CNN) -- Nuclear weapons-related documents were found in an al Qaeda safe house in Afghanistan -- a discovery made even more significant in light of Taliban threats to bring about the "destruction of America" -- Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge had announced on Thursday.
http://www.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/asiapcf/central/11/16/ret.amanpour.otsc/We found this house empty, except for these papers in a bag tossed away as garbage. It appears to be detailed nuclear weapons research, some of which could have been taken from material that is already in the public domain. The Arabic handwriting says the biggest bombs, and when we flip through the photocopied hand-written pages, we found reference to uranium-235 and next, in English, the words, nuclear -- atomic bomb, and then TNT. And finally:
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Here it specifically mentions how to make a nuclear bomb.
http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0111/16/wbr.00.html11/2001
A Times (London) reporter discovers a blueprint for a "Nagasaki bomb" in files found in an abandoned al-Qa`ida house in Kabul, Afghanistan.
A so-called "Superbomb" manual, which discusses the advanced physics of nuclear weapons and dirty bombs, is found in Kabul in November 2001.
"Osama Bin Laden's bid to acquire weapons of mass destruction represents the greatest threat that Western Civilization has faced," Mail on Sunday (London), 23 June 2002
http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/other/sjm_cht.htmThe Center for Nonproliferation Studies (CNS) strives to combat the spread of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) by training the next generation of nonproliferation specialists and disseminating timely information and analysis.
http://cns.miis.edu/cns/index.htmAn abandoned Taliban building in Kabul contained an alarming document that apparently described how to make an atomic bomb. But alarm turned to laughter when a webmaster who'd viewed news footage of the document recognized it as a 1979 parody.
"Since last week's column, 'Let's Make a Time Machine', was received so well in the new step-by-step format, this month's column will follow the same format," one section begins.
The article first appeared in the Journal of Irreproducible Results, which has been publishing scientific humor and trivia since the 1950s, and Taliban fighters would find this particular parody no more helpful than any of the magazine's other mock science. It advised would-be bomb builders to obtain high-grade plutonium "at your local weapons supplier ... or perhaps the Junior Achievement in your neighborhood ... Wash your hands with soap and warm water after handling the material, and don't allow your children or pets to play in it or eat it."
"Any left over Plutonium dust is excellent as an insect repellant. You may wish to keep the substance in a lead box if you can find one in your local junk yard, but an old coffee can will do nicely."
Nevertheless, late last week white-haired BBC reporter John Simpson included footage of the document in a report from the building, along with pictures of left-behind weapons, explosives, hand grenades and even box-cutters. Anthony Lloyd, a reporter from the Times of London also appears to have discovered the document, since he refers to its erroneous instructions about using TNT to create a thermo-nuclear device. "The vernacular quickly spun out of my comprehension but there were phrases through the mass of chemical symbols and physics jargon that anyone could understand," Lloyd wrote. Soon the Times report was being included in articles by the Associated Press.
http://www.alternet.org/story/11935http://www.wired.com/news/print/0,1294,48523,00.htmlEarly today, the Times of London reported that one of its correspondents checking an abandoned Taliban safe house in Kabul found documents outlining how to produce a crude atomic bomb.
Reporter Anthony Loyd said many documents had been burned in the Taliban's hasty retreat this week, but remaining papers -- written in Arabic, German, Urdu and English -- included studies into development of a weapon to fire chemical or nuclear warheads, preliminary research on making a nuclear bomb and blueprints for smaller explosives. There was no way to determine whether the documents were accurate.
http://www.freep.com/news/nw/terror2001/wrap15_20011115.htmWASHINGTON (Reuters) - Information relating to nuclear weapons found in an al Qaeda safe house in Afghanistan was probably taken from the Internet, U.S. Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge said on Thursday.
Several news organizations have reported that documents found at the safe house located in Afghanistan's capital of Kabul contained details on how to build nuclear devices.
``Much of that information could have been taken right off the Internet some years ago. So there is nothing unusual about that information,'' Ridge told reporters, after viewing anti-terrorism technology at the Energy Department.
Ridge said he was briefed on Thursday morning about the documents and was told the information they contained was already public.
``It was available to the public through other sources other than through the al Qaeda network,'' he said.
http://www.rense.com/general16/BOMB.HTMCNN.
The BBC.
The Times of London.
U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
The Center for Nonproliferation Studies (CNS).
EVERYONE except Saddam Hussein,
has a funny WMD story.
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