re: is the threat real & safe to drink? Financial Times
Al-Qaeda’s man in Iraq ‘worked on dirty bomb’ By Mark Huband, Security Correspondent, in London
Published: February 1 2003 4:00 | Last Updated: February 1 2003 4:00
A key al-Qaeda operative, whose visit to Baghdad last year is at the centre of US claims that the Iraqi regime has ties with the terrorist network, was involved in developing al-Qaeda’s plans to launch attacks with weapons of mass destruction, according to western intelligence officials.
Abu Musaab al-Zarkawi is expected to figure in evidence that Colin Powell, US secretary of state, presents to the UN Security Council next Wednesday. Mr Powell intends to show that Iraq has retained its WMD capability, and assisted and protected terrorist organisations, including al-Qaeda. US and UK officials fear Iraq may provide WMD technology to terrorist groups, though there is no evidence that this has happened.
US and British intelligence agencies have until now insisted no proof exists of ties between al-Qaeda and Iraq, though pressure from their political masters to find a link has intensified. A US official said drawing such a conclusion from Mr al-Zarkawi’s presence in Baghdad was "an inferential leap".
However, new intelligence has now revealed that Mr al-Zarkawi is an expert in the use of poisons. According to statements from al-Qaeda detainees, he was part of a team of al-Qaeda operatives given the task of developing radiological and other non-conventional weapons in 1999-2001.
While he is regarded as a middle-ranking al-Qaeda operative, his significance has been reassessed since the assassination last October of a US diplomat, Laurence Foley, in the Jordanian capital Amman. Two men who admitted the killing say that Mr al-Zarkawi provided them with arms, ammunition, bullet-proof vests and CS gas with which to carry out the attack.
US investigators say Mr al-Zarkawi received medical treatment, including the amputation of one of his legs, when he arrived in Baghdad after fleeing Afghanistan via Iran last year. Jordanian officials believe he is in an area of northern Iraq controlled by the Ansar al-Islam, a group linked to al-Qaeda.
Before leaving Afghanistan, Mr al-Zarkawi was based at an al-Qaeda camp in the western Afghan city of Herat. Now, new evidence has emerged of the importance al-Qaeda attached to the chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear weapons programmes in which he is thought to have been involved.
"He spent time at the al-Qaeda facilities in Herat where it is known that Osama bin Laden in 1999-2000 was working to develop non-conventional weapons, including a dirty bomb," a senior intelligence official said yesterday.
The al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden’s decision to develop a radiological or "dirty" bomb was made in 1999 after both he and his Taliban allies realised that it offered the most effective means of attacking the US, the intelligence information has revealed.
Despite abundant documentary evidence that al-Qaeda had developed knowledge of chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear (CBRN) weapons, it is only now becoming clear that these intentions amounted to what a senior western official described yesterday as a "military doctrine" at the top of the al-Qaeda hierarchy.
No evidence exists that a "dirty" bomb was made, however. "This was an extension of his work on poisons and showed that he wanted a weapon to use against the US," the official said. "Then you see him trying to acquire the raw materials, to develop an explosive device to spread a natural isotope or enriched uranium, to spread as a poison. Then there is the intelligence which shows them working at it, with the aim being to spread a radiological poison."
The alleged threat to the US led to the arrest last May of an alleged al-Qaeda operative, Jose Padilla, at Chicago airport. He has been accused of planning to stake out potential targets in the US for a dirty bomb attack.
The new intelligence information suggests that while Mr bin Laden decided in 1998 that he wanted to develop a radioactive weapon, "he didn’t know what he meant by that. He probably knew what an atom bomb was, but didn’t know the steps to get there," the official said. However, intelligence information shows that al-Qaeda made extensive use of expertise given by two Pakistani nuclear scientists who visited Afghanistan soon after the decision was made to develop a dirty bomb. The value of this expertise is now regarded as central to the threat from al-Qaeda.
