some of the mafia in the ex-Soviet Union. ...

"Through the universities, there will be the most danger. If the nuclear atomic warheads reach these universities, you donÕt know what these students are going to do, because their way of thinking is brainwashed, limited and narrow-minded."

Al-Qaeda Nukes May Already Be In US

By Naveed Miraj
11-10-1

ISLAMABAD (PNS) - Pakistani and American investigators converge that Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda network may have successfully transported several nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons of mass destruction to the United States.

Already on high alert, United States security officials are having sleepless nights that Al Qaeda can strike in New York again on the occasion of United Nations General Assembly session.

Investigators from Pakistan's ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence) and American FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation) and CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) are jointly probing into the possibilities of Al Qaeda possessing nuclear, biological and chemical weapons. They have reached a conclusion that at least two briefcase nuclear weapons may have reached the US shores, sources close to these investigators revealed to this scribe.

The investigators have been able to identify at least one briefcase weapon acquired by Al Qaeda from Central Asian rogue groups. The weapon identified is small 8-kilogram device that carries at least 2 kg of fissionable plutonium and uranium. The device, of Russian make, carries a serial number 9999 and manufacturing date October 1988.

The design of the device is simple. The radioactive materials consist of Uranium and Plutonium both kept in separate compartments. At the top of the two compartments is placed the charging mechanism. The charging mechanism can be activated through a timer or even through a cell phone command.

Besides nuclear devices, a chemical and a biological weapon have also been identified to be in the hands of Al Qaeda activists. They are said to be in possession of at least 70 capsules, also of Russian origin, containing a very lethal biological agent.

Broken in a crowded place, this capsule can cause deaths on a huge scale. It melts human body meat to the bone. Another chemical agent in the hands of Al Qaeda operators is called Vipera Lebentina Venema. A derivative of snake poisons, this venom developed in USSR attacks through skin.

Most probable way of using this agent is through mail as with Anthrax. US security agencies are already on high alert and realise that Al Qaeda can strike in New York again on the occasion of UN General Assembly. Analysis of the recent statements released by Osama bin Laden carried out by US agencies has shown that the terrorist network can pick up an important occasion like the UN General Assembly session to retaliate against US strikes on Afghanistan.

http://www.paknews.com/main.php?id=17&date1=2001-11-10

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[Soviet strategy called for the prepositioning of these types of arms within the United States prior to the outbreak of hostilities]

Suitcase Nuke Threat Against US Raising More Concern

By Brian Ross
ABCNEWS.com
11-9-1

Could the next terrifying attack on the nation fit into a suitcase?

The prospect that Osama bin Laden's terrorists may have gotten their hands on small, easily transportable "suitcase nukes" has some people in Washington now truly concerned.

There's no evidence such a device has been smuggled into the country. And even if it had, experts say it would be extremely difficult for terrorists to detonate. And a congressman who has been studying the subject for years on the subject say there's no doubt that such nuclear suitcases do exist.

"I can tell you unequivocally we built these devices similar to this and so did the Soviets during the Cold War," said Rep. Curt Weldon, R-Pa. "The defense minister of Russia told me to my face, 'Yes, congressman, we built these devices. Just as your country built them during the Cold War.'"

In fact, the Department of Defense made a training video in the l960s, demonstrating how "small atomic demolition munitions" can be stuffed into parachutes and attached to Navy commandos, who then show how the weapons can be affixed to bridges and ships underwater.

"These devices were designed to be used to take out major infrastructure facilities," said Weldon. "We destroyed ours. Now the question is, do we know whether or not Russia has them all accounted for and do we know that they destroyed them all?"

Russia Defends Nuclear Inventory

This week in Moscow, Russian President Vladimir Putin told 20/20's Barbara Walters none of the nuclear suitcases is missing.

"I don't really believe this is true," Putin said. "These are just legends. One can probably assume that somebody tried to sell some nuclear secrets. But there is no documentary confirmation of those developments."

But Weldon says he got a much different answer four years ago when he went to talk to with one of Russia's top generals.

The general, formerly Russia's leading defense adviser, said 86 of 132 suitcase bombs were unaccounted for.

Where were the missing nukes?

"I have no idea," Weldon recalled the general saying.

White House Sees Chilling Threat

That's one of several nuclear scenarios now causing great concern at the White House, where President Bush this week sounded the alarm about bin Laden's suspected efforts to go nuclear.

"They're seeking chemical, biological and nuclear weapons," Bush told leaders of formerly communist states Tuesday in Warsaw, Poland. "Given the means, our enemies would be a threat to every nation and eventually to civilization itself."

This week, the White House called in the man who tracked missing nuclear weapons for the last administration, Graham Allison, now director of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government.

Allison says the threat is very real, particularly given evidence that bin Laden and his associates have tried to obtain nuclear weapons material.

As for the nuclear suitcases, Allison's advice is to assume several dozen nuclear suitcases in Russia are missing.

"I think the difficult thing for us all to come to grips with, that, my God, would people really want to kill thousands or tens of thousands of Americans," Allison said.

The Nuclear Bazaar

But Allison and most other experts say the real concern is not the suitcase but a thriving nuclear black market, in places such as Istanbul, Turkey.

"There is a black market in weapons-grade uranium. There is a black market for weapons-grade plutonium. And there certainly is a market for radioactive material in general," said Freidrich Steinhausler of the University of Salzburg in Austria. Steinhausler is one of the world's pre-eminent experts on the illegal market in stolen nuclear materials.

"[Osama bin Laden's terrorist network] Al Qaeda is trying actively to obtain radioactive and or nuclear weapons grade material," said Steinhausler. "In terms of probability of threat, I would put the nuclear bomb rather low. I would put the radioactive dirty bomb, much, much higher."

A so-called dirty bomb, a conventional weapon laced with radioactive material, would make a scene like the attack on the World Trade Center even worse, Steinhausler says.

"Picture the bucket brigades that we saw in Ground Zero in a radioactive-contaminated area. They couldn't operate there," he said. "Picture the dust-caked office worker who survived the World Trade Center attack. He would not only be covered in dust from the detonation, he would have inhaled radioactive stuff. His body would be contaminated.

"The technology required is really high school level. You don't have even to be an engineer to fabricate that. If you can make your conventional explosive, to lace it with radioactivity is really child's play."

Over-flights by special surveillance aircraft of the bin Laden training camps in Afghanistan have not picked up the presence of any radioactive materials. But bin Laden, when asked by ABCNEWS on Christmas Eve of 1998 whether he had acquired nuclear weapons, gave a troubling answer.

"I would state that to acquire weapons in defense of Muslims is a religious duty," he said.

And given that kind of talk, American authorities say the many nuclear scenarios, including the nuclear suitcase, simply cannot be ruled out.

"Up until now we had a built-in safety barrier, where we said well if the radioactive material, it would kill or threaten the carrier, that's a method that's not going to be used," Steinhausler said. "But ever since Sept. 11 we know that's no longer valid. We now know the carrier, the agent, the terrorist himself is ready to die. And if he dies crashing an aircraft into a building or if he's ready to die carrying highly radioactive material, there's not much difference."

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Bush Worried About bin Laden Nuclear Bombs

By Richard Sale UPI Terrorism Correspondent 10-30-01

The Bush administration is concerned that the al Qaida network of accused terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden might try to use a small nuclear weapon in a super-spectacular strike to decapitate the U.S. political leadership, according to a half dozen serving and former U.S. government and intelligence officials.

"They believe it's a real possibility," said one former senior U.S. government official, adding that secret plans for protecting the U.S. president and his successors in the event of a nuclear attack were in place...

[This was the old Soviet plan to decapitate the U.S. political leadership, but the plan anticipated prepositioned devices]

Israel Finds Radiological Backpack Bomb

RICHARD SALE, UPI Terrorism Correspondent, United Press International, October 14, 2001

WASHINGTON, Oct 14, 2001 (United Press International via COMTEX) -- Israeli security last month arrested a man linked to suspected terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden armed with a radiological backpack bomb, as he attempted to enter Israel from the Palestinian Territories via a border checkpoint at Ramallah, according to U.S. government officials.

The arrest took place during the last week of September, according to one knowledgeable official who spoke on condition of anonymity. He declined to give the exact date of arrest. Two other sources interviewed by UPI confirmed the incident, but also declined to give further details.

"People know how to walk a dog back," one said, meaning that relating too exact an account could lead to the identification of the source of the information.

Regarding the arrest, a U.S. government official said: "There was only one individual involved. He was from Pakistan."

Another source said U.S. officials believed that the suspect had probably gotten to the territories via Lebanon.

Information on the arrest went immediately to U.S. President Bush and a close circle of advisors, another U.S. official said. He described the appearance and character of the top-secret report circulated among the Cabinet members and signed by each official present.

Former Pentagon terrorism expert, Peter Probst, described a radiological bomb as a device with a small explosive core that is encased in radioactive material. "It would not kill a great many people, but it would contaminate a considerable area with radiation," he said.

A U.S. government expert said that the weapon captured by Israel was a backpack device that CIA officials learned about through Russian intelligence agents in place in 1995.

He emphasized it was not a so-called nuclear suitcase bomb.

The CIA had intelligence reports from senior Arab intelligence officials alleging that in October 1998 bin Laden had obtained one or two nuclear suitcase weapons from a Central Asian republic in return for $30 million in cash and two tons of heroin worth $70 million - a deal brokered by the Chechen mafia.

Russian Gen. Aleksandr Ivanovich Lebed, a former national security advisor to then-President Yeltsin acknowledged publicly in 1997 that several nuclear suitcase bombs had disappeared from Russia's arsenal.

But former CIA counter-terrorism official Vince Cannistraro has no patience with such accounts: "All talk of bin Laden having a nuclear suitcase bomb is crap," he said.

Cannistraro could not be reached for comment about the backpack device.

Nuclear suitcase bombs were designed for Soviet Speznatz or special operations troops to assault and destroy NATO command and control bunkers in Europe in the event of a NATO-Soviet war. The devices could not be detonated without matching codes held in strictest security by Moscow, a former CIA official said.

Backpack bombs have no such codes, but they were also designed for Spetznetz forces and have such an intricate and complex system of activation that the ability of a terrorist to detonate one "would be incredibly limited," according to one U.S. government official.

"There is such a complicated sequence you have to perform that some terrorist isn't going to be able to get it to work. You have to be very highly trained," an intelligence official agreed, describing the chances that the device could have been activated as "practically miniscule."

Probst is nevertheless convinced that radiological bombs are still a danger for New York City. "Bin Laden is fascinated by Wall Street. My fear is that he will attempt to smuggle in some "dirty" bomb that wouldn't kill many people but would dangerously contaminate the area," he said. Copyright 2001 by United Press International.

Bin Laden Said To Have Several Nuclear Suitcases Back In 1999

Reproduced from the Jerusalem Report: October 25th, 1999

http://www.cdn-friends-icej.ca/isreport/septoct99/binladen.html

9-24-1

Master terrorist Ossame Bin Laden has acquired portable nuclear devices, a U.S.-based expert on non-conventional terror believes. The only real question now is whether BinLaden has "a few," as Russian intelligence seems to think, or "over 20," a figure cited by intelligence services of moderate Arab regimes. "There is no longer much doubt that Bin Laden has finally succeeded in his quest for nuclear suitcase bombs," says Yossef Bodansky, head of the Congressional Task Force on Non-Conventional Terrorism in Washington. In a recent book, Bodansky reports that Bin Laden's associates acquired the devices through Chechnya, paying the Chechens $30 million in cash and two tons of Afghan heroin, worth about $70 million in Afghanistan and about 10 times that on the street in Western cities.

Bodansky's statements corroborate 1998 testimony by former Russian security chief Alexander Lebed to the U.S. House of Representatives. Lebed said that 43 nuclear suitcases from the former Soviet arsenal, developed for the KGB in the 1970s, have vanished since the collapse of the former Soviet Union a decade ago. Lebed said one person could detonate such a bomb by himself, and kill 100,000 people.

Among the others who recognize the threat is Ben Venzke, director of Tempest Publishing. The U.S. firm plans to release a detailed technical handbook on dealing with nuclear terror next year. The danger, says Venzke, is quite real ? and is not confined to stolen Russian weapons. "It is really quite simple," he says, "to acquire radioactive material and combine it with an explosive or so-called dirty device." Yael Haran

US Nuclear retaliation.... extract.

US Nuclear Doctrine, Nonstate Actors, and WMD Under US nuclear doctrine, the 20 August 1998 attacks on Afghanistan and Sudan could have been carried out with nuclear weapons. US doctrine allows strikes against terrorist groups armed with weapons of mass destruction (WMD). In Doctrine for Joint Theater Nuclear Operation, a Joint Chiefs of Staff publication, "likely targets" for US nuclear weapons include "nonstate actors (facilities and operation centers) that possess WMD". "Nonstate actors" refers to terrorist organizations like the one US officials claim is headed by Osama bin Laden.

At the same time, statements from Pentagon officials are openly contradictory. In response to a media query on the above US doctrine, a Department of Defense spokesperson said the policy referred to situations "in which the U.S., or allies or our forces have been attacked with chemical or biological weapons." However, even that statement included a caveat, that the US "does not rule out in advance any capability available to us." As US nuclear doctrine has evolved since the end of the Cold War, it has increasingly focused on the perceived threat of weapons of mass destruction, including arsenals held by "nonstate actors". As the following documents demonstrate, however, this policy is ineffective, contradictory, and actually increases the risk of further nuclear proliferation.

* Nuclear Weapons Against Terrorism By Hans M. Kristensen Research Associate, Nautilus Institute 28 August 1998. Highlights the contradictions in US policy.

* US Targets Nuclear Weapons at "Nonstate Actors", BASIC Press Release,

Do Palestinians Possess 3 Suitcase Nukes?

By Chris Todd

GREENSBORO, NC, August 19, 2000 (WebToday)--Chilling new allegations of nuclear blackmail now surround the, as yet, fruitless negotiations over the final status of Jerusalem.

Speaking to a crowd of Bible prophecy students in Greensboro, this week, Messianic Rabbi Michael Rood quoted an intelligence source close to the peace process who claims Yassir Arafat's Palestinian forces have purchased three Russian nuclear "suitcase bombs" on the black market.

The source, who was not identified, told Rood that all three weapons of mass destruction have been concealed in Jewish neighborhoods within Israel.

Rood, who runs New Moon Publishing of Two Harbors, Minnesota, believes the devices are being used as part of a high-stakes gamble intended to coerce Israel into ceding a portion of Jerusalem to the Palestinians. So far, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and his negotiating team have held out against Arafats demands.

Both Barak and Arafat face intense political pressure from their constituencies, which could limit their ability to compromise on the issue.

Arafat had publicly stated the Palestinians might unilaterally declare an independent state on September 13th if a final peace deal with Israel cannot be reached by that date. However, in his most recent comments, Arafat indicated a willingness to consider delaying such a declaration in order to achieve a negotiated settlement.

Rood indicated his belief that Arafat may end up detonating one or more of the nuclear devices in Israel this fall, prompting a swift and decisive retaliatory strike by the Jewish State against surrounding Arab capitals.

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[6] As confirmed as to contents, by the FBI/CIA/intelligence agencies surveillance of Timothy McVeigh in the company of his Iraqi military officer handlers, McVeigh and his handlers carried around several suit cases. Some of them contained highly effective C-4 explosives. One suit case contained a lower level sub-atomic device, known as "RedMercury". The suitcase nuke had been developed by the Soviets and madeavailable to their client-state, Iraq. The shearing off of the steelpillars of the Murrah Building was NOT done by a fertilizer truck-bombfrom in front of the building. Rather, by devices in the parking sectionof the basement.As reported by a researcher, "Jane Graham,a sixty year old FederalHousing Services employee, was on the ninth floor of the Murrah Building when she saw, heard and felt the rolling tremor of the building accompanied by a slow rumbling explosion. About 6 to 8 second slater, she was struck by a much more powerful and sudden explosion thatlifted the floors of the building straight up. About 3 hours after theexplosions took place she saw and later obtained video recordings of the federals pouring wet concrete into the 25 foot crater in the basement ofthe Murrah Building. Even though she demanded to testify before theGrand