[iwar] [fc:Bin.Laden's.nuclear.secrets.found]

From: Fred Cohen (fc@all.net)
Date: 2001-11-15 08:14:20
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From: Fred Cohen <fc@all.net>
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Date: Thu, 15 Nov 2001 08:14:20 -0800 (PST)
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Subject: [iwar] [fc:Bin.Laden's.nuclear.secrets.found]
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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 contain 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 Ł1 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. ” 
 
Copyright 2001 Times Newspapers Ltd. 

Source:
<a href="http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/0,,2001390014-2001395995,00.html">http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/0,,2001390014-2001395995,00.html>

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