Alleged Al Qaeda Tactical Nukes:

Alleged Al Qaeda Tactical Nukes:
Lebed Says Each Each Missing Suit Case Can Kill As Many As 100,000

8/02/04, Bill Smirnow wrote:
After the Soviet Union broke up in 1991, a former Russian National Security Adviser, Alexander Lebed, said that up to 100 portable suitcase-sized bombs were unaccounted for. Moscow has denied such weapons existed.
Lebed said each one was equivalent to 1,000 tons of TNT and could kill as many as 100,000 people.
Al-Hayat did not say how many weapons al Qaeda bought or say who exactly had provided them.
Al Qaeda would use the weapons only inside the United States or if the group faced a "crushing blow" which threatened its existence, such as the use of nuclear or chemical weapons against its fighters, the paper quoted its sources as saying.
http://www.reuters.co.uk
http://snipurl.com/4d5l

RED CROSS APPEAL

Paper says al Qaeda has nukes
CAIRO (Reuters), February 8, 2004

A pan-Arab newspaper says that the al Qaeda organisation led by Osama bin Laden bought tactical nuclear weapons from Ukraine in 1998 and is storing them in safe places for possible use.

There was no independent corroboration of the report, which appeared in the newspaper al-Hayat under an Islamabad dateline on Sunday and cited sources close to al Qaeda, which the United States blames for the attacks of September 11, 2001.

The newspaper said al Qaeda bought the weapons in suitcases in a deal arranged when Ukrainian scientists visited the Afghan city of Kandahar in 1998. The city was then a stronghold of the Taliban movement, which was allied with al Qaeda.

Al Qaeda would use the weapons only inside the United States or if the group faced a "crushing blow" which threatened its existence, such as the use of nuclear or chemical weapons against its fighters, the paper quoted its sources as saying.

Ukraine inherited nuclear weapons from the Soviet Union but in 1994 it agreed to send 1,900 nuclear warheads to Russia and sign up to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

After the Soviet Union broke up in 1991, a former Russian National Security Adviser, Alexander Lebed, said that up to 100 portable suitcase-sized bombs were unaccounted for. Moscow has denied such weapons existed.

Lebed said each one was equivalent to 1,000 tons of TNT and could kill as many as 100,000 people.

Al-Hayat did not say how many weapons al Qaeda bought or say who exactly had provided them.

A Pakistani government official said U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell was expected to visit Islamabad soon to discuss nuclear proliferation, after a top scientist there admitted passing atomic programme secrets to third parties.

The United States has repeatedly said its worst fear is that a group like al Qaeda might obtain access to weapons of mass destruction and use them against the American people.

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This is essentially the same story that I circulated in 2001/2, which was denied at the time, but confirmed by Newsweek six months later.

The question is however, whether any of Lebed's 'suitcase nukes' really ARE missing.

My gut feeling at this stage is that if Al Quaeda had suitcasenukes, they would have used them by now.

Unless that is, we have a really nasty surprise coming.

Pray its not true,

I have seen a report recently in the mass of reports that I scan every day suggesting that Al Quaeda HAS tactical nukes which it is keeping 'in reserve' for a situation in which the existence of the organisation is truly threatened.

I'm sceptical about that, and I suspect that, had Al Quaeda really got tactical nukes we would know, in the most terrible and direct way, that they had them.

So I suspect, though one can never be sure, and there MAY just be horrific surprises, that they may not have them.

Pray they never get them.

John Hallam