If al-Qaida has nukes, why wait to use them?
- Analysts see major investment in complex, coordinated, devastating terror attack plan

Recent al-Qaida attacks using primitive bombs and inflicting relatively small numbers of casualties have persuaded some that Osama bin Laden's terrorist network has been unable to secure weapons of mass destruction or has been unable to smuggle them into the U.S. and other key target countries.

In the wake of a series of reports about the nuclear terrorism threat, some skeptics of al-Qaida's ability to detonate nuclear weapons inside the U.S. most often suggest the problems with maintenance and technical attention.

"The next attack, according to al-Qaida defectors and informants, will take place simultaneously at various sites throughout the country," he writes. "Designated targets include New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Miami, Chicago, Washington, D.C., Houston, Las Vegas, and Valdez, Alaska, where the tankers are filled with oil from the Trans-Alaska pipeline. To orchestrate such an incredible event requires not only the shipment of the nukes into the United States but also the establishment of cells, the training of sleeper agents, the selection of sites, and the preparation of the weapons without detection from federal, state or local law enforcement officials. Unlike 9-11, that cost less than $350,000, this event already has cost a king's ransom, and bin Laden will not waste the billions in expenditures, the years of planning and his coveted 'crown jewels' on an attack that is ill-planned, poorly timed and carelessly coordinated."

Other sources interpret some of the same information, based on captured al-Qaida operatives and documents as well as defectors, differently. They project an escalating series of attacks, each followed by blackmail demands upon the U.S. government and the American people.

In any event, both kinds of spectacular nuclear terror attacks require pinpoint coordination and secure communication.

Williams also speculates that the delay in launching attacks with weapons already smuggled inside the U.S. could be due to reports al- Qaida is determined to locate tactical nuclear weapons that were forward-deployed by the Soviet Union during the Cold War. These weapons were reportedly buried at remote sites throughout the country for recovery by Soviet agents.

Photo credits: Pi Net

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Unfortunately, finds Paul Williams, author of the upcoming book, "The Al Qaeda Connection: International Terrorism, Organized Crime and the Coming Apocalypse," there's little point in assessing the possibilities with rose-colored glasses.

"The belief that bin Laden simply purchased these weapons for millions of dollars and stored them within his cave without concern for maintenance has its basis in the erroneous and prejudicial notion that he is a backward Bedouin warrior without knowledge of sophisticated weaponry, rather than a highly trained engineer and one of the most gifted military tacticians in the annals of modern history," he writes.

Williams dismisses suggestions that bin Laden hasn't taken into account some obvious problems with nuclear weapons.

"Bin Laden has been extremely mindful of proper maintenance," he writes. "As soon as he obtained the weapons, he paid an amount estimated from $60 to $100 million for the assistance of nuclear scientists from Russia, China and Pakistan. From 1996 to 2001, bin Laden also kept a score of Spetznaz technicians from the former Soviet Union on his payroll. These technicians had been trained to open and operate the weapons in order to prevent any unauthorized use. To simplify the process of activation, the scientists and technicians came up with a way of hot-wiring the small nukes to the bodies of Muslim agents who long for immediate martyrdom and immediate elevation to the seventh heaven."

Other skeptics ask: "If bin Laden has nukes, why hasn't he used them? Why would he wait? If he has successfully smuggled them into the U.S., why haven't any gone off yet?"

Williams and other G2 Bulletin intelligence sources explain that one of bin Laden's defining characteristics is patience.

"He started plotting the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania when he was in Sudan in 1993," points out Williams. "The attack on the USS Cole was more than two years in the making; and 10 years passed between the first attack on the World Trade Center and the second."

Williams said recruits at al-Qaida training camps are instructed to repeat this throughout the day: "I will be patient until Patience is outworn by patience."

Intelligence analysts and sources disagree on the details of the way bin Laden's "American Hiroshima" plan unfolds. Some G2 Bulletin sources emphasize bin Laden's commitment to re-enacting the 1945 attack on Japan with one nuclear detonation, followed by another days later.

Williams, however, sees a much more devastating, coordinated, all- out, surprise attack coming.

"The next attack, according to al-Qaida defectors and informants, will take place simultaneously at various sites throughout the country," he writes. "Designated targets include New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Miami, Chicago, Washington, D.C., Houston, Las Vegas, and Valdez, Alaska, where the tankers are filled with oil from the Trans-Alaska pipeline. To orchestrate such an incredible event requires not only the shipment of the nukes into the United States but also the establishment of cells, the training of sleeper agents, the selection of sites, and the preparation of the weapons without detection from federal, state or local law enforcement officials. Unlike 9-11, that cost less than $350,000, this event already has cost a king's ransom, and bin Laden will not waste the billions in expenditures, the years of planning and his coveted 'crown jewels' on an attack that is ill-planned, poorly timed and carelessly coordinated."

Other sources interpret some of the same information, based on captured al-Qaida operatives and documents as well as defectors, differently. They project an escalating series of attacks, each followed by blackmail demands upon the U.S. government and the American people.

In any event, both kinds of spectacular nuclear terror attacks require pinpoint coordination and secure communication.

Williams also speculates that the delay in launching attacks with weapons already smuggled inside the U.S. could be due to reports al- Qaida is determined to locate tactical nuclear weapons that were forward-deployed by the Soviet Union during the Cold War. These weapons were reportedly buried at remote sites throughout the country for recovery by Soviet agents.

"There is no doubt that the Soviets stored material in this country," says Rep. Curt Weldon, R-Pa., chairman of the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Military Research. "The question is what and where."

Bin Laden may have a considerable head-start in the search given his predilection toward hiring former Soviet special forces officers whose job it was to know something about these plans.

U.S. officials have reportedly ordered the excavation of several sites believed to be possible depots.

Russian defector Stanislav Lunev told congressional investigators nuclear suitcases had been buried throughout the U.S., and that he could not pinpoint the locations because Russian military leaders continue to believe a nuclear conflict with the U.S. is still "inevitable." He said the only hope of finding them would be if the Russian government disclosed the locations.

During the same hearings, Belgian officials testified they found three secret depots containing tactical nukes buried by the Soviets in the 1960s.

WND and G2 Bulletin previously reported, based on captured al-Qaida leaders and documents, that the terrorist group has a plan called "American Hiroshima" involving the multiple detonation of nuclear weapons already smuggled into the U.S. over the Mexican border with the help of the MS-13 street gang and other organized crime groups.

According to the reports, al-Qaida has obtained at least 40 nuclear weapons from the former Soviet Union – including suitcase nukes, nuclear mines, artillery shells and even some missile warheads. In addition, documents captured in Afghanistan show al-Qaida had plans to assemble its own nuclear weapons with fissile material it purchased on the black market.

The plans for the devastating nuclear attack on the U.S. have been under development for more than a decade. It is designed as a final deadly blow of defeat to the U.S., which is seen by al-Qaida and its allies as "the Great Satan."

At least half the nuclear weapons in the al-Qaida arsenal were obtained for cash from the Chechen terrorist allies.

At least nine major U.S. cities, including New York and Washington, are prime targets for the al-Qaida nuclear terrorists. Osama bin Laden's preferred dates for attacks include Aug. 6, the anniversary of the Hiroshima nuclear bombing in 1945, Sept. 11 and May 14, the anniversary of the re-creation of the state of Israel in 1948.

Story Credits WorldNetDaily

Time to put the Mullahs of Iran on the Chopping block

The resumption of activity in the nuclear plant in Isfahan where the so- called "yellowcake" or uranium mineral is transformed into a gas, a procedure that precedes the enrichment of the material used in the development of nuclear arms, marks the definite end of the so- called "Paris Accord".

In November 2003, Paris, representatives from Iran, Britain, France and Germany signed an the agreement which would see the freezing of Iran's nuclear activity in exchange for the supply of technology from the West for the development of a centre for the production of nuclear energy in Iran for civilian purposes.

The resumption of activity at the plant was the final order given by the government of outgoing president Mohammad Khatami, a few hours before the new president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad - who is expected to hold even more hardline views with respect to Iran's right to a nuclear programme - took over.

"Today, with the breaking of the seals by IAEA inspectors at the Isfahan plant and the nomination of Ali Larijani as the principle Iranian negotiator in nuclear talks, one can say that the Paris accord is definitely dead," said a European diplomat in Tehran.

Talks with the European Union, as well as those with third parties like China, Russia and India have done nothing to convince Tehran to postpone the opening of the Isfahan plant.

Ali Agha Mohammadi, the spokesman for Iran's Supreme National Security Council said on Monday that "in the coming hours we will present to the diplomatic representatives of London, Paris and Berlin our official response to their latest proposal." He also said that the appointment of the hardline former director of Iranian state radio and television, Ali Larijani, as chief nuclear negotiator, was just a "question of time."

Iran will most likely reject the European proposal, which a few days ago was described as "disgraceful" and "unacceptable" by various representatives of the government in Tehran. Within Iran there is unamity among the various positions on the nuclear question. On Monday morning even Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who was defeated in the last presidential elections, at the end of his meeting in Tehran with visiting Syrian president Bashar Assad, said that it is "very serious the decision to re-open Iranian nuclear plants."

The construction of the Isfahan plant, was originally commissioned to several Chinese companies who in 1992 won a tender for the project, but three years later, the companies withdrew in an apparent move by China not to annoy Washington.

The plant, which employs 1,000 people - including scientists, technicians - besides transforming refined uranium from the Bukan plant, also includes two experimental reactors and a plant to produce titanium, zirconium and magnesium.

The plant that is currently running at 70 percent of its full capacity, costs some 120 million U.S. dollars, although the value of the equipment that has been acquired in the last few years remains unknown.

Story Credits: ADNKI

Italy Coming within the Terror Cross-hairs

Rome and Naples are Italy's major targets of terrorist attacks, said Muhammad al-Masaari, editor of the Islamist web site al-Tajdeed. In an interview to Adnkronos International (AKI), al-Masaari warned that "Italy is certainly at risk as far as it remains in Afghanistan and Iraq." Moreover, shutting down Islamist websites and withdrawing from Iraq will not remove threat of Islamist terrorism, he argues.

''Italy's prime minister Silvio Berlusconi loves money, and he will realise that following the Americans in their military expeditions is not profitable," he said. And, withdrawing from Iraq won't solve the issue unless the step is followed by a similar decision in Afghanistan and in all other military missions Italy is involved in, al-Masaari explained.

In Iraq Italy has a 3,000-strong military contingent, deployed in Nassiriya. And in Afghanistan, where Italy has recently taken over command of NATO's peacekeeping force, Italian troops are the second biggest contingent in the country after Germany.

He pointed to Rome and Naples as potential terrorist targets but other Italian art cities such as Genoa and Venice are also at risk, according to al-Masaari.

According to al-Masaari, the way to avoid terrorist attacks in Italy is as simple as that. Closing Islamic websites sympathetic to al- Qaeda, which are simple "forums people use to share information within freedom of expression" is useless, he claims.

Al-Masaari is originally a Saudi citizen now living in London after arriving in Italy in 1981. Well known for his extreme Islamist views, he is also the founder of al-Tajdeed radio, run by the London-based party for Islamic renewal, a Saudi exile group, which broadcasts the speeches of Osama bin Laden and of other al-Qaeda members.

Al-Masaari denies having links with al-Qaeda and the Abu Hafs al- Masri Brigade, which is now threatening Italy. With reference to the threats posted on the Internet, the Saudi businessman says the group's link with al-Qaeda is not certain, and the declarations might be fake.

The Islamic extremist never the less acknowledges that his forum contains anti-Italian videos. Several days ago, he explains, a message was posted on the site with the links to download a movie by Omar Al-Mukhtar on Libya's Jihad against the Italian Fascist occupation. "I don't think the piece contains messages in code regarding Italy, but the movie appeared on the web just because its quality is good enough for the internet."

On 7 May, al-Tajdeed's London's headquarters was searched by English police. The police seized several computers and had the internet site and radio shut down for several months. "After the London's attacks, the police came back, but didn't take measures against us,'' al- Masaari said.

Story Credits ADNKI

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