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Al-Qaeda: Evidence Shows Desire for Nuclear Weapons, Expert Says Al-Qaeda was seriously pursuing efforts to develop or acquire nuclear weapons, but no evidence has surfaced to indicate that the organization’s efforts went beyond theory, said David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security. CNN hired Albright as its lead expert to review documents discovered in a former al-Qaeda house in Kabul (see GSN, Jan. 17). Documents included a design for a nuclear weapon using plutonium — which analysts believe al-Qaeda did not have. There was a plan for a nuclear device that experts say would not have worked but showed knowledge of how to explode a nuclear bomb. The plan included a description of a shortcut to begin a nuclear explosion. The documents, however, did not include manufacturing steps necessary for making a nuclear bomb, Albright said. U.S. Spies Might Have Seen “Dirty Bomb” Material U.S. intelligence officials told CNN in December that, during a meeting of al-Qaeda leaders last year, a member of the organization presented a cylinder which, he said, contained radiological material that could be used to lace a conventional explosive to make a “dirty bomb” (see GSN, Dec. 4, 2001). Mehmood Might Have Been Linked to al-Barakaat Bashiru-din Mehmood, a former Pakistani nuclear scientist suspected of assisting al-Qaeda and the Taliban (see GSN, Jan. 2), agreed to a partnership with Barakat General Trading and Contracting Company last May, according to a document that CNN found in an office at Kabul’s Intercontinental Hotel. The company is on a U.S. list of companies suspected of helping terrorist organizations, according to CNN (Boettcher/Arnesen, CNN, Jan. 25). A financial and telecommunications organization that is called al-Barakaat on the U.S. list of suspected terrorist supporters does business with partners and clients from nearly 200 offices in more than 40 countries, including the United States, according to the International Law Enforcement Reporter (Bruce Zagaris, International Enforcement Law Reporter, January). Mehmood had plans to establish a bank with Barakat, according to another document analyzed by CNN. He also wanted to expand an artificial-limb factory and was interested in mining, including mining for uranium, the document indicated. U.N. weapons inspectors have charged that in Iraq, strategists used companies to cover up that country’s nuclear weapons program, CNN reported (Boettcher/Arnesen, CNN, Jan. 25).
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