No, not "new" in terms of atomic decay. The Soviet Union (read the article) fell in 1991. 14 years of constant clean room lab maintenance, at a MINIMUM, would be required for any such Soviet suitcase nukes.
That's just utter nonsense to think that they would WAIT to use one if they had one. Al Qaeda isn't expending enormous amounts of its resources to *MAINTAIN* a nuke.
I'll agree that AL Qaeda could come up with large sums of cash for the PURCHASE of such a device, if the opportunity arose, but there is no way that they are spending money maintaining them for later use.
If they get one, they'll try to set it off. If they wait, the nuke will decay. The smaller the nuke, the faster its useable life will pass, too.