Free Republic

While the detonation of a nuclear weapon in the United States is considered highly unlikely, Los Angeles and other U.S. cities are preparing for such a disaster by assessing old bomb shelters and preparing emergency response plans, the Los Angeles Daily News reported Monday.

An attack on a major US target is rumored to scheduled for the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, beginning this year on September 24. Previous rumors suggest that Los Angeles (or, at any rate, a location in California) may be the intended target.

BOSTON -- The Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency has been placed on standby, and public safety officials are meeting at the bunker, according to a published report Wednesday. There have been reports that the FBI office in Boston received a call from an FBI office in California warning officials about a suspicious person that may be in the area, according to the Boston Herald's Web site. No specific threats have been confirmed, but FBI agents in Boston have been put on alert, and officials started to gather at MEMA at about 1:30 p.m.

<p>The 1984 cult movie ''The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the Eighth Dimension,'' is loaded with sly jabs at popular American culture, including a satiric advertisement for a sequel called ''Buckaroo Banzai vs. the World Crime League.''</p> <p>Now it appears that the parody title was quite prescient: In ''The New War,'' former Massachusetts Senator John Kerry describes the evolution of a real-life world crime league that cooperates across national borders, undermines law enforcement, corrupts the civil government of entire nations and appears to be beyond the control of any particular country.</p>

SYDNEY, Australia (AP) - Osama bin Laden's terror network claims to have bought ready-made nuclear weapons on a Central Asian black market, the biographer of al-Qaida's No.2 leader was quoted telling an Australian television station. In an interview scheduled to be televised Monday, Pakistani journalist Hamid Mir said Ayman al-Zawahri claimed "smart briefcase bombs" are available on the black market. It was not clear when the interview between Mir and al-Zawahri took place. U.S. intelligence agencies have long believed al-Qaida attempted to acquire a nuclear device on the black market but said there is no evidence they ever succeeded....

Are Suitcase Bombs Possible? By Carey SubletteLast changed 18 May 2002 It is impossible to verify at the time of this writing whether nuclear devices sized to fit in side a suitcase were actually manufactured by the former Soviet Union, as alleged by Alexander Lebed in September 1997. It is certainly possibel to assess the technicial plausibility of such a claim and to provide a analysis of the likely characteristics of the weapons Lebed described. A suitcase bomb with dimensions of 60 x 40 x 20 centimeters is by any standard a very compact nuclear weapon. Information is lacking on...