Bin Laden's Nuclear Secrets Found In al-Qaeda's Kabul Safe House

The Times (UK) ^ | 11-15-2001 | Anthony Loyd

[blam]

THURSDAY NOVEMBER 15 2001

Bin Laden's nuclear secrets found in al-Qaeda's Kabul safe houses

FROM ANTHONY LOYD IN KABUL

Times reporter finds blueprint for 'Nagasaki bomb'

Singed files left by fleeing terrorists

OSAMA BIN LADEN’S al-Qaeda network held detailed plans for nuclear devices and other terrorist bombs in one of its Kabul headquarters.
The Times discovered the partly burnt documents in a hastily abandoned safe house in the Karta Parwan quarter of the city. Written in Arabic, German, Urdu and English, the notes give detailed designs for missiles, bombs and nuclear weapons. There are descriptions of how the detonation of TNT compresses plutonium into a critical mass, sparking a chain reaction, and ultimately a thermonuclear reaction.

Both President Bush and British ministers are convinced that bin Laden has access to nuclear material and Mr Bush said earlier this month that al-Qaeda was “seeking chemical, biological and nuclear weapons”.

The discovery of the detailed bomb-making instructions, along with studies into chemical and nuclear devices, confirms the West’s worst fears and raises the spectre of plans for an attack that would far exceed the September 11 atrocities in scale and gravity.

Nuclear experts say the design suggests that bin Laden may be working on a fission device, similar to Fat Man, the bomb dropped on Nagasaki. However, they emphasised that it was extremely difficult to build a viable warhead.

While the terrorists may not yet have the capability to build such weapons, their hopes of doing so are clear. One set of notes, written on headed notepaper from the Hotel Grand in Peshawar and dated April 26, 1998, says: “Naturally the explosive liquid has a very high mechanical energy which is translated into destructive force. “But it can be tamed, controlled and can be used as a useful propulsive fuel if certain methods are applied to it. A supersonic moving missile has a shock wave. That shock wave can be used to contain an external combustion behind the missile . . .”

The document was one of many found in two of four al-Qaeda houses which had been used by Arabs and Pakistanis and even reportedly by bin Laden himself. The houses — two in the Karta Parwan district and the others further to the east — were abandoned on Monday night as Taleban units and their allies fled the city in the face of the Northern Alliance advance.

Attempts had been made to burn the evidence, but many documents still remained. They included studies into the development of a kinetic energy supergun capable of firing chemical or nuclear warheads, external propulsion missiles, preliminary research on the creation of a thermonuclear device, as well as a multitude of instructions for making smaller bombs.

There were also studies into Western special forces’ hostage rescue techniques, phone numbers for industrial chemical and synthetic producers, flight manuals, aerodynamic research, and advanced physics and chemistry manuals.

The houses were checked after being identified by local people. Afghan looters had concentrated on removing more appetising objects, ignoring foreign language documents that were of no use to them.

Bin Laden has said it is his “religious duty” to obtain a nuclear bomb. In an interview with the Pakistani journalist Hamid Mir last week, he claimed that al-Qaeda had nuclear capability and said: “I wish to declare that if America used chemical or nuclear weapons against us then we may retort with chemical and nuclear weapons as deterrent." Intelligence agencies already have indirect evidence from defectors, middlemen and scientists of Bin Laden’s obsession with obtaining or producing a nuclear device.

Al-Qaeda agents are known to have spent more than £1 million trying to obtain enough fissile material to make a “dirty bomb” that, if detonated with TNT in a populous area, could kill thousands and contaminate it for decades.

Intelligence sources told The Times last month that bin Laden and al-Qaeda had acquired nuclear materials illegally from Pakistan. And at least ten Pakistani nuclear scientists have been contacted by agents for the Taleban and al-Qaeda in the past two years, according to reports.

The knowledge that bin Laden has components for a nuclear weapon is believed to lie behind the warnings from President Bush and Tony Blair that he would commit worse atrocities than the suicide assaults in America if he could.

The Prime Minister’s official spokesman said: “Bin Laden would have killed 600,000 people on September 11 if he could have done. This simply underlines again why he has to be stopped.

[Looking4Truth]

Good post, blam.

This goes to show you what dumbasses Osama and his punks are.

With all the money he seems to have at his disposal, I believe I would have built the nukes BEFORE I launched my 'jihad' against the U.S.

Fry in HELL Taliban garbage!

[The Real Deal]

Good read for your first post. Well done!

[blam]

"With all the money he seems to have at his disposal, I believe I would have built the nukes BEFORE I launched my 'jihad' against the U.S."

In my mind, the jury is still out.

[Stefan Stackhouse]

Fat Man: Implosion-Type Bomb

---

The rapid spontaneous fission rate of plutonium 239 necessitated that a different type of bomb be designed. A gun-type bomb would not be fast enough to work. Before the bomb could be assembled, a few stray neutrons would have been emitted, and these would start a premature chain reaction‚leading to a great reduction in the energy released.

Seth Neddermeyer, a scientist at Los Alamos, developed the idea of using explosive charges to compress a sphere of plutonium very rapidly to a density sufficient to make it go critical and produce a nuclear explosion.

Atomic Archive

[Smogger]

From and MSNBC Article called: "Taliban appears to quit Kandahar" posted today:

U.S. officials said they were trying to take advantage of the “very dynamic” situation by setting up roadblocks in southern Afghanistan as part of their stepped-up search for Taliban leaders and Osama bin Laden, accused of masterminding the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the United States.

The New York Times reported in Wednesday’s editions that a Pakistani journalist who recently interviewed him said bin Laden told him in advance that the Taliban would retreat from Kabul as part of a trap.

The journalist, Hamid Mir — whose interview with bin Laden originally made news Saturday for bin Laden’s claim to have chemical and nuclear weapons — said bin Laden told him that “we are waiting for the Americans and Britishers to come inside Afghanistan, and then the real war will be started.”

The claim that bin Laden was laying a trap does not appear in a transcript of the interview as printed Saturday in two Pakistani newspapers.

Stufflebeem said U.S. forces were prepared to fight whatever war their circumstances forced them to fight, including countering a guerrilla insurgency. “We will not be deterred from doing whatever we have to do,” he said.

Personally I think he already has nukes. If we will refer to an earlier quote by Bin Laden which stated "the desert will burn beneath our enemies feet." or some such thing. I am certain they are waiting for the US to deploy a large contingent of troops somewhere in Afghanistan (Kabul?) before the unleash whatever they have. The administration has been very smart NOT to establish a base of operations anywhere in Afghanistan for this reason.

[RightWhale]

Anybody who stayed awake to some degree in high school physics knows this much. They might have missed the part about how to handle either uranium or plutonium so you can live long enough to open Allah's Suitcase. If you get past that, you won't get much result by carrying one chunk of plutonium in each hand over to the pizzaria and then clapping them together --aside from flash burns.

[Smogger]

With all the money he seems to have at his disposal, I believe I would have built the nukes BEFORE I launched my 'jihad' against the U.S.

I am almost certain he has. I doubt the US has underestimated these towelheads for the last time. OBL has been planning for this war much longer than the US.

[afraidfortherepublic]

My first ever breaking news post.

And it's a worthy one!

[mlocher]

lol

[Sabertooth]

Hey, I passed that class.

What we're getting here is what the journalist was able to grasp. I'm sure there's more here. Doesn't prove bin Laden has nukes.

But it seems to indicate he had an active program to develop them.

[Seattle-ite Nottagay]

In-con-ceivable

[King_of_Hindsight]

Isn't this where someone inserts a cartoon of "Osama of many mamma" sitting on Fatboy, paddeling across the atlantic?

[RonDog]

The knowledge that bin Laden has components for a nuclear weapon is believed to lie behind the warnings from President Bush and Tony Blair that he would commit worse atrocities than the suicide assaults in America if he could.

The Prime Minister’s official spokesman said: “Bin Laden would have killed 600,000 people on September 11 if he could have done. This simply underlines again why he has to be stopped.

That is the operative phrase, "...if he COULD."

Osama obviously does not have nukes YET, or he would already have used them. But he WILL if we do not stop him - SOON.

If you listen to Hugh Hewitt, or read his commentaries,
this (active) PING list is for YOU!
Please post your comments, and BUMP!

(If you want OFF - or ON - my (active) "Hugh Hewitt PING list" - please let me know.)

[The Real Deal]

Are you wearing your tin foil hat?

[mlocher]

bin laden's obsession with obtaining ... a nuclear device

we can oblige him.

[sinkspur]

The end of the Western epoch draws near...

Maybe a hundred years from now, but not from these diaperheads.

If you think bin Laden could explode a Hiroshima-like device, then you're smokin' somethin'.

the West charges into Afghanistan smelling a rout. Surely, they think, such mindless savages cannot stand up to superior repeating rifles and fine uniforms...

The West is not "charging" into Afghanistan. American and British presence is still limited to special forces.

You should write science fiction, or fiction of some kind. But you don't know sh*t about reality.

[onyx]

Benjamin Netanyahu has already stated (warned) that NYC will be nuked IF and WHEN the OBL-strain of Islam gets its hands on the nuclear device(s).

[anniegetyourgun]

Yep...that would take a plane and he had to use ours.

[DoughtyOne]

I believe that we have to exterminate Laden and every leader of his group. Al Qaeda leadership must suffer the same fate. This is one time when we better not leave loose ends behind. If we do, they are going to increase the types of terrorism they perpetrate upon us.

This is an object lesson my friends. The whole middle east is going to school. The lesson is, f with us and we'll put your religious faith to the test. Allah will have a whole lot of company looking for virgins. And it serves them right that they're virgin camels.

[anniegetyourgun]

Yep...that would take a plane and he had to use ours.