Osama bin Laden's terror network claims to have bought ready-made nuclear weapons on a Central Asian black market, the biographer of al Qaeda'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.
| November, 2001. Apparently the writer was too lazy to look it up. But I don't write for a major news service, so I could find it in under a minute. |
U.S. intelligence agencies have long believed al Qaeda 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 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 saying. Al-Zawahri's boast would not in itself prove the al Qaeda has actually succeeded in acquiring nuclear weapons.
| What part of "purchased some suitcase bombs" doesn't fit with that thesis? |
Al Qaeda 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." 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.
| If al-Qaeda has nukes of any sort, I'd expect them to have come from Abdul Qadeer Khan, ready-made, just light the fuse... |
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." |