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Radiological Weapons: Al-Qaeda “Dirty Bomb” Factored in U.S. Threat Alert The decision to elevate the U.S. terrorism alert level Friday to “orange,” indicating a high risk of attack, was based in part on concerns that al-Qaeda has intensified its efforts to acquire “dirty bombs,” U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft said Friday (see GSN, Feb. 7). “We have seen, both from the practice of al-Qaeda and from the law enforcement work of individuals around the world and from the intelligence community, that al-Qaeda continues to demonstrate a very serious interest in chemical, biological as well as radiological devices, the impacts of which would obviously be adverse,” Ashcroft said. “It’s based on those considerations, as well as others, that we find this occasion one in which we feel that we should elevate this designation from ‘elevated state’ to a ‘high state’ of alert,” he added. There is still no conclusive evidence that al-Qaeda has actually constructed a radiological weapon, U.S. officials said (see GSN, Jan. 31). However, they said they believe the terrorist group has done so and plans to use a dirty bomb in an upcoming attack. This is the first time the threat alert level has been raised due to such concerns, according to the Los Angeles Times. “There has always been a concern about al-Qaeda obtaining biological, chemical and radiological weapons,” a U.S. counterterrorism official said. “I think that concern is growing, and that is why it was mentioned today. It was not mentioned before in connection with raising the threat level,” the official added (Josh Meyer, Los Angeles Times, Feb. 8).
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