Bin Laden to use mass-destruction arms?

2001-09-18 17:35

Washington - Extremists supporting suspected terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden have been trying to develop nuclear, radiological, chemical or biological weapons for attacks that may follow this week's assaults on the United States, the Washington Times reported on Saturday.

The newspaper, quoting former US intelligence officials, said the unpredictable nature of previous attacks linked to Bin Laden and the relative ease with which chemical and biological arms can be made raised the threat of such weapons being used.

"If you don't get hit by a North Korean ICBM [intercontinental ballistic missile] over the next five years, chances are you will suffer a horrible, premature death when Osama bin Laden poisons your hometown water supply," former CIA intelligence chief John Gannon said at a recent conference on terrorism, according to the newspaper.

Further intelligence reports indicate bin Laden's associates in Afghanistan are in the process of developing chemical weapons, US officials told the conservative daily.

Bin Laden is the prime suspect in the attacks Tuesday by four hijacked commercial aircraft on New York's World Trade Centre, the Pentagon just outside Washington and an aborted effort to hit a second Washington target that crashed in a field in western Pennsylvania.

Thousands are missing and presumed killed in the worst-ever terrorist attack on US soil.

Prime candidate to use weapons of mass destruction

Former Central Intelligence Agency counter-terrorism specialist Vince Cannistraro told the Washington Times that the high-casualty count in attacks blamed on Bin Laden show the Saudi-born dissident is a prime candidate to use weapons of mass destruction.

"Is he willing to do that? Obviously, he keeps escalating the terrorist operations he pulls," Cannistraro said, pointing to the 1998 bombing of two US embassies in Africa and the blast in Yemen last October that crippled the warship USS Cole, both linked to Bin Laden associates.

Cannistraro told the newspaper an Islamic front group in Chicago with ties to Bin Laden's al-Qaeda ("The Base") network had invested in a company that produces chlorine for swimming pools, raising fears that the plant could have a sideline in producing chemical arms.

Further, a 1998 FBI report made public concluded the network, had tried since 1993 to buy enriched uranium "for the purpose of developing nuclear weapons."

Al-Qaeda is one of the amorphous multi-national extremist groups that prompted widespread concern in the US State Department's annual "Patterns of Global Terrorism" report released in April.

"Most terrorists continued to rely on conventional tactics, such as bombing, shooting and kidnapping, but some terrorists - such as Osama bin Laden and his associates - continued to seek [chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear] capabilities," the report said. - Sapa-AFP

- SAPA