Posted on 04/22/2002 7:22:04 PM PDT by knak
NBC: Terror network seeks material to explode bomb in U.S.
WASHINGTON, April 22 A captured key strategist for the al-Qaida network told interrogators Monday that al-Qaida was working to obtain fissionable material for radiation bombs to be exploded in the United States, NBC News has learned. U.S. officials could not confirm the assertions of the strategist, Abu Zubaydah, but said they were taking him at his word.
SOURCES TOLD NBC News that Zubaydah, believed to be one of the top lieutenants of Osama bin Laden, believed to be the mastermind of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the United States, was cooperating with his interrogators. Officials said they did not know how to evaluate his information but were taking him seriously about bombs.
The officials said they would give Zubaydahs information about al-Qaidas quest for fissionable material the same consideration they gave a warning the U.S. government issued to banks Friday.
In that warning, the government said unsubstantiated information pointed to a possible terrorist threat against financial institutions. The FBI did not elaborate on that threat, but administration officials told NBC News that Zubaydah had revealed a possible plot to send suicide bombers into banks in the northeastern United States.
In the warning Monday, Zubaydah told U.S. investigators that al-Qaida operatives already had the knowledge to build the bomb, but he did not say that such a weapon had already been delivered to the United States, sources said.
Zubaydah is in U.S. custody at an undisclosed location. He is being treated for gunshot wounds he suffered when he was captured during a raid by Pakistani forces in Faisalabad on March 28.
Court testimony in the United States and in Jordan showed that Zubaydah effectively directed the so-called Millennium Plot, a plan to attack hotels and tourist sites in Jordan and at Los Angeles International Airport on New Years Day 2000. He has been sentenced to death in absentia in Jordan.
He is also believed to have directed the deadly bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen in October 2000. Seventeen U.S. sailors were killed in that attack.
I'm hoping one of you creative types with photoshop can do something fun with a couple of these images juxtaposed with an appropriate warning about what may happen if they really get us mad.
If they detonate a dirty bomb in the USA, there might not be another Haj.
Perhaps the "moderate" muslims would be well advised to reign in their more insane brothers, sooner rather than later.
Let's give them a chance. Tomorrow Bush holds a press conference and says to the world that if there is a nuclear detonation on American soil by ME terrorists, Mecca, Medina, and Saddam's crib are IMMEDIATELY vaporized. Then Dome of the Rock, Al Asqa, and all other mosques in the ME are destroyed by conventional weapons. It is their choice.
Would they go ballistic, or chill out a bit?
Ballistic I think. But it's the American way to give fair warning....
Thanks, I did. Let's go a step or two further just for emphasis.
Not sure.
Once mecca becomes a crater, proving that allah is NOT all powerful, what will become of their faith?
It may go "poof", their cultist spell shattered.
They preview fine, and come up at times: the websots server must be shaky.
That sure looks a lot like the rough mountain background around Mecca.
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