Al-Qaeda Claims to Have Briefcase Nukes

Here's a little something to freak out about:

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.

Do you see the word "Iraq" anywhere in that article? How about
"Saddam"? Neither did I. Bush and Cheney got their oil and Al-Qaeda got
their nukes.
Even if this doesn't result in the aforementioned "shadow government"
assuming power, it's still a pretty bad sign. At the very least, we
know that while Bush was prancing around on an aircraft carrier, these
guys were busy buying nuclear weapons. And that pretty much sums up
Bush's record on national security right there.

Posted by flow Frazao on March 22, 2004 at 08:07 AM | Permalink