Threats Claim Nuclear Bombs Hidden All Over U.S.

CBS Chicago ^ | March 30, 2011 | Staff

[library user]

CHICAGO (CBS 2) – The threats came in the mail and to date, there have been 25 letters that warn of nuclear bombs destroying America.

People who got them called the FBI and CBS 2′s Kristyn Hartman learned, the Bureau’s Chicago office is leading the investigation.

FBI Special Agent Andre Zavala said, “Yes, they alarmed a lot of people.”

Attorney Tracy Rizzo was alarmed. A number of days ago, an envelope, with a Chicago postmark and a hand-written address to her private investigations firm, came in the mail.

The letter inside said, “The Al-Qaeda organization has planted 160 nuclear bombs throughout the U.S. in schools, stadiums, churches, stores, financial institutions and government buildings.” It also said, “This is a suicide mission for us.”

The writer, who claims to be Osama Bin Laden, tells the reader the nukes are remotely controlled. “It was clear the writer wanted to scare me,” said Rizzo, “Yes, it frightened me.” Rizzo was one of eight people in the Chicago area to contact the FBI.

Agencies in Oregon, California, Texas and Florida also got the letter with the Chicago postmark.

“There are items in the letter that lead us to believe it is a hoax,” said Zavala. “There are several demands documented that aren’t fully coherent.”

He said much of what’s in the message doesn’t add up, but in a post 9-11 world, the FBI can’t let it go – even if it does appear to be a hoax.

“The FBI investigates every element. We can’t take that chance,” said Zavala.

So, why the threats?

The writer alluded to how families in Afghanistan have to live. The FBI said it will find that writer, and when it does, he could face 5 to 10 years in prison for each letter mailed. Anyone who’s received a similar letter should call the FBI.

[Cindy]

Thank you RR for the ping.
I appreciate it.

[Lucky9teen]

Seemed like a plausible show when it was on...I wonder how close to reality it is now?

[Drill Thrawl]

Islamic Terrorist Network in America

OK, call me dumb, but if we know where they are, why are they still there?

[dools0007world]

Impetent people make impetent threats. The Jihsdis are good at that.

I think it’s possible for the b******* to bring in a handful of small nukes and detonte them. But it is hard to believe they would have access to 160—unless former USSR entities forked them up. Neither N. Korea or Iran has enough fissionsble material to fabricate that many bombs.

Although not absolutely airtight, yellow cake (uranium) mining is fairly closely monitored. Most of the material either has inherent or implanted source markers.

That said, vigilence continues to be the watchword.

It would be useful to identify and capture the letter writer. Then interrogate the letter writer under “rigorous” interrogation to hear what he/she has to say.

[Lucky9teen]

Too bad you aren't president, I'd support you 100%.

Unfortunately, we have a pansy in the WH, who not only doesn't have the gonads to PROTECT the US, but he's disarming us weapon by weapon. And to add icing to that cake, he's ARMING our enemies. There aren't enough curse words to describe how I feel about this tool.

[ExSoldier]

The smallest nuke available (W80) is about 300lbs and 31.4 by 11.8 inches. It’s more like a footlocker than a suitcase.

And what is the nominal yield of such a device? How many KT or fractions thereof?

[Lucky9teen]

SKADILLION

[Mad Dawgg]

Several Nuke bombs, doubtful.

Several Dirty Bombs, more probable but still doubtful.

[GonzoGOP]

Perhaps I’m wrong, but I think you’re referring to fusion warheads. Fission bombs are set off by conventional high explosive, I think

No all warheads have to have a pit of highly enriched material. This is what causes the burst of neutrons that in turn sets off the chain reaction. It is what separates a reactor from a bomb. Some of our newer non-spherical ones have longer shelf lives, possibly as long as a century. But the ones from the kind of early cold war era bombs that a terrorist could get hold of tended to suffer from corrosion and decay over only a decade or two. The ones used on the Polaris missiles were particularly bad.

There is also a high probably that any pits for retired weapons had a lot of time on the clock when they went into storage. After all why manufacture a new pit for a weapon that you know will be taken out of service before the existing pit goes bad.

Finally they have to be stored under carefully controlled conditions or the decay will speed up rapidly. Looking at how Russia stored their nuclear subs I'm betting they didn't waste a lot of time on climate control system for parts of weapons that they never intended to use again.

Of course as many other posters have commented none of this applies to a dirty bomb. Any old radioactives will do for that purpose. But if you want that satisfying mushroom cloud effect you need to have all the right parts and have them in working order.

[tet68]

Bwhahaha, maybe they should make it a law preventing
ownership of more than 10 nukes...

[Uncle Miltie]

“The Al-Qaeda organization has planted 160 nuclear bombs throughout the U.S. in schools, stadiums, churches, stores, financial institutions and government buildings.” It also said, “This is a suicide mission for us.”

Why target such small installations with a full Nuke?

Why, after a bomb is planted, is it a suicide mission? Has AQ successfully gone nuclear, but can’t remotely detonate a bomb?

B.S. meter is way off the scale.

[OneWingedShark]

The letter inside said, “The Al-Qaeda organization has planted 160 nuclear bombs throughout the U.S. in schools, stadiums, churches, stores, financial institutions and government buildings.” It also said, “This is a suicide mission for us.”

Nukes, IIRC, don't take out just "buildings" but cities...
The threat here is akin to someone sating they're going to shoot gnats with a shotgun...

[OneWingedShark]

Who knows, maybe ATF allowed nukes into our nation in order to secure the arrest of the persons involved like they let guns out of our nation to Mexico for that very reason.

ATF's Operation Nukewalker.

[NVDave]

A fusion weapon with a two (or three) stage design starts with lighting off what is essentially a fission weapon. The fission stage is set off by compressing a sphere of plutonium down, possibly boosted the neutron flux by injecting tritium into the pit. The resulting energy and force, channeled by “lenses” and reflectors, in turn becomes the crushing force and temperature rise to initiate the fusion reaction in the fusion fuel side of the weapon.

The fission trigger would be big enough to do significant damage to a city all by itself.

[jboot]

If the Soviets were running hidden nuke caches, they probably didn't try to do on-site maintenance -- just swap in new ones every so often, using the same techniques used to bring them in originally.

Good point. You know, if those caches were abandoned in place, they will be hideously dangerous. I read up on the KGB Molniya self-destruct rigs that were found on other Soviet caches. By now just walking over the cache could set it off. The one in Switzerland was so unstable that the cache (of radio equipment, not nukes) could not be safely approached. And that was decades ago.

[ichabod1]

Well, maybe this person heard from somebody who heard from somebody that there were bombs, and the number got inflated, as numbers always do. In any case I can see why the FBI would very much like to have a chat with the individual(s). Get them to “help police with their enquiries,” if you will, as it were.

[Brookhaven]

This must by how they are sneaking them into the schools:

[ichabod1]

Jericho! Loved that show. Miss it.

[TomasUSMC]

I guess NOW, we HAVE to Nuke Iran, Syria, Pakistan .....