The Blackmail Effect - Al-Qaida nuclear attack in...

The Blackmail Effect - Al-Qaida nuclear attack in planning stages?

http://www.ndtv.com/convergence/ndtv/story.aspx?id=NEWEN20080046002&ch=4/5/2008%205:50:00%20PM

Al-Qaida's nuclear attack against the US is in planning stages, top American intelligence officials have said.

Deposing before a Congressional Committee on Homeland Security early this week, these US intelligence officials told US lawmakers that the threat of nuclear attack by Al-Qaida was growing and there is need to enhance its security measures.

Charles Allen, Undersecretary for Intelligence and Analysis and Chief Intelligence Officer at the Department of Homeland Security; and Rolf Mowatt-Larssen, the director of Office of Intelligence and Counterintelligence for the Department of Energy testified before this key Congressional committee on nuclear terrorism on April 2.

''There's been a long-term effort by Al-Qaida, to develop an improvised nuclear device,'' Allen said. ''I have no doubt that Al-Qaida would like to obtain nuclear capability. I think the evidence in their statements that they've made over many years publicly indicate this,'' he argued in his testimony.

Giving details of the Al-Qaida preparation, based on years on intelligence inputs, Mowatt-Larssen said: ''An Al-Qaida nuclear attack would be in the planning stages at the same time as several other plots, and only Al-Qaida's most senior leadership will know which plot will be approved.''

In keeping with Al-Qaida's normal management structures such as the role of Khalid Sheikh Muhammad in the 9/11 attacks, Mowatt-Larssen said there is probably a single individual in charge, overseeing the effort to obtain materials and expertise.

The intelligence officials commented that some nuclear experts / scientists may have joined Al-Qaida years ago, long before the world began paying adequate attention to the proliferation of the kinds of technologies that could yield a terrorist nuclear weapon.

Referring to the planning of the 9/11 attack, Mowatt-Larssen said it was operationally very straightforward. ''It had a very small footprint, was highly compartmented. Al-Qaida's nuclear effort would be just as compartmented and probably would not require the involvement of more than a small number of operatives who carried out 9/11,'' he said.

Mowatt-Larssen then went out to divulge his information about a prototypical Al-Qaida nuclear attack plot. This would have, he said, approval and oversight from Al-Qaida's most senior leadership, with possible assistance from other groups and a planner responsible for organizing the material, expertise and fabrication of a device; operational support facilitator, responsible for arranging travel, money, documents, food and other necessities for the cell; assets in the United States or within range of other Western targets to case locations for an attack and to help move the attack team into place; and finally, the attack team itself.

This hearing was followed by another classified session wherein other details about the possible nuclear attack by the Al-Qaida terrorist network were possibly explained to the US lawmakers in details.

''Beyond the basics I have outlined here, we do not know what a terrorist plot might look like. There is, however, a chokepoint in a terrorist effort to develop a nuclear capability. It is impossible to build a nuclear weapon without fissile material,'' he said.

The officials said that the task for the intelligence community is not easy. ''We must find something that is tactical in size but strategic in impact. We must find a plot with its networks that cut across traditional lines of counter proliferation and counterterrorism. We must stop something from happening that we have never seen happen before,'' he said.

Mowatt-Larssen said the US successes against Taliban in Afghanistan have yielded volumes of information that completely changed its view of Al-Qaida's nuclear program. ''We learned that Al-Qaida wants a weapon to use, not a weapon to sustain and build a stockpile, as most states would,'' he said.

''The nuclear threats that surfaced in June 2002 and continued through the fall of 2003 demonstrated that Al-Qaida's desire for a nuclear capability may have survived their removal from their Afghanistan safe haven,'' he said.

Observing that the Al-Qaida's nuclear intent remains clear, he said it obtained a fatwa in May 2003 that approved the use of weapons of mass destruction. Al-Qaida spokesman Suleyman Abu Ghayth declared that it is Al-Qaida's right to kill four million Americans in retaliation for Muslim deaths that Al-Qaida blames on the United States.

''Osama bin Laden said in 1998 that it was an Islamic duty to acquire weapons of mass destruction. In 2006, bin Laden reiterated his statement that Al-Qaida will return to the United States.

He said Al-Qaida has a track record of returning to finish a job they started. They failed at the World Trade Center in 1993. They came back in 2001. They canceled plans for chemical attacks in the US in 2003. ''We do not yet know when and where they intend to strike us next, but our past experience strongly suggests they are seeking an attack more spectacular than 9/11,'' he said.

''To delve a little into how they may be thinking about the nuclear option, at any given moment, Al-Qaida probably has attack plans in development. Nine-eleven was planned when the USS Cole was attacked in Yemen and when our embassies in Dar es Salaam and Tanzania were attacked in Africa,'' he said.

Blackmailing tactics of Al-Qaida

In his testimony Dr. Matthew Bunn, a senior research associate for the Project on Managing the Atom at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University's School of Government said there is greater chance than ever that the Al-Qaida would get the material and manage to make it into a bomb.

''I think then the next question is if they got the material, and they managed to make it into a bomb, could they somehow deliver it to Washington, or New York, or another major city somewhere around the world. I think, in my view, the answer is yes,'' he said.

Bunn said in case a bomb goes off there would be blackmailing tactics from these terrorists' organizations. ''One has to recall that the moment after a nuclear bomb goes off, someone -- either the perpetrator or another terrorist group -- is going to call up and say, ''I've got five more, and they're already hidden in U.S. cities, and I'm going to start setting them off unless you do X, Y and Z.'' And one bomb having just gone off, they will have substantial credibility,'' he argued.

''The prospect for panic, uncontrolled mass evacuation of our cities, economic chaos and disruption is, I think, very great

Deposing before the Congressional committee, Gary Ackerman, research director for the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism at the University of Maryland said at present the efforts of non-state actors seeking to acquire and use nuclear weapons are growing in size and scope.

''Jihadists have, since the mid 1990s, made at least 10 statements advocating the possession or use of nuclear weapons, and there have been at least a dozen reports of jihadists' attempts to acquire nuclear weapons, fissile material or technical knowledge,'' he said.

''As an initial indicator of this trend, a recent analysis of online jihadist documents that deal explicitly with nuclear weapons has revealed that while their knowledge is still below par, there have been significant advances in the understanding of nuclear issues within the general jihadi community in only a few short years,'' Ackerman said.
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