SECTION 5. NUCLEAR TERRORISM THREATS

1. Nuclear Terrorism "Impossible" in Russia - Army Expert (RIA-Novosti, 28 September 2001)

    Vladimir Bentsianov, member of the coordinating council of the Russian armed forces and chairman of the Russian committee of veterans of the special risk unit, is convinced that nuclear terrorism in Russia is impossible. RIA-Novosti says he expressed this view today at a news conference entitled "Is nuclear terrorism possible in Russia? - 50 years of war without nuclear weapons being used." He said that "there can be no nuclear terrorism in Russia."

Sergey Alekseyenko, who took part in the testing of nuclear weapons in Semipalatinsk, noted that from 1955 to 1975 such robust special depots, shelters and fortifications were created on the territory of the USSR that it is simply impossible to somehow steal an atomic bomb or nuclear weapon part.

Also, Alekseyenko stressed, the depots were designed in such a way that they could withstand an impact of 40 kilotonnes, and were built to last for 500 years. He also believes that special emphasis has to be placed on guarding atomic power stations.

He stressed that physicists and nuclear specialists have to look at the real problems of reprocessing nuclear waste, the storage of which he believes is a very expensive business. Science must therefore make every effort now to make a thorough study of the atom, he noted. (http://www.rian.ru/)

2. Iraqi's Mission: To Get Bin Laden A Nuke: Jailed Associate A Feared Zealot (New York Daily News, 1 October 2001)

    In a 10th-floor high-security jail cell a few blocks from the ruins of the World Trade Center sits a man Osama Bin Laden was counting on in his quest to buy a nuclear bomb.

Mamdouh Mahmud Salim is the only member of Bin Laden's inner circle in custody, and in many ways, he's one of the most frightening characters in Bin Laden's terrorist confederacy, Al Qaeda.

Last November, Salim briefly made headlines when he allegedly stabbed a Metropolitan Correctional Center guard in the eye with a carefully sharpened plastic comb.

Could Bin Laden make an A-bomb? "It's much harder than hijacking an airplane with a knife," said Leonard Spector, of the Center for Nonproliferation Studies. "[But] it's probably true that with enough time and effort, one could make a bomb. It is a big challenge, though. People have debated this for a long time."

In testimony during the embassy bombing trial last year, informant Jamal Ahmed Mohamed Al-Fadl vividly recalled Salim's involvement in Bin Laden's 1993 effort to buy a nuke.

Al-Fadl - who left Al Qaeda in 1996 after he was caught embezzling money - claimed he met with a former high Sudanese official to discuss buying enriched uranium.

He described meeting with intermediaries who demanded $1.5 million, then driving in a jeep to an anonymous address in a Khartoum neighborhood called Bait al Mal.

There, inside a house, a bag was brought out and opened. Inside, Al-Fadl said, was a 2- to 3-foot long metal cylinder with South African markings.

He said he was instructed to go to Salim with a document spelling out this transaction, and that Salim reviewed the document and approved it.

Though Al-Fadl never saw money change hands, he got $10,000 and praise for arranging an inspection of the uranium before it was shipped to Cyprus for quality testing. Al-Fadl said he later learned, second-hand, that the uranium was good and the deal was consummated.

It's unclear what became of the uranium. To make an atomic bomb, at least 7 pounds of an extra-radioactive form of uranium that exists as a small fraction of mined uranium is needed. This highly purified U-235 is enriched, or weapons-grade, uranium.

Enriched uranium, which is hard to make, is placed in a container that implodes, compressing the uranium to a critical mass and triggering an atomic chain reaction that releases a blast equal to thousands of tons of dynamite.

The Arabic magazine Al Watan Al Arabi claimed that at a meeting between Bin Laden followers and Chechen mobsters, $30 million cash and 2 tons of opium were exchanged for about 20 nuclear warheads. It quoted sources as saying Bin Laden planned for his scientists to convert the warheads to small "suitcase nukes."

A month earlier, Israeli intelligence sources told Time magazine that Bin Laden paid $2 million in British pounds to a man in Kazakhstan who promised to deliver a suitcase bomb within two years.

The mere mention of "suitcase bomb" caused speculation Bin Laden might acquire one of some 80 1-kiloton tactical nuclear weapons allegedly made by Russia in the 1970s, as claimed in a 1997 "60 Minutes" interview with former Russian Security Council Secretary Alexander Lebed.

"My impression was that this issue was checked out pretty thoroughly," said Spector, of the Center for Nonproliferation Studies. "Nobody inside the U.S. government became alarmed once they did some investigating. ...This did not lead to an enormous amount of anxiety. Nobody was losing sleep over it."

Last week, U.S. officials in Washington declined to respond to any questions about Bin Laden and nukes. (http://www.nydailynews.com/)

3. Report: Bin Laden Linked to Russia (St. Petersburg Times, 2 October 2001)

    U.S. intelligence agencies have uncovered information that Russian criminal groups have been supplying Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda terrorist group with components for chemical, biological and even nuclear weapons, The Washington Times reported.

The Foreign Ministry called the report an attempt to undermine relations between the United States and Russia at a time of increased cooperation.

The Washington Times, citing U.S. officials speaking on condition of anonymity, reported last Wednesday that bin Laden is believed by U.S. intelligence to have a secret nuclear-weapons laboratory inside Afghanistan. This is believed to be one of the sites sought for U.S. military strikes, the newspaper said.

There is no hard evidence that bin Laden or his followers have actually produced chemical, biological or nuclear weapons. But bin Laden has worked with Russian mafia groups in obtaining components for weapons of mass destruction, according to officials familiar with the intelligence reports.

The U.S. State Department's latest report on international terrorism says that al-Qaeda continued to seek chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear capabilities, the newspaper said. Intelligence officials say al-Qaeda is probably trying to produce the nerve agent Sarin or biological weapons made up of anthrax spores.

A former State Department counterterrorism official, Larry Johnson, said the contacts between the Russian mafia and bin Laden could be related to drug trafficking and that such cooperation would not be surprising, the newspaper said.

The Foreign Ministry said the new report raises a question: "Why should such information be splashed out on newspaper pages instead of discussing it through the channels existing between our countries, including confidential ones?"

"One may get the impression that some in the United States oppose the positive tendency in Russian-American relations that has made itself felt recently," the ministry said in a statement carried by Interfax. (http://www.times.spb.ru/)

4. Fight Against Terror Politics: Annan Urges Tighter Curbs On Germ And Nuclear Arms (Financial Times, 2 October 2001)

    Kofi Annan, United Nations secretary-general, yesterday called on the UN's 189 member countries to tighten their restrictions on biological and nuclear weapons.

He singled out terrorists' use of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons as the gravest threat the world faces following the September 11 terrorist attacks.

"The truth is that a single attack involving a nuclear or biological weapon could have killed millions," Mr Annan said in his opening speech to the General Assembly. "The greatest danger arises from a non-state group - or even an individual - acquiring and using a nuclear, biological, or chemical weapon." noted.

Mr Annan suggested the group's first order of business should be to sign and ratify the 12 existing UN conventions on terrorism, in particular, the convention on terrorist bombings, which came into force earlier this year, and the 1999 convention against the financing of terrorism, which has garnered only four of the 22 ratifications it needs to come into force.

Meanwhile, the General Assembly is working on the draft of a more general 13th convention, which would address some of the unresolved issues in the existing resolutions.

In his speech, Mr Annan referred to the most contentious problem that has stymied agreement on an umbrella terrorist text for decades: "Some of the most difficult issues relate to the definition of terrorism," he said. However there was a need for moral clarity as well as legal precision. "There can be no acceptance of those who would seek to justify the deliberate taking of innocent civilian life, regardless of cause or grievance. If there is one universal principle that all peoples can agree on, surely it is this." (http://www.ft.com/)

5. 'Bin Laden Bought Nuclear Weapons' (4 October 2001)

    Intelligence officers in Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kazakstan have warned the US that Osama bin Laden has been buying nuclear weapons from the Russian mafia, it was reported today.

The Russian foreign ministry has rebutted a story in the Washington Times that the Russian criminal underground is supplying Bin Laden with the means to build weapons of mass destruction.

Richard Butler, former United Nations weapons inspector, said in a TV interview yesterday: "A nuclear terrorist threat from Bin Laden, by way of the Russian criminal underground, is a reality." (http://www.ransac.org/)