Al Qaeda Claims to Have Suitcase Nukes
Sun March 21st, 2004 19:00 MSTOsama bin Laden’s terror network claims to have bought ready-made nuclear weapons on the black market in central Asia, the biographer of al-Qaeda’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-Qaeda 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-Qaeda 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-Qaeda 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.”
Hopefully they are just bragging, but Al Qaeda often tells the truth about things like this.
At this point, anyone who is worrying much about domestic policy rather than the War on Terror had better wake up! No matter what is being promised by politicans won’t mean a hill of beans if even one of these weapons goes off in a United States City.
TO many of us, this upcoming election is dominated by one issue: Who can best protect America, a person who has voted against every weapons system and wants to turn our security over to the UN, or someone who has demonstrated his resolve and ability to take the war to the enemy.
This should dwarf any other issue. Even if Al Qaeda is lying, it is only because they have not yet bought the weapons they seek. These people may have, or may shortly acquire weapons capable of killling millions of us and destroying our economy and deeply damaging our way of life. And that is what we should be focused on!
Yeah, the Ausies brought it up, but the US media poo-poohs it. They have to. If the citizenry wakes up to this nightmare, it will start another Fear of Nukes paranoia in the country, and guarantee GWB gets a second term. I was raised during the last one during the 50’s. It was quite something, and we laugh now at the “duck and cover” drills the kids practiced.
We won’t laugh if this is real. The Soviets carefully considered their use of nukes vs the US in light of what we could do to them. The Al-Qaeda will make no such distinctions. They’ll just fire one off and incinerate a city here, if they have such a bomb. The Virgins are pre-guaranteed.
I learned to love the bomb and not worry. Hell, I aimed the bombs that would have done the retribution as a Strategic Air Command B-52 Radar Navigator for 12 years during the cold war.
But my daughters, my son have never faced this uncertainty. How will they handle it?
Rivrdog
Well, I certainly want GWB to get a second term. I would vote for Fidel Castro over Kerry. Kerry is a Benedict Arnold who couldn’t be trusted to carry your luggage!
Anyway… I also was raised in the ’50s. In Albuquerque, New Mexico, which then and now has the largest stockpile of nuclear weapons in the US. Furthermore, in those days we had the equivalent of Area 51 at Monzano and Kirtland bases. And Sandia Base was where most nuclear weapons design was done! Needless to say, we were at the center of a bulls-eye with a lot of megatonnage planned for it.
During the Cuban missile crisis, someone I knew told me exactly where to go to duck and cover, because of his work on the subject.
I also flew in aircraft that could carry the bomb - P-3 Orion. Of course, ours were little - 20kt depth charges, but hey, that would still ruin your day, and they could be set for air burst. We didn’t carry them when we went to Vietnam (yeah, it was those days).
This new situation is really scary. General Lebed, the governor of Siberia and a major Russian military and political figure, claimed that some of the “suitcase nukes” couldn’t be accounted for. Then he was killed in a helicopter crash. Hmmm.
It makes me want to move out of town. And having my daughter near DC (working 1 mile from where the bomb went off in “The Sum of All Fears”) doesn’t please me either.
Of course, if I were an Al Qaeda planner and had a suitcase nuke, I’d set it off in Moscow in hopes of triggering thermonuclear war. Put that in your pipe and smoke it!
Sweet dreams!
I completely agree with the point that you suggest: all bets are off if a nuclear device is detonated in an American city. It’s maddening to deal with an enemy who is relying on God to save from his own foolhardiness. They are truly dancing on the brink of a precipice.
Fortunately, I don’t think the Al Qaeda strategists are really relying on God to assure good outcomes. Otherwise they wouldn’t be so careful in their actions.
But what is scary is their willingness to accept the deaths of as many people as necessary to win. If the whole world was sent back to the dark ages, they would suffer less and can imagine that their religion would win.
Sending the world back to the dark ages may be exactly what the jihadis have in mind. The religious clerics who are the theorists behind political islam radiate a weird medieval vibration anyway. The middle ages was the time when Islam was ascendant.
Remember the survivalists who were stocking up on food, water, and fuel, for just this sort of situation? Nuclear war with the Russians didn’t happen, and the predicted world economic collapse from overconsumption didn’t pan out. Maybe this is the crisis the survivalists were planning for?
Believe me, I am considering getting some supplies and a little plot of land out in the middle of nowhere.
I probably won’t do it, but I probably should.
At least I’m well armed.
I’m buying boats. When the land is glowing maybe the seas will be better.
Strangely enough, where there was plenty of somewhat tongue-in-cheek coverage of survivalists just before and right after Y2K, there was no news coverage of survivalists and their excellent prospects post-9/11.
The biggest weapon in the terrorist arsenal is political correctness.We are the most powerful nation in the world crippled by the thought police.When we are at war and our borders are not secure and we continue to invite people from countries that support terror we are committing suicide.Bush is even more paralyzed now because of the election,which puts us in more danger.We can’t let a small group of people hold us hostage because they are afraid of the truth.The war we are fighting,in which we are all targets will never be won if political correctness is allowed to continue.
JOIN ME IN THIS PRAYER! “PLEASE GOD PROTECT US FROM EVIL-DOERS, CONFUSE THEM LORD, LET THEM BE CAPTURED, FOIL THIER PLANS. SHOW THEM THAT REGARDLESS OF THEIR OPINION AGAINST AMERICANS, THE MEANS BY WHICH THEY GO ABOUT THINGS AND THE INNOCENT LIVES THEY CLAIM ARE UNJUST! PROTECT US LORD, WE TRUST IN YOU TO DELIVER US FROM EVIL…AMEN”