Foreign Correspondence

[Amaunet]

Osama bin Laden sought to buy radioactive material for use against the United States from his supporters in Chechnya who are supported by Bush.
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-Am

‘Osama planned storing of radioactive material’

Daily Times Monitor

LAHORE: Bin Laden sought to acquire radioactive material for a “dirty bomb”, claims a book written by a senior aide to the Al Qaeda chief, The Sunday Times has reported.

The British newspaper said that Egyptian-born Abu Walid al-Misri was believed to be the author of the forthcoming book, which details the internal tensions, debates and disillusionment within the group. Excerpts were published in a London-based Arabic newspaper last week.

Misri says that although Bin Laden was cautious about increasing the organisation’s weaponry, he bowed to pressure from the leadership’s hawks and sought to buy radioactive material from his supporters in Chechnya.

Mohammed Atef, Qaeda’s military commander and chief advocate of obtaining weapons of mass destruction (WMDs), had suggested radioactive material be stored on US soil for use in a rapid direct response to American aggression against Afghanistan.

Atef was given the go-ahead to contact Abu Khattab, a Chechen-based Saudi jihadist, and asked him to obtain materials from Russian nuclear facilities in the Caucasus. The deal never came through.

Similarly, the Taliban, who Misri says had “a considerable quantity of radioactive materials seized from smugglers”, failed to answer Al Qaeda’s request, preferring instead to sell most of it to Pakistan

As Afghanistan fell to coalition troops, Misri says, disquiet began to grow about Bin Laden’s strategy.

Bin Laden came under fire for having underestimated US determination to destroy the Qaeda network, believing that the 9/11 attacks, coming after the East African embassy bombing and the attempted sinking of the USS Cole, would deter the US from invading Afghanistan.

It was also at this time that Bin Laden fell out with Taliban leader Mullah Omar, who had allowed him to stay in Afghanistan providing he did not give interviews to the western media.

Misri, who was with Bin Laden in Tora Bora, is thought to be one of Al-Qaeda’s leading theorists. When the leadership fled Afghanistan, his book records, the organisation had been devastated by the death of Atef in a US bombing raid near Kandahar.

The book also criticises the growth in Al Qaeda training camps, saying many of them were comprised of spies and that they lacked discipline.



http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_20-12-2004_pg7_3