Posted on 12/04/2001 5:11:56 PM PST by codebreaker
One factor in the third general terror alert raised in the United States since the September 11 relates according to US media, to intelligence information indicating the the former Saudi terrorist Osama bin Laden has gained possession of a so-called dirty or radiological bomb. The target date referred to in electronic intercepts is Mid-December. It has also been suggested that such weapons may have smuggled into the United States.
On Oct. 12 DEBKA-Net-Weekley reported from its intelligence sources that Bin Laden had almost certainly procured a supply of uranium -235 six months before the September 11 suicide attacks. The uranium was believed to have reached him in a multimillion deal with a Ukranian-born mobster called Semion Mogilevich.
DEBKA-Net- Weekley came back to the subject more recently on November 30, in another exclusive report:RADIATION POISIONING BETRAYS MULE
In the first week of October, Pakastani arrested on immigration charges in the course of the FBI investigation into the September 11 suicide attacks, complained of bleeding gums and pain, symptoms of gingivitis. He was treated with antibiotics, but was found dead in his cell in Hudson Couty jail in Kearny, New Jersey, three weeks later.
The cause of death was not released, any more than the dead man's identity.
DEBKA-Net Weekley's medical experts note that the bleeding gums the anonymous Pakistani was treated for are a symptom of radiation poisioning, suggesting he might have been a 'mule' transporting nuclear materials or devices into America. (A subsequent investigation revealed that he had contracted gingivitis in a result of radiation-induced lukemia)
This explanaion would imply that more than one such carrier is employed by al Qaeda to smuggle nuclear materials or devices into the United States, Western Europe and the Middile East, their mission being to plant their deadly burders in pre-arranged secret locations, ready for activation.
The Russians are hawking all kinds of nuclear material (see my post #46) anyone who things that OBL and can't get whatever is crazy. It has previously been reported that nuclear suitcase bombs were purchased from the Russian Mafia for $30 million and 2 TONS of Opium. When you are the largest Opium producer in the world you would the sky is the limit. Membership has it's privlidges.
BillyBob, you have it backwards. U238 is less radioactive and has a longer half-life than U235. U238 cannot support a chain reaction (nuclear explosion) and U235 can- which is why they separarate U235 from the U238. The 235 goes into bombs and the 238 goes into aircraft ballast weights, shielding for irridium radiography sources, and Warthog tank-killer munitions. There is lots more 238 than 235.
Even then uranium is not that radioactive. I used U238 bricks for shielding in a cobalt-60 cell and each brick was about 5 mREM per hour, not hot compared to dental X-rays.
A dirty bomb made up of a delayed critical U235 assembly would be quite dangerous, though.
The 18 incidents are listed reverse chronological order.
CNS cannot confirm the veracity of these reports.
Click on date of incident for details and sources.
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Plant in Ust-Kamenogorsk, Kazakhstan |
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* For sources and further details, see Sandi Arnold, "Factsheet on Reported Nuclear Trafficking Incidents Involving Turkey, 1993-1999," July 1999, Center for Nonproliferation Studies, Monterey Institute of International Studies.
U238 will not make any bomb. U235 is one of the fissionable isotopes of Uranium. Any fissionable actinide like U or plutonium must have an odd number of neutrons, so U233 or U235 or Pu239 can go bang, but not U238, Pu238, and so on.
A bunch of dynamite in a bucket of powdered Pu238 would be a contamination nightmare but not a nuclear blast.
I'm not questioning that, just pointing out that U238 will not make a bomb. Nor will osmium or mercury of any color. Thanks for the link, but the table shown is full of irrelevant stuff if considering nuclear weapons.
Did they rule out one of the hemorragic viral fevers like CCHF or Ebola, Marburg, or the like? he could have been sent infected to infect more people. Bleeding gums, vomiting blood, and other pleasant symptoms of hemorragic fevers could look like high-dose radiation sickness.
An assembly of U235 designed to act like a truck-sized Chernobyl meltdown, however, would not be as detectible and could be "turned on" when put in place.
*Even if the U235 is 90% enriched the remaining 10% can contain something that prevents it's making a nuclear bomb. Lots of research reactor fuel is so arranged, just for safety's sake.
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