IP: Bin Laden's nuclear secrets found

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Lots of hot air but maybe some facts. djf



> http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/0,,2001390014-2001395995,00.html
>
> THURSDAY NOVEMBER 15 2001
>
> Bin Laden's nuclear secrets found
>
> FROM ANTHONY LOYD IN KABUL
>
> Times reporter finds blueprint for 'Nagasaki bomb'
>
> Singed files left by fleeing terrorists
>
>
> OSAMA BIN LADEN'S al-Qaeda network held detailed plans for nuclear devices
> and other terrorist bombs in one of its Kabul headquarters.
> The Times discovered the partly burnt documents in a hastily abandoned safe
> house in the Karta Parwan quarter of the city. Written in Arabic, German,
> Urdu and English, the notes give detailed designs for missiles, bombs and
> nuclear weapons. There are descriptions of how the detonation of TNT
> compresses plutonium into a critical mass, sparking a chain reaction, and
> ultimately a thermonuclear reaction.
>
> Both President Bush and British ministers are convinced that bin Laden has
> access to nuclear material and Mr Bush said earlier this month that al-Qaeda
> was "seeking chemical, biological and nuclear weapons".
>
> The discovery of the detailed bomb-making instructions, along with studies
> into chemical and nuclear devices, confirms the West's worst fears and
> raises the spectre of plans for an attack that would far exceed the
> September 11 atrocities in scale and gravity.
>
> Nuclear experts say the design suggests that bin Laden may be working on a
> fission device, similar to Fat Man, the bomb dropped on Nagasaki. However,
> they emphasised that it was extremely difficult to build a viable warhead.
>
> While the terrorists may not yet have the capability to build such weapons,
> their hopes of doing so are clear. One set of notes, written on headed
> notepaper from the Hotel Grand in Peshawar and dated April 26, 1998, says:
> "Naturally the explosive liquid has a very high mechanical energy which is
> translated into destructive force. But it can be tamed, controlled and can
> be used as a useful propulsive fuel if certain methods are applied to it. A
> supersonic moving missile has a shock wave. That shock wave can be used to c
> ontain an external combustion behind the missile . . ."
>
> The document was one of many found in two of four al-Qaeda houses which had
> been used by Arabs and Pakistanis and even reportedly by bin Laden himself.
> The houses - two in the Karta Parwan district and the others further to the
> east - were abandoned on Monday as Taleban units and their allies fled the
> city.
>
> Attempts had been made to burn the evidence, but many documents still
> remained. They included studies into the development of a kinetic energy
> supergun capable of firing chemical or nuclear warheads, external propulsion
> missiles, preliminary research on the creation of a thermonuclear device, as
> well as a multitude of instructions for making smaller bombs.
>
> There were also studies into Western special forces' hostage rescue
> techniques, phone numbers for industrial chemical and synthetic producers,
> flight manuals, aerodynamic research, and advanced physics and chemistry
> manuals.
>
> The houses were identified by local people. Looters had concentrated on more
> appetising objects, ignoring foreign language documents that were of no use
> to them.
>
> Bin Laden sees it as his "religious duty" to obtain a nuclear bomb. In an
> interview with a Pakistani journalist last week, he threatened: "If America
> used chemical or nuclear weapons against us then we may retort with chemical
> and nuclear weapons as deterrent."
>
> Intelligence agencies already have indirect evidence from defectors,
> middlemen and scientists of bin Laden's obsession with obtaining or
> producing a nuclear device.
>
> Al-Qaeda agents are known to have spent more than £1 million trying to
> obtain enough fissile material to make a "dirty bomb" that, if detonated
> with TNT in a populous area, could kill thousands and contaminate it for
> decades.
>
> Intelligence sources told The Times last month that bin Laden and al-Qaeda
> had acquired nuclear materials illegally from Pakistan. And at least ten
> Pakistani nuclear scientists have been contacted by agents for the Taleban
> and al-Qaeda in the past two years, according to reports.
>
> Fears that bin Laden has components for a nuclear weapon is believed to lie
> behind the warnings from President Bush and Tony Blair that he would commit
> worse atrocities than the suicide assaults in America if he could.The Prime
> Minister's spokesman said: "Bin Laden would have killed 600,000 people on
> September 11 if he could have done. This underlines again why he has to be
> stopped. "
>
>
>
>
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