ASSESSING THE FUTURE TERRORIST THREAT

WHAT IS THE LIKELIHOOD OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS BEING UNLEASHED ON THE UNITED STATES?

Experts say it's unlikely Osama bin Laden has access to the kind of atomic bomb we in America usually think about. While his loose affiliation of terrorist groups may have access to nuclear materials, it's unlikely any of them could refine a weapon that could be carried by one person.

And in the unlikely event they should do so, it seems likely such an atomic weapon would explode long before the bomb reached its target (killing those who were handling such a device) because of the expert handling required for delicate atomic materials. 

For more, see CNN's "Nuclear Attack: Now Anything Seems Possible."

However, as TheLatest.Net has reported, governmental officials don't like to use such terminology, but as of December 1st,  the US is on atomic attack alert.

While the idea may seem far-fetched and alarmist, recent intelligence indicates the possibility that an atomic attack, however crude, may occur in the United States within days. It appears unlikely, given the analysis of experts, that a traditional atomic bomb might be set off within the borders of America. It is, however, quite possible that a so-called "dirty bomb," or radiological bomb is threatening the US.

Homeland Defense chief Tom Ridge Monday, December 3rd issued another warning for US law enforcement to be on high alert, the third such warning since the 9/11 attacks.

The Washington Post Tuesday December 4th quoted unnamed US sources as saying the ability of Osama bin Laden's minions to load a conventional TNT-like explosive with radioactive material has been underestimated.

Now comes word from the intelligence-based website DEBKAfile that bin Laden and his cohorts are planning for "massive pre-Christmas terrorist strikes in the United States, including a possible nuclear or radiological weapon attack. The target period...(is) between December 5th and December 20th."

DEBKAfile has proven to be a reliable source of intelligence news for years and TheLatest.Net has no reason to doubt it's knowledge, sources and veracity.

According to the website: 

Who: the al-Qaeda network, headed by Osama bin Laden. 

Where: Pakistani intelligence forces have found caves near Kabul where there were high levels of radioactivity, indicating that radioactive materials were at one time stored there and have likely been moved. 

What: Intelligence officials believe the radioactive material has been moved to caves near Tora Bora, where US troops are just today establishing a stronghold. There is deep concern that some form of atomic weaponry is within those caves.

When: With winter storms moving in, US-led allied troops, wearing special protective gear, are searching desperately through the caves to find any atomic-related material before treacherous weather causes a near-shutdown of US sorties and troop movements. So time is quickly running out for those weapons of mass destruction to be found.

Why: If the Tora Bora caves are, as thought by some, to be a final stronghold for the Taliban and bin Laden, weapons of mass destruction are hidden within those caves. There are intelligence reports that bin Laden had the weapons removed to Tora Bora just days before the 9/11 attacks.

How: Osama bin Laden's minions are thought to have taken any radioactive material to the Tora Bora caves for final dispersion to other nations. There is even some concern that radioactive materials may have been smuggled into the US prior to the 9/11 attacks.

The weather in northern Afghanistan is already treacherous with deep snow and storms continuing; allies are said to be working feverishly to find bin Laden and/or weapons before the heavier storms move in within days, giving bin Laden possibly weeks or months to retrench deep in caves removed from inclement weather.

DEBKAfile reports that US CIA chief George Tenet took a secret visit to Kabul December 2nd to personally verify Pakistani intelligence reports of cone-shaped, four-foot-long heavy radioactive containers having been found; Tenet verified the reports of nuclear activity in the Tora Bora cave complex.

ALSO: UPI Thursday named Pakistani nuclear scientists and intelligence officers as having helped bin Laden develop radiological bombs ("dirty bombs") using radioactive material obtained from the Russian underground. 

There are hundreds of documented cases of international trafficking in nuclear isotopes and related materials in the past eight years.

How could such a "dirty bomb" be smuggled into the US? Eighteen-million cargo containers arrive in America each year, only a tiny percentage of which are inspected by Customs officials.

Following his visit to Islamabad, Pakistan -- and to Kabul -- CIA Director Tenet's agents are now searching for Pakistani nuclear scientists for questioning about their relationships with the Taliban and bin Laden's terrorist network.

There seems little doubt that Pakistani nuclear experts were friendly to and probably even helping bin Laden's terror organization to obtain nuclear material. It's a fact that developing a nuclear bomb along the lines of those used by the US in Hiroshima and Nagasaki to end World War II is an expensive, time consuming and intricate undertaking.

But developing a "dirty bomb" is not. Take a radioactive isotope like Uranium or Plutonium and place it inside half a ton of TNT and you have a formidable device that may not blow up whole buildings but will disseminate radioactive particles over a much wider area than the explosion and cause some sickness and death.

Hence the new terror cliché: It's not a weapon of mass destruction but a weapon of mass distraction. The mass psychological effect of such a bomb going off anywhere in the US would be far greater than the actual number of killed and injured. There would, therefore, be greater panic at such an explosion -- depending, of course, on its location -- than that following the 9/11 attacks.

It was, then, the knowledge on the part of US intelligence, forced by the CIA's Tenet and his secret trip to Kabul on December 2nd that confirmed the likelihood of al-Qaeda possession of nuclear materials, that led to a Monday December 3rd warning of possible terrorist attacks against the US -- or its interests overseas.

This, in addition to notes by Attorney General John Ashcroft and others that "intercepted conversations" indicate that another attack on US interests is brewing, but there were no specifics as to date, target and method.

The war on terrorism is a complex one; there is little need to alarm Americans unless there is specific evidence of who, what, when, where and how.

But it's true: The US is under atomic attack alert, although government officials are reticent to use such terminology. This is, perhaps, much more important than both the previous terror alerts from the Bush administration.

See TheLatest.Net's The New Terrorist Threat: Radiological Bombs for more information. 

Also see: Al-Qaeda's nuclear agenda verified -- The Washington Times

-- Mike Shiloh 

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