AQ
WMD
News
Report
(Ties
to
Saddam)
Archive
©
2002
WorldNetDaily.com
President
Bush
and
British
Prime
Minister
Tony
Blair
have
been
warned
Osama
bin
Laden
has
20
suitcase
nuclear
weapons
obtained
for
cash
from
former
KGB
agents,
the
London
Sunday
Express
reports
in
tomorrow's
editions.
Last
October,
WorldNetDaily
broke
the
story
of
bin
Laden’s
suitcase
nukes,
detailed
in
a
new
book
by
an
FBI
consultant
on
international
terrorism.
The
book,"Al
Qaeda:
Brotherhood
of
Terror,”
by
Paul
L.
Williams,
says
bin
Laden
purchased
20
suitcase
nuclear
weapons
in
1998
from
former
KGB
agents
for
$30
million.
The
deal
is
reportedly
one
of
three
in
the
last
decade
in
which
al-Qaida
purchased
small
nuclear
weapons
or
weapons-grade
nuclear
uranium.
Williams
says
bin
Laden's
search
for
nuclear
weapons
began
in
1988
when
he
hired
a
team
of
five
nuclear
scientists
from
Turkmenistan.
These
were
former
employees
at
the
atomic
reactor
in
Iraq
before
it
was
destroyed
by
Israel,
Williams
says.
The
team's
project
was
the
development
of
a
nuclear
reactor
that
could
be
used
"to
transform
a
very
small
amount
of
material
that
could
be
placed
in
a
package
smaller
than
a
backpack."
"By
1990
bin
Laden
had
hired
hundreds
of
atomic
scientists
from
the
former
Soviet
Union
for
$2,000
a
month
–
an
amount
far
greater
that
their
wages
in
the
former
Soviet
republics,"
Williams
writes.
"They
worked
in
a
highly
sophisticated
and
well-fortified
laboratory
in
Kandahar,
Afghanistan."
This
work
continued
throughout
the
1990s,
the
author
says.
In
1993,
according
to
the
book,
Jamal
Ahmed
al-Fadl,
a
bin
Laden
agent
who
turned
into
a
Central
Intelligence
Agency
source,
purchased
for
al-Qaida
a
cylinder
of
weapons-grade
uranium
from
a
former
Sudanese
government
minister
who
represented
businessmen
from
South
Africa.
The
purchase
price
was
$1.5
million
and
the
uranium
was
tested
in
Cyprus
and
transported
to
Afghanistan.
Al-Fadl
reported
that,
at
the
time
of
this
transfer,
al-Qaida
was
already
working
on
a
deal
for
suitcase
nukes
developed
for
the
KGB.
Williams
says
the
Russian
Mafia
made
another
mysterious
deal
with
"Afghani
Arabs"
in
search
of
nuclear
weapons
in
1996.
The
Russians
who
sold
the
material
now
live
in
New
York.
Then
again
in
1998,
Mamdouh
Mahmud
Salim
was
arrested
in
Munich
and
charged
with
acting
as
an
al-Qaida
agent
to
purchase
highly
enriched
uranium
from
a
German
laboratory.
That
same
year,
according
to
Williams,
bin
Laden
succeeded
in
buying
the
20
suitcase
nukes
from
Chechen
Mafia
figures,
including
former
KGB
agents.
The
$30
million
deal
was
partly
cash
and
partly
heroin
with
a
street
value
of
$700
million.
"After
the
devices
were
obtained,
they
were
placed
in
the
hands
of
Arab
nuclear
scientists
who,
federal
sources
say,
'were
probably
trained
at
American
universities,'"
says
Williams.
Though
the
devices
were
designed
only
to
be
operated
by
Soviet
SPETZNAZ
personnel,
or
special
forces,
al-Qaida
scientists
came
up
with
a
way
of
hot-wiring
the
bombs
to
the
bodies
of
would-be
martyrs,
according
to
the
book.
Suitcase
nukes
are
not
really
suitcases
at
all,
but
suitcase-size
nuclear
devices.
The
weapons
can
be
fired
from
grenade
or
rocket
launchers
or
detonated
by
timers.
A
bomb
placed
in
the
center
of
a
metropolitan
area
would
be
capable
of
instantly
killing
hundreds
of
thousands
and
exposing
millions
of
others
to
lethal
radiation.
Yossef
Bodansky,
author
of
“Bin
Laden:
The
Man
Who
Declared
War
on
America,”
and
the
U.S.
Congress'
top
terrorism
expert,
concurs
that
bin
Laden
has
already
succeeded
in
purchasing
suitcase
nukes.
Former
Russian
security
chief
Alexander
Lebed
also
testified
to
Congress
that
40
nuclear
suitcases
disappeared
from
the
Russian
arsenal
after
the
collapse
of
the
Soviet
Union.
Williams
quotes
an
anonymous
federal
official
as
saying:
"The
question
isn't
whether
bin
Laden
has
nuclear
weapons,
it's
when
he
will
try
to
use
them."
In
addition
to
the
suitcase
nukes,
Williams
reports
that
al-Qaida
has
also
obtained
chemical
weapons
from
North
Korea
and
Iraq.
Williams
says
the
FBI
confirmed
to
him
that
Saddam
Hussein
provided
bin
Laden
with
a
"gift"
of
anthrax
spores.
Williams
says
al-Qaida
also
includes
in
its
arsenal
plague
viruses,
including
ebola
and
salmonella,
from
the
former
Soviet
Union
and
Iraq,
samples
of
botulism
biotoxin
from
the
Czech
Republic,
and
sarin
from
Iraq
and
North
Korea.
In
1996,
the
late
Alexander
Lebed,
Russia's
former
chief
of
national
security,
asserted
that
Russia
may
have
"lost"
up
to
100
one-kiloton
"suitcase-sized"
bombs,
which
he
called
"ideal
weapons
to
conduct
nuclear
terrorism."
The
Russian
government
immediately
denied
the
weapons
ever
existed,
but
Alexei
Yablokov,
a
former
senior
adviser
to
Yeltsin,
told
a
U.S.
congressional
hearing
that
the
weapons
had
been
developed
by
the
KGB
in
a
project
kept
secret
from
the
Russian
military.
http://news.findlaw.com/cnn/docs/binladen/binladen20601tt.pdf
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