Police suspect bin Laden making 'dirty' nuclear bombs
Troubling signs
nationalpost.com
By David Pugliese
Ottawa Citizen
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Police in Canada, Britain and Bulgaria are urgently investigating suspicious activity involving atomic energy research facilities as fears grow that Osama bin Laden may be attempting to build crude nuclear weapons.
Terrorists could build a "dirty" radiological bomb with little effort capable of killing 2,000 people and contaminating thousands more, according to a report from the Center for Defense Information, a think tank in Washington.
A U.S. defence official has said bin Laden's al-Qaeda terrorists had developed chemical and biological weapons and possibly nuclear-related arms.
"If there's any nuclear capability, it is liable to be more radiological than fissile," the official said, according to The Washington Times.
Radiological weapons -- or dirty bombs -- combine radioactive material with conventional explosives to increase their deadliness. A fissile nuclear device produces a nuclear blast.
British intelligence officials are reportedly tracing the activities of a Pakistani scientist, connected to bin Laden, who is believed to have tried to obtain nuclear waste materials in England. Also being investigated is a scheme by the bin Laden organization to set up a fake environmental company to obtain radioactive material from a nuclear power plant in Bulgaria.
In Canada, police continue to follow leads on a Kuwaiti man found with sensitive documents about Canadian atomic energy facilities.
In a report, Mr. Blair says a radiological bomb is an expedient weapon, in that radioactive waste material is relatively easy to obtain and not as well guarded as nuclear weapons. He estimated the worst-case calculation for a noon-hour explosion in downtown Manhattan to be more than 2,000 deaths.
"There's a potential for that type of action," said John Thompson, who studies terrorism trends for the Mackenzie Institute, a Toronto-based think-tank. "I don't think you would create a large number of casualties, but you would certainly generate a lot of panic."
Canadian defence analyst David Rudd notes bin Laden would be courting the demise of his cause if he used a nuclear weapon against the United States. Such an action would turn supporters among the Arab establishment against him and spark massive retaliation from the U.S. government against any country to give him sanctuary.
"All bets would be off if he used nuclear weapons," said Mr. Rudd, director of the Canadian Institute of Strategic Studies.
Bin Laden has voiced his desire to have a nuclear bomb. In May, 1998, he issued a statement arguing it was necessary to obtain nuclear weapons and that it was the duty of Muslims "to prepare as much force as possible to terrorize the enemies of God." In a 1998 interview with Time, bin Laden dodged the question of whether he actually had such a device. "If I have indeed acquired these weapons, then I thank God for enabling me to do so," he said.
One of his former aides, Jamal al-Fadl, testified during a terrorism trial this year he was directly involved in an attempt to purchase uranium for bin Laden in 1993. He was instructed to meet a Sudanese military officer, who supposedly possessed radioactive material to sell for $1.5-million.
Mr. al-Fadl arranged for the purchase of a device to determine whether the material was radioactive, but he was taken off the job. Mr. al-Fadl testified he did not know if the purchase was completed.
Earlier this year, customs officers from Uzbekistan seized 10 lead-lined containers at a remote border crossing with Kazakhstan. Intelligence analysts say they were filled with enough radioactive material to construct dozens of crude radiological weapons. The containers were being shipped to a company in Quetta, Pakistan, but since Pakistan already has an arsenal of nuclear weapons, most analysts believe it would have no need for such material, prompting speculation it was destined for bin Laden.
There is also the possibility bin Laden has built or obtained a nuclear bomb, stolen from the stockpile of the former Soviet Union. In 1998, an Arabic news magazine reported bin Laden's organization paid Chechen gangsters US$30-million for 20 Russian nuclear warheads. The plan, according to the magazine, was to detonate the bombs in U.S. cities.
The Russian government denies any of its warheads are missing. But according to Republican Congressman Curt Weldon, the former Soviet Union cannot account for 48 of its 10-kiloton suitcase nuclear weapons. |
