‘Al-Qaida on brink of using nuclear bomb’

Many thanks Richard for the link

Vancouver Sun:

Al-Qaida members participate in military training in Afghanistan in this file photo.

Al-Qaida members participate in military training in Afghanistan in this file photo.

Photograph by: Agence France-Presse Files, National Post, With Files From News Services

Al-Qaida is on the verge of producing radioactive weapons after sourcing nuclear material and recruiting rogue scientists to build “dirty” bombs, according to leaked diplomatic documents.

A leading atomic regulator has privately warned that the world stands on the brink of a “nuclear 9/11”.

Security briefings suggest that jihadi groups are also close to producing “workable and efficient” biological and chemical weapons that could kill thousands if unleashed in attacks on the West.

Thousands of classified American cables obtained by the WikiLeaks website and passed to The Daily Telegraph detail the international struggle to stop the spread of weapons-grade nuclear, chemical and biological material around the globe.

At a Nato meeting in January 2009, security chiefs briefed member states that al-Qaida was plotting a program of “dirty radioactive IEDs”, makeshift nuclear roadside bombs that could be used against British troops in Afghanistan.

As well as causing a large explosion, a “dirty bomb” attack would contaminate the area for many years.

The briefings also state that al-Qaida documents found in Afghanistan in 2007 revealed that “greater advances” had been made in bioterrorism than was previously realized. An Indian national security adviser told American security personnel in June 2008 that terrorists had made a “manifest attempt to get fissile material” and “have the technical competence to manufacture an explosive device beyond a mere dirty bomb”.

Alerts about the smuggling of nuclear material, sent to Washington from foreign U.S. embassies, document how criminal and terrorist gangs were trafficking large amounts of highly radioactive material across Europe, Africa and the Middle East.

The alerts explain how customs guards at remote border crossings used radiation alarms to identify and seize cargoes of uranium and plutonium.

Freight trains were found to be carrying weapons-grade nuclear material across the Kazakhstan-Russia border, highly enriched uranium was transported across Uganda by bus, and a “small time hustler” in Lisbon offered to sell radioactive plates stolen from Chernobyl.

In one incident in September 2009, two employees at the Rossing Uranium Mine in Namibia smuggled almost half a ton of uranium concentrate powder – yellowcake – out of the compound in plastic bags.

“Acute safety and security concerns” were even raised in 2008 about the uranium and plutonium laboratory of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the nuclear safety watchdog.

Tomihiro Taniguchi, the deputy director general of the IAEA, has privately warned America that the world faces the threat of a “nuclear 9/11” if stores of uranium and plutonium were not secured against terrorists.

But diplomats visiting the IAEA’s Austrian headquarters in April 2008 said that there was “no way to provide perimeter security” to its own laboratory because it has windows that leave it vulnerable to break-ins.

Senior British defence officials have raised “deep concerns” that a rogue scientist in the Pakistani nuclear program “could gradually smuggle enough material out to make a weapon”, according to a document detailing official talks in London in February 2009.

Agricultural stores of deadly biological pathogens in Pakistan are also vulnerable to “extremists” who could use supplies of anthrax, foot and mouth disease and avian flu to develop lethal biological weapons.

Anthrax and other biological agents including smallpox, and avian flu could be sprayed from a shop-bought aerosol can in a crowded area, leaked security briefings warn.

The security of the world’s only two declared smallpox stores in Atlanta, America, and Novosibirsk, Russia, has repeatedly been called into doubt by “a growing chorus of voices” at meetings of the World Health Assembly documented in the leaked cables.

The alarming disclosures come after Barack Obama, the U.S. president, last year declared nuclear terrorism “the single biggest threat” to international security with the potential to cause “extraordinary loss of life”.

© Copyright (c) The Daily Telegraph

About Eeyore

Canadian artist and counter-jihad and freedom of speech activist as well as devout Schrödinger's catholic

13 Replies to “‘Al-Qaida on brink of using nuclear bomb’”

  1. Dirty or radiological bombs don’t do anymore damage then other high explosive bombs, they are wrapped in highly radioactive material and contaminated an area that is probably not going to be much more then one to two hundred square yards. The area could be decontaminated within a couple of weeks to a couple of months.

    They are purely terror weapons, since most people don’t understand radioactivity they are very scared of it.

  2. Richard the panic and economic costs of a radiological bomb could be in the hundreds of millions from raw fear. While of course you are correct, terror depends on peoples beliefs more than the actual reality of the damage.

  3. Eeyore I know, most people don’t know how nuclear weapons work and have been taught to fear all radiation and anything with the word nuclear attached. Yes the panic would do massive dollar amounts of damage, and scare the public to an unreasonable degree, this in my opinion would be counter productive for the terrorists because that panic would probably set off the massive public backlash we are warned about every time there is a terror attack. There would also be massive calls for retaliation against any group or nation with the slightest connection to the nuclear terror attack. It would take a very strong politician to ignore the calls for nuclear retaliation, and the calls would probably be strongest from the peace groups. The same is true to a lesser extent for a bio or chemical attack, and the West no longer has bio or chemical weapons to use in retaliation, all we could use would be our nuclear weapons. Think about the calls for the US or Britain to nuke someone if the attack was in Canada or Australia, think about the calls for France to nuke someone if the attack is in France. The NATO allies would be screaming for a WMD retaliation if one of them suffers a nuclear, bio and chemical attack. The NATO treaty calls for the NATO allies that have the means to retaliate must act as if the attack is on their homeland. What I am trying to do is to calm the panic to in extent however small if/when such an attack occurs, I realize a major war is coming no matter what we do. Panic after an attack never helps, this is why anything that can help lessen the panic is something that needs to be done. I really don’t want to see the US use nuclear weapons again, and with luck we won’ have to.

  4. I remember as I watched the second plane crash into the World Trade Centre getting a crystal clear message from Osama bin Laden. That message was that they were world class now, and that they were unrestrained, and that they would use anything, up to and including the atomic bomb, against us. Fortunately for us, the A-bomb is impossibly difficult to construct, but if they do manage to get their hands on one, they’ll use it. The way events are unfolding, I think the West should be on triple red alert right about now. That secret cabal of holy men and billionaires that must be plotting all this has big plans for us, and has infinite reserves of determination, conviction, money, and manpower. Yikes!

  5. There is only one way to stop and remove the Islamisation of the West – it is war.

    The Western way of war is based on the strategic concept of changing the geo-political map of a region.

    After 9/11, America with Pres Bush, along with PM Blair, decided to mull things over rather then make an instant response. The reason was obvious – unlike Pearl Harbour, there was no obvious state actor to take action against. What was then necessary was to slowly, over a period of 50 years or so, turn 9/11 to a full scale war. It is on this path that we’re on.

    Muslims all over the world, see what America and the West (Crusaders in their view) are doing to the Islamic world, while proclaiming that Islam is the RoP, and we will “never be at war with Islam”. They see it as nothing but hypocrisy. They quite rightly in my view, see a new Crusade in action. War is deception as Muslims say. Two can play at that game.

    Our current RoE in Afghanistan are in place for a reason – to prolong our presence in an Islamic country so that the humiliation Muslims feel, continues into the future. For Muslims, Islam is vehicle for victory in war, as allah has ordained it. The reality of seeing “Crusaders” nonchalantly brushing aside the forces of Islam, are galling in the extreme. This is the primary reason for the earthquakes taking place in the Muslim world.

    A politico-religious re-alignment in the world is now taking place as a consequence 9/11, and our actions thereof. One by one, even Turkey are becoming Islamic. Christians in these countries will have no place there. As the war kicks up, Muslims in the West, will feel increasingly uncomfortable as they will be openly seen as the enemy.

    This war, hot or cold, will last for at least 50 years.

  6. Chris I agree, and what is scary is that given the current economic mess it would be too long before North Korea starts selling assembled nuclear weapons. According to some very believable reports Iran sent its top nuclear experts to North Korea late last month or early this month with suitcases of cash to purchase a nuclear test, they want NK to build a weapon on the Iranian design and test it so that once Iran gets enough fissile material they can build a proven weapon and not have to test it. Thus no giving us any warning before they hit Israel or the US.

    DP the RoE in place were put in by people who think there is a viable substitute for victory, they think we are winning hearts and minds, not pissing people off. Their lack of understanding of the Arabic culture and mind set are at fault, not a desire to keep the war going. Never ascribe to enemy action or conspiracy what can best be described as stupidity.

  7. I for one hope the islamists detonate a significant bomb, nuclear all the better, somewhere important (just not my city!) Then, the US and its allies would have the opportunity to unload their nuclear arsenals on the middle east, turning it into one great big fucking glass parking lot. That will set these mudslimes back for millennia. Wipe the shit off the face of the earth.

  8. Richard
    Afghanistan is a poor country with no real capability. Yet, not just the US, but all of the EU and NATO countries , including Sweden, are present in Afghanistan.

    Surely it does not take the might of the entire West to put paid to the Taleban? They are there for the only reason I can think of – to occupy a Muslim country which poses no threat to the West, but to humiliate the entire Muslim world. Therefore, fighting the Taleban to defeat them is not the objective. Fighting is maintained at a level to keep the pot boiling.

    Bit by bit, we are seeing the polarising of the world. Muslims want sharia. They want that occupation of Muslim lands by Infidels be opposed by force, while leaders such as Mubarak prevent from that. This is why Muslim regimes are falling.

    The EDL came about as a direct consequence of Muslims in Britain vehemently opposing British troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, thus exposing the internal threat that Muslims pose to the UK. This was predictable.

  9. DP111 you are talking like we were fighting this like a war, in a war you fight for the destruction of enemy, the last time we fought a war like that was WWII, since then we have fought “police actions” and “nation building” actions. Afghanistan is a nation building action, this means we aren’t using our full might or fighting the way history tells us to, we are fighting a limited violence action to win the hearts and minds of the Taliban. If this strikes you as stupid welcome to the club, the problem is that the military doesn’t determine what type of war we are going to fight, they obey their/our civilian masters and do their best. For more information on why we are acting so stupid read the book The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Vietnam War that was another nation building action that despite what is taught in the schools the US military won but our politicians gave away at the peace conference.

  10. I don’t know if I need to explain more or not so here goes. DP111 you are thinking we are in Afghanistan to destroy the Taliban, and that was part of our original goal, the full goal was to destroy the Taliban and al Qaeda, after we chased both out of Afghanistan the former liberals that had turned moderate or semi-conservative in the Bush administration decided that we had to jump start democracy. Never mind that no nation without a prior tradition of democracy has ever successfully made the transition from Dictatorship to Democracy with out several intervening stages and usually several decades or in some cases centuries. The semi-successful democracy in the Philippines took from the mid 1890s to the mid 1940s to build, and for most of that time the Filipinos were not fighting us and had a well educated upper class, something that isn’t present in Afghanistan.

    Destroying al Qaeda was made almost impossible when Bush allowed Europe to talk him out of attacking Iran, bin Laden has been bouncing in an our of Iran ever since. Pakistan’s precarious hold on a non Islamic government meant we couldn’t cross over that border without letting the Taliban take total control of Pakistan. While ordinarily this wouldn’t have been that much of a problem it is complicated by the Pakistani nuclear arsenal and the left in Europe and the US that had mobilized against any further spread of the war. The best we could do was stay in Afghanistan killing fanatics and destroying most of their trained fighters. I know that several of the reasons for not pursuing victory sound hollow, they sound that way to me also but we are not fighting this war in a vacuum, all of our moves have consequences beyond the borders of Afghanistan. I wish it wasn’t so, and I wish we didn’t have so many people in harms way in the Middle East with the Moslem Brotherhood making their move. I don’t know how we are going to extract most of them when the organic animal by product hits the fan, but we will have to, they are in a position that we will no longer be able to support, we won’t be able to resupply them. Your theory sounds good but doesn’t fit all of the facts, and making this mistake isn’t your fault, your schools didn’t give you the proper historical facts to base good theories on. Something that was done deliberately to allow them to demonize their political enemies.

  11. Richard

    The trouble I have in is in believing that we set out to implant democracy in an Islamic country, or we set out nation building, which is more or the less the same, for as long as a nation is Islamic, one can never have democracy or a modern state. Islam precludes both.

    If the Bush and Blair purpose was to do the above, then they and their advisers must be very naive. I just don’t believe that – these are seasoned politicians whose cynical world view far exceeds anything that we might have.

    As I said before, the West wages strategic war to change the geo-political face of a region. Suppose that 9/11 was considered a useful crisis to start a change in the geo-political map, a map that had itself had been drawn by the US and the UK, post WWII. After the Gulf War, there was indeed a desire to form a new world order. I argue that 9/11 provided the ideal useful crisis to start a major change in the ME, and hence a new world order, by occupying various Islamic countries, leading to ferment in that part of the world, as is now evident.

    I actually welcome this e-alignment, as I do not see how we can break out of the present Islamisation of the West.

    Will we use our military power in the way it was designed to? Yes we will when it is necessary, as we did in Gulf Wars I and II.

  12. Richard

    Our politicians will never tell us the real reasons for what they do, specially if it is controversial. For instance, Gulf War II was ostensibly to remove WMDs from Iraq. When that reason failed, it was quickly changed to “bringing the light of democracy” to Iraq. It was the same in Afghanistan. Original reason was to hunt for Osama bin Laden, then it was changed to hunt for a mullah, then to nation build, build schools for girls etc.

    Whatever the reason, Pakistan is being destabilised without our doing too much work. What happens then? What happens to the nukes? Will we take action to get them?

    Destabilisation of the ME, destabilisation of Pakistan, a whole new world of political opportunities opens up, leading to an opportunity to redraw the political map and re-align nations. All this with little expenditure such as would be required to conduct a WWII type operation.

  13. DP111 I wish our politicians were that smart, yes they were stupid enough to think they could bring democracy to an Islamic country, and are now trying to find a way out with out giving the jihadists a victory. As to the reasons for Gulf War II, there were many reasons stated for removing Saddam, WMDs (some of which were found but the media won’t tell you this) was just one, among the others was to stop Saddam from committing genocide on the Kurds. I realize that a lot of what I say goes against the conventional wisdom but I try to stick to the facts.

    The reason so many people fall into the fallacy of thinking that we can bring democracy to Islam is because of the way the left has been teaching the people. Cultural equivalency, saying that all cultures are equally moral implies and at times the left states that we are all alike and want the same thing. This isn’t true but the secular left and the secular to semi-secular moderates think it is and base their policy decisions on that belief.