Posted on 03/20/2004 10:54:05 PM PST by HAL9000
SYDNEY, Australia (AP) - Osama bin Laden's terror network claims to have bought ready-made nuclear weapons on a Central Asian black market, the biographer of al-Qaida's No.2 leader was quoted telling an Australian television station.In an interview scheduled to be televised Monday, Pakistani journalist Hamid Mir said Ayman al-Zawahri claimed "smart briefcase bombs" are 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 al-Qaida attempted to acquire a nuclear device on the black market but said there is no evidence they ever succeeded.
In the interview with Australian Broadcasting Corp. television, parts of which were released Sunday, Mir recalled telling al-Zawahri it was difficult to believe 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 saying.
Al-Zawahri's boast would not in itself prove the al-Qaida has actually succeeded in acquiring nuclear weapons.
Al-Qaida has never hidden its interest in acquiring nuclear weapons.
The U.S. government indictment of bin Laden charges 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 of 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 Pakistan's top nuclear scientist sold sensitive equipment and nuclear technology to Iran, Libya and North Korea, fuelling fears the information could have also fallen into the hands of terrorists.
Mir describe al-Zawahri as "the real brain behind Osama bin Laden."
"He is the real strategist, Osama bin Laden is only a frontman," Mir was quoted saying during the interview.
"I think he is more dangerous than bin Laden."
Al-Zawahri - an Egyptian surgeon - is believed 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.
Your average panel van has a cargo capacity in excess of 2000 lb.
Get one with no windows and you could drive a bomb around for months without anyone knowing. Beef up the springs and install some shielding if you are really paranoid, or just go to a step van. Dirt common in every city in the US and a several ton capacity. And you can park in a loading zone without raising any suspicion at all.
The real problem is the life expectancy of the electronic components being located near a radiation source.
No, it's a bomb that the Al-Qaeda vermin can't figure out how to make it go "boom". Nice going Russian mafia!
Bin Laden has several Nuclear Suitcases "Bin Laden has several Nuclear Suitcases Reproduced from the Jerusalem Report: October 25th, 1999 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
Pakistani journalist: Al-Qaida claims has nuclear bombs
Hamid Mir put this story out now, IMO, because Al-Qaida is getting their ass hand to them and hopes the allied forces or some their populations will get scared and back off. The worse their situation, the more dire the threats.
If you see a heavy bulky man that looks like a weight lifter carrying a big suit case and leaning slightly to one side, I think it best to get out of his way and get as far away from him as you can.
I would imagine that the internal parts of the small nuke would limit it to something bigger then a suit case, or at least one that would be very obviously big to even be carrying around. I would also think that some of the internal parts would have to be kept a certain distance from other parts in the bomb. And to top it off, the shielding around the bomb would probably make it too big to even think of one person lifting it up. Even if he could the size in volume would make it tough to lift up because a person body would have to be way off center to lift it up with one handle, or if it had two handles the arms would have to be spread too far apart. I could imagine though it possibly getting the bomb down to a size of a crate but it would at least take two people to pick it up. So The idea of someone just walking up the White House or some government building with a suitcase bomb or something like that is ludicrous. Thou if on the other had if two people were carrying a small crate toward the White House that would be very obvious and I would hope the security guards would shoot them to death. I would imagine if they did acquire a small nuclear bomb they would have to deliver it in a vehicle of some sort either a ground vehicle or an airplane. Hopefully nothing like that ever happens and hopefully our government has common sense to block off those streets leading up to our government buildings which our really high targets for the terrorists.
So9
Definitely sounds like he is a supporter/member of AQ and the Taliban and to me.
Since, this guy has no credibility with me, makes me feel it's more likely we have captured/killed some High Value Target AQ..and that they actually failed in acquiring any actual suitcase nukes (they may have been duped by their seller thou). On a side note, I spoke to friend who's hubby was dispatched to the area in the within the last 48-hours to "get #2"
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