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Peace at any cost is a Prelude to War!
Bin Laden terror group tries to acquire chemical arms
By Bill Gertz
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
U.S. intelligence agencies have uncovered new information that Osama bin
Laden and his terrorist group, al Qaeda, are acquiring from the Russian mafia
components for weapons of mass destruction. Top Stories
• Anti-Taliban alliance gains ground
• Peres, Arafat agree to resume cooperation
• Kursk to be raised by Monday
• Bush urges Afghans to help
• Attacks, layoffs erode economy
• President Bush to meet Sikh, Muslim leaders
• Iran will not help US or its allies
• Supreme Court will rule on vouchers for tuition
• Spain smashes suspected Islamist cell
• Region loses $5.5 million each day Reagan is closed
• Ashcroft: Anti-terror effort to retain civil rights
• Jordan makes his comeback official
• Financial centers could be terror target
Bin Laden, the key suspect in the Sept. 11 terror attacks, also is
believed by U.S. intelligence to have a secret nuclear weapons laboratory
inside Afghanistan, say officials speaking on the condition of anonymity.
There is no hard evidence that bin Laden or his followers have actually
produced chemical, biological or nuclear weapons. A CIA spokesman declined to
comment.
But a U.S. official said contacts between bin Laden and the Russian
mafia, and efforts to obtain materials used to make weapons of mass
destruction, could not be ruled out because of Afghanistan's porous borders.
This official suggested that the reports about the contacts could not
confirmed independently by U.S. intelligence agencies. Bin Laden has worked
with Russian mafia groups in obtaining chemical and biological weapons
materials and nuclear components, according to officials familiar with
intelligence reports on the contacts.
"There are signs they have been supplying [bin Laden] with chemical and
biological materials and nuclear components," said a second official familiar
with the reports.
Transporting and then using weapons of mass destruction is difficult,
though al Qaeda's use of suicide attackers makes the use of deadly chemical,
biological or nuclear weapons somewhat easier, those familiar with terrorist
tactics and capabilities say.
U.S. intelligence agencies have information that bin Laden is operating
a secret nuclear weapons laboratory somewhere in Afghanistan. The laboratory
is believed to be where bin Laden associates are working on developing
nuclear or radiological weapons. Radiological weapons are bombs that kill by
spreading radioactive material. This is believed to be one of the sites
sought for U.S. military strikes, expected in the next several weeks.
A recent foreign intelligence service report stated that al Qaeda has
obtained some type of nuclear device, but U.S. intelligence officials said
they could not confirm that report. The new intelligence report on bin
Laden's contacts with the Russian mafia provide new details on al Qaeda's
efforts to obtain weapons of mass destruction.
An FBI court document made public in 1998 in New York stated that al
Qaeda has tried to purchase enriched uranium since 1993 "for the purpose of
developing nuclear weapons." The State Department's latest report on
international terrorism says that al Qaeda "continued" to seek chemical,
biological, radiological and nuclear capabilities.
Intelligence officials say classified analysis of the types of chemicals
and toxins sought by al Qaeda indicate the group probably is trying to
produce the nerve agent Sarin, or biological weapons made up of anthrax
spores. Sarin can be produced from the components used to make fertilizer and
kills by disrupting the central nervous system. Anthrax is a highly lethal
biological weapon that causes death after spores are ingested.
At its height during the Cold War, the Soviet biological weapons program
employed some 65,000 persons, and U.S. officials have feared for years that
some of the out-of-work biological weapons scientists would sell their
expertise to terrorists like bin Laden.
The FBI has obtained specific threats since the Sept. 11 attacks on the
World Trade Center and the Pentagon that terrorists plan to retaliate for any
U.S. strikes on Afghanistan or terrorists around the world by using chemical
or biological weapons, the officials said.
Russian crime groups also have provided bin Laden's Islamic extremists
with small arms, the U.S. intelligence officials say. They also are believed
to help bin Laden launder the proceeds from drug trafficking.
Larry Johnson, a former State Department counterterrorism official, says
contacts between the Russian mafia and bin Laden could be related to drug
trafficking and that cooperation between the two is not surprising.
"There has been evidence in the past of links between the Taliban
militia and the Russian mob on opium," Mr. Johnson says, noting that the
Taliban has been a major patron of bin Laden.
The Russian crime groups purchase opium from Afghanistan and refine it
into heroin that is sold in Europe and the United States, he says.
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