I like the last paragraph....
http://frontierpost.com.pk/main.asp?id=3&date1=10/31/2001____________________________________________________
A Pakistani retired nuclear scientist Bashir ud Din Mehmood along with two others is under arrest since last few days in connection with his visits to Afghanistan and his work there.
He is being investigated both by Pakistani and US agencies.
Dr Mehmood was employed with Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC) before his retirement.
A numbers of items have been identified by the intelligence sources that are reportedly in possession of Osama and his colleagues.
The materials that are suspected to be in possession of Al Qaeda are Zirconium rods/powers (Refractory material which is highly heat resistant and used in Ceramics) Titanium is another metal that is of industrial use and its alloys are used to make heat exchange tubes.
Its alloys are the most used item in defence industry.
Enriched Uranium, is another material that is suspected to have been purchased by Al Qaeda from rogue elements in Russia and Central Asian States.
Meanwhile experts with nuclear sciences background when approached said that it is highly unlikely that Al Qaeda or its associates have the necessary technological base for using these different materials to make a fission device.
"Enriched Uranium may be a very important basic material but using it for making devices and that too tactical or miniaturized ones is a very expensive and highly sophisticated job", these experts said.
Asked about Dr Bashiruddin Mehmood\'s possible role, these sources said that no doubt that he was a capable person but he or one or two other scientists could not build a weapon.
The infrastructure involved in weapon making is very elaborate and requires great amount of funding.
There have been reports that Al Qaeda had bought nukes from Russia or Central Asian States.
But Defense experts said that even if Nuclear weapons are bought the next step is their storage, delivery mechanism and other technological support for the use of such weapons.
Intelligence sources have also been suspecting that Al Qaeda may have developed nerve gas (biological agent) that can prove harmful to large number of people by paralysing them.
Some of the sources claim that the United States has information on the whereabouts of Mullah Omar and Osama bin Laden but was analysing whether these hideouts had some radioactive materials stocked up that could lead to a major radioactive activity in the region.
Topic: Bin Laden may have nukes. We definitely have them. (Read 742 times)