Posted on 12/14/2008 6:51:32 PM PST by Cronos
Barely a month before the 9/11 terror attacks, two Pakistani nuclear scientists, said to be close to disgraced Abdul Qadeer Khan, met up with al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden and offered to supply him with atomic weapons, according to a newly released book
Chaudiri Abdul Majeed and Sultan Bashiruddin Mahmood, who held a series of senior posts in Pakistani nuke programme, went to Taliban headquarters in Kandahar in mid-August 2001 and spent three days with bin Laden who was keen on acquiring weapons of mass destruction, the book says.
In fact, Mahmood was said to be more close to Khan, the 'Father of the Islamic bomb' and the mastermind behind a vast clandestine enterprise which sold nuclear secrets to rogue states like Iran, North Korea and Libya. He also set up the pilot plant for Pakistan's uranium-enrichment programme.
However, the so-called deal did not materialise as the meeting between the Pakistani nuclear scientists and bin Laden ended inconclusively when the al-Qaida leader, along with some of his senior associates, had abruptly left for the mountains of northwestern Afghanistan.
And, according to the book, 'The Man From Pakistan' -- the true story of the world's most dangerous nuclear smuggler AQ Khan -- before leaving, bin Laden had told his followers that "something great was going to happen, and Muslims around the world were going to join them in the holy war". A couple of weeks later, the twin towers in New York were brought down.
The 414-page book is authored by two investigative journalists -- Douglas Frantz and Catherine Collins.
What's more revealing is that a year before they met bin Laden in Kandahar, the two Pakistani nuke scientists had set up a non-profit organisation, Ummah Tameer-e-Nau, to carry out relief work in Afghanistan, including advising the Taliban on scientific matters.
And, on the board of the organisation were several Pakistani army generals sympathetic to the Taliban cause, and it was one of the few non-government groups that the Taliban leader, Mullah Omar, had allowed to operate in Afghanistan, the book says.
"(But) not long after opening their office in a house in Kabul, the scientists met with Mullah Omar and bin Laden, and the conversation had shifted from relief work to weapons development. At one point, during his visits to Afghanistan, Mahmood provided Osama bin Laden's associates in Kabul with information about the construction of a nuclear weapon," the authors write.
However, post-9/11 attacks that shook the US, as part of his crackdown on terror groups operating in Pakistan, the then Chief Executive General Pervez Musharraf forced Mahmood to opt for an early retirement as "he had expressed sympathies for the Taliban and other Islamic extremists".
In fact, in his writings and speeches, Mahmood had advocated sharing Pakistan's nuclear weapons technology with other Islamic nations to hasten the "end of days", which he believed would give rise to Muslim dominance in the world, according to the book which the 'Los Angeles Times' says is a "richly reported" one.
I remember hearing about the nuke scientists years ago. A few scientists went missing, US asked why... it’s vague now but I distinctly remember it.
Ping.
The Mumbai attack may have been planned to topple the Pakistani government giving radical Islamic groups control of Pakistan’s nukes and thus suppling terrorists with deliverable nuclear weapons. Obama’s ultimate test may be when an American city is nuked. I hope the UN is up to the task of defending the USA,
How in the hell is this not reported on? I’ve spent too much of my time learning about the WOT just as a concerned citizen and this appears nowhere to my knowledge. UBL, as Commander-in-Chief, of the Taliban government would have made headlines in any honest reporters’ mind.
Of course it would. And the fact that a lone wire service (UPI) picked up on it while the rest of the lamestream media chose to ignore it speaks volumes.
There were plenty of signs that something sinister was in the works, and had it not been for the following lethal combination of factors, 9/11 might have possibly been prevented:
a.) Jamie Gorelick and her abysmal ‘wall’ that prevented our law enforcement and intelligence agencies from effectively sharing vital data which could identify and apprehend terrorist elements operating within the United States.
b.) Al Gore and his joke of a commission on ‘Air Security’, his little commission actually recommended major enhancements for the industry, but after enough whining about the ‘cost’ of such enhancements, plus a nice whopping donation to the DNC from the airline lobbyists, the commission’s findings were watered down to the point of being essentially meaningless.
c.) John F’in Kerry’s passing the buck when his office was PERSONALLY CONTACTED by FAA security officials in the Spring of 2001 who were stymied and frustrated by the failure of the FAA Inspector General to address their specific concerns regarding the lack of security at Boston’s Logan Airport. The security officials informed Kerry that Logan was a terrorist hijacking just waiting to happen due to the minimal and incompetent security at that facility. They offered to fly to Washington (from their homes in Texas, they had retired) on their *own dime* to testify in front of Kerry’s committee, Kerry’s office informed them that such testimony wouldn’t be “effective” as they were not actually constituents of Kerry, and Kerry’s office forwarded their ‘concerns’ to who else? You got it, the Inspector General’s office at the FAA that had already shuffled the reports of inadequate security at Logan from one desk to another, doing NOTHING to correct those deficiencies.
Add to the above three factors Emperor Billigula’s predilection to treat terrorist attacks as ‘law enforcement’ issues instead of the military attacks that they were, and it’s no wonder that 3000+ Americans died on 9/11 thanks to the malfeasance, incompetence and some say *treason* of elected officials who screwed the pooch and effectively did nothing to prevent those attacks from taking place.
yes, this has to be stopped
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