"Shhhhhh. Of course. From a group of Libyan nationalists. They wanted me to build them a bomb, so I took their plutonium and in turn, gave them a shiny bomb-casing filled with used pinball machine parts."
Posted on 03/21/2004 9:52:31 AM PST by sonsofliberty2000
SYDNEY, Australia - 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 (news - web sites), 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.
"Shhhhhh. Of course. From a group of Libyan nationalists. They wanted me to build them a bomb, so I took their plutonium and in turn, gave them a shiny bomb-casing filled with used pinball machine parts."
"On 7 September 1997, the CBS newsmagazine Sixty Minutes broadcast an alarming story in which former Russian National Security Adviser Aleksandr Lebed claimed that the Russian military had lost track of more than 100 suitcase-sized nuclear bombs"
Alexander Lebed and Suitcase Nukes
General Lebed conveniently dies in a helo crash shortly after these revelations.
The big question seems to be maintainence of these devices, not if they were sold on the black market.
He died five years later(4/28/02).
IMPOSSIBLE!
WITH AMERICA'S BORDERS SEALED SHUT, AND GUARDED BY TROOPS...THEY COULD NEVER GET A SUITCASE NUKE INSIDE THIS NATION!
"Hmmm....about those borders, Montag...got some bad news for ya..."
Like everyone else has said, if they had them they would have used them a long time ago.
This is trash.
It means they are fashionable, and won't clash with the latest in terrorist garb?
The Russian Nuclear Bomb
in Washington, DC
© 2001 Time Inc.
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Commentary by Russ Kick In its 12 Nov 2001 issue, Time ran this brief article on page 31. Hugh Sidey—the magazine's Washington Contributing Editor—has been covering the presidency for Life and Time since 1957. In this snippet, he reveals that JFK told him in 1961 that the Soviet Union has a nuclear bomb in its embassy in Washington, DC. In my book, this counts as a major revelation, yet there are several factors that indicate that this piece was created in a way that minimizes its impact. And that's exactly what happened: minimal impact. A sitting president told a White House reporter that the Russians have an atomic bomb in the nation's capitol, and no one heard it. Here are some of the odd aspects of this article: Presentation. After the letters section, each issue of Time has a section called "Notebook," a hodgepodge of quotes, obituaries, and factoids. This crucial revelation was run in this unlikely section, on the same page as a look at Muslim headgear. And because it was put in "Notebook," it's not available online, since Time doesn't post that section on its Website. To top it off, the article is presented under the label "Personal History," as if it were some charming recollection of JFK spilling soup on his tie and making a witty remark. Timing. Kennedy told Sidey about the A-bomb in 1961. Sidey told us in 2001. Does Time have any explanation about why it waited 40 years to publish this remarkable piece of information? It certainly makes one wonder what the current President is telling White House reporters—revelations that Time will publish in 2042. Lack of follow-up by Time. OK, so the Soviet Union smuggled parts for an atomic bomb in diplomatic pouches, then assembled it in their DC embassy. Does anyone know whether this bomb still exists and where it is now? Seems to me that there's a good chance it's still somewhere in the area. When the Soviet Union collapsed, did they take apart the bomb and ship the pieces back to Russia in diplomatic pouches? Did they load the whole thing onto an airplane and fly it back to the motherland? Both scenarios seem unlikely. Would Time care to investigate whether this bomb is still in the Russian embassy in Washington, DC? Lack of follow-up by the rest of the media. Come to think of it, would anyone care to investigate this? It appears that no other media outlet has picked up the story. You might think that Kennedy revealing an A-bomb a few blocks from the White House would be highly newsworthy, but you'd be wrong. |
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Nuclear weapons small enough to be called "suitcase nukes" contain subcritical amounts of fissile material, and require a "booster" made of tritium or some other short-lived isotope as a neutron source. Over the course of a few years the tritium decays and is no longer able to boost the reaction to criticality unless it is replaced. And replacement is a high-tech operation, beyond the technical capabilities of anyone who isn't capable enough to build their own nuclear weapons from scratch in the first place.
At least one of the US nuclear tests in the 50's failed because the tritium booster wasn't up to snuff.
So the good news is that portable nuclear weapons have a limited "shelf life".
I thought he was vaporized earlier.
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