Bin Laden sought to acquire
radioactive material for a “dirty bomb”, claims
a book written by a senior aide to the Al Qaeda chief.
The British newspaper said
that Egyptian-born Abu Walid al-Misri was believed to
be the author of the forthcoming book, which details the
internal tensions, debates and disillusionment within
the group. Excerpts were published in a London-based Arabic
newspaper last week.
Misri says that although
Bin Laden was cautious about increasing the organisation’s
weaponry, he bowed to pressure from the leadership’s
hawks and sought to buy radioactive material from his
supporters in Chechnya.
Mohammed Atef, Qaeda’s
military commander and chief advocate of obtaining weapons
of mass destruction (WMDs), had suggested radioactive
material be stored on US soil for use in a rapid direct
response to American aggression against Afghanistan.
Atef was given the go-ahead
to contact Abu Khattab, a Chechen-based Saudi jihadist,
and asked him to obtain materials from Russian nuclear
facilities in the Caucasus. The deal never came through.
Similarly, the Taliban,
who Misri says had “a considerable quantity of radioactive
materials seized from smugglers”, failed to answer
Al Qaeda’s request, preferring instead to sell most
of it to Pakistan
As Afghanistan fell to
coalition troops, Misri says, disquiet began to grow about
Bin Laden’s strategy.
Bin Laden came under fire
for having underestimated US determination to destroy
the Qaeda network, believing that the 9/11 attacks, coming
after the East African embassy bombing and the attempted
sinking of the USS Cole, would deter the US from invading
Afghanistan.
It was also at this time
that Bin Laden fell out with Taliban leader Mullah Omar,
who had allowed him to stay in Afghanistan providing he
did not give interviews to the western media.
Misri, who was with Bin
Laden in Tora Bora, is thought to be one of Al-Qaeda’s
leading theorists. When the leadership fled Afghanistan,
his book records, the organisation had been devastated
by the death of Atef in a US bombing raid near Kandahar.
The book also criticises
the growth in Al Qaeda training camps, saying many of
them were comprised of spies and that they lacked discipline.
