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| Terror Networks & Islam |
| The WMD mystery |
| 2005-05-11 |
| Reportedly, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi has either a nuclear bomb or the materials for a "dirty bomb." Whether that is true remains to be discovered, but it does raise the question how much do we know about al Qaeda's WMD program. Not surprisingly Osama bin Laden views the acquisition of WMD capabilities as a right and religious duty for an Islamist. As such al Qaeda established an organizational structure for its WMD-development program. A few months ago, the London-based Arabic newspaper Al-Sharq Al-Awsat began publishing excerpts and a review of a book entitled The Story of the Arab Afghans From the Time of Arrival in Afghanistan Until Their Departure With the Taliban. This was reportedly authored by a senior religious leader, possibly even a member of the Shura Council, of al Qaeda. Although it was not focused on the WMD issue it did provide some important insights that may have been missed and that are even more relevant in light of the Zarqawi reports. One key was that Abu-Hafs al-Masri, a.k.a. Mohammed Atef, in the role of military commander (a position analogous to the secretary of defense for al Qaeda, i.e. number 3), was personally in charge of al Qaeda's efforts to gain a WMD capability. Bin Laden himself, sometime in the early 1990s, added this duty to the position. In fact, Atef's predecessor, Abu-Ubaydah al-Banshiri, was on a mission to procure material for a dirty bomb — possibly part of the embassy-bombing plot originally planned for 1996 but delayed until 1998 — when he drowned in Lake Victoria in May of 1996. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |