'Dirty bomb' constructed
Al-Qaida did job in Afghanistan
By AP
LONDON -- The al-Qaida terrorist network successfully built a crude
radiological device known as a "dirty bomb" in Afghanistan, the BBC
reported yesterday.
British intelligence agents infiltrated the network and found documents
that showed al-Qaida members had built the device near Herat in western
Afghanistan, the BBC said, citing unidentified British government officials.
It was one of two major developments involving al-Qaida.
In Kandahar, a powerful bomb destroyed a bridge outside the southern Afghan
city today, killing 18 people on a bus, a deputy police chief said.
Only two people on the bus survived the explosion on the Rambasi Bridge,
some 10 km south of Kandahar, Ustad Nazir Jan said.
No one immediately took responsibility for the explosion, but Jan blamed
fugitive members of the Taliban and al Qaida.
Meanwhile, in London, Britain's Foreign Office said the intelligent agents'
report substantiates expert opinion that al-Qaida wanted to develop a
nuclear weapon.
"The evidence presented in the BBC report speaks for itself," a spokesman
said.
"It provides proof to substantiate expert opinion that al-Qaida was
interested in developing nuclear weapons."
In Washington, a U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said
there was no doubt about accused terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden's
interest in acquiring a "dirty bomb" -- a conventional bomb capable of
spreading radiation.
But the U.S. official said: "We have no evidence to substantiate that he's
built such a device."
The British intelligence agents did not find the device itself and it has
not since been recovered, the BBC reported.
The BBC said the Taliban regime in Afghanistan helped al-Qaida construct
the device.
The BBC report did not say where the agents found the documents, when the
device was thought to have been constructed or how much radiation it could
spread.
The documents were sent to the British government's weapons research
facility in Porton Down, southern England.
Scientists concluded al-Qaida had built a small "dirty bomb," not a
full-blown nuclear device.
There has been previous evidence of al-Qaida's interest in developing a
"dirty bomb." Such a radiological weapon would be far less deadly and
damaging than a nuclear explosion.
Computers found by journalists and U.S. troops at a variety of facilities
in Afghanistan indicated al-Qaida had sought to obtain and develop nuclear
and other potent weapons.
http://www.canoe.ca/CalgaryNews/cs.cs-01-31-0010.html
Central Europe Review - Ghost Town: Chernobyl Twelve Years On
... Pripyat is three things: it is the name of the town which had a
population of 48,000
until the nuclear power station on its doorstep, Chernobyl, went into ...
www.ce-review.org/99/9/kinoeye9_horton1.html - 25k - Cached - Similar pages
