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Al-Qaida's U.S. nuclear targets listed - top 9 cities

FULL STORY at http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/printer-friendly.asp?ARTICLE_ID=45313

Al-Qaida's prime targets for launching nuclear terrorist attacks are the nine U.S. cities with the highest Jewish populations, according to captured leaders and documents.

As first revealed last week in Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin, the premium, online intelligence newsletter published by the founder of WND, Osama bin Laden is planning what he calls an "American Hiroshima," the ultimate terrorist attack on U.S. cities, using nuclear weapons already smuggled into the country across the Mexican border along with thousands of sleeper agents.

The series of attacks is designed to kill 4 million, destroy the economy and fundamentally alter the course of history.

At least two fully assembled and operational nuclear weapons are believed to be hidden in the United States already, according to G2 Bulletin intelligence sources and an upcoming book, "The al-Qaida Connection: International Terrorism, Organized Crime and the Coming Apocalypse," by former FBI consultant Paul L. Williams.

The cities chosen as optimal targets are New York, Miami, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Chicago, San Francisco, Las Vegas, Boston and Washington, D.C. New York and Washington top the preferred target list for al-Qaida leadership.

Bin Laden's goal, according to G2 Bulletin sources, is to launch one initial attack, followed by a second on another city to simulate the U.S. bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The optimal dates for the attacks are Aug. 6, the anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing, Sept. 11 and May 14, the anniversary of the re-creation of the state of Israel in 1948. No specific year has been suggested, however, this Aug. 6 represents the 60th anniversary of the Hiroshima attack.

The captured terrorists and documents also suggest smaller attacks may take place on American soil before the nuclear incidents. They may include some involving automatic weapons at schools and shopping malls, but will not include any airplane hijackings. Why? Because bin Laden does not want any failed efforts to overshadow "the success of Sept. 11." There will also not be any attacks on U.S. nuclear power plants. The rationale? The nuclear power plants can act as force multipliers when the weapons of mass destruction are detonated.

Another requirement dictated from the top at al-Qaida is that the attacks take place in daylight, so that the whole world will be able to see the images of a mushroom cloud over an American city.

One of the sources for the information is Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the chief planner of the Sept. 11 attacks, who is now in U.S. custody.

As previously reported by G2 Bulletin, al-Qaida has obtained at least 40 nuclear weapons from the former Soviet Union – including suitcase nukes, nuclear mines, artillery shells and even some missile warheads. In addition, documents captured in Afghanistan show al-Qaida had plans to assemble its own nuclear weapons with fissile material it purchased on the black market.

U.S. military sources also say there is evidence to suggest al-Qaida is paying former Russian special forces "Spetznaz" troops to assist the terrorist group in locating nuclear weapons planted in the U.S. during the Cold War. Osama bin Laden's group is also paying nuclear scientists from Russia and Pakistan to maintain its existing nuclear arsenal and assemble additional weapons with the materials it has invested hundreds of millions in procuring over a period of 10 years. Al-Qaida sources indicate they would prefer to use Russian-made weapons for symbolic reasons.

The plans for the devastating nuclear attack on the U.S. have been under development for more than a decade. It is designed as a final deadly blow to the U.S., which is seen by al-Qaida and its allies as "the Great Satan."

At least half the nuclear weapons in the al-Qaida arsenal were obtained for cash from the Chechen terrorist allies.

But the most disturbing news is that high level U.S. officials now believe at least some of those weapons have been smuggled into the U.S. for use in the near future in major cities as part of this "American Hiroshima" plan.

According to Williams, former CIA Director George Tenet informed President Bush one month after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that at least two suitcase nukes had reached al-Qaida operatives in the U.S.

"Each suitcase weighed between 50 and 80 kilograms (approximately 110 to 176 pounds) and contained enough fissionable plutonium and uranium to produce an explosive yield in excess of two kilotons," wrote Williams. "One suitcase bore the serial number 9999 and the Russian manufacturing date of 1988. The design of the weapons, Tenet told the president, is simple. The plutonium and uranium are kept in separate compartments that are linked to a triggering mechanism that can be activated by a clock or a call from the cell phone."

According to the author, the news sent Bush "through the roof," prompting him to order his national security team to give nuclear terrorism priority over every other threat to America.

However, it is worth noting that Bush failed to translate this policy into securing the U.S.-Mexico border through which the nuclear weapons and al-Qaida operatives are believed to have passed with the help of the MS-13 smugglers. He did, however, order the building of underground bunkers away from major metropolitan areas for use by federal government managers following an attack.

Bin Laden, according to Williams, has nearly unlimited funds to spend on his nuclear terrorism plan because he has remained in control of the Afghanistan-produced heroin industry. Poppy production has greatly increased even while U.S. troops are occupying the country, he writes. Al-Qaida has developed close relations with the Albanian Mafia, which assists in the smuggling and sale of heroin throughout Europe and the U.S.

Some of that money is used to pay off the notorious MS-13 street gang between $30,000 and $50,000 for each sleeper agent smuggled into the U.S. from Mexico. The sleepers are also provided with phony identification, most often bogus matricula consular ID cards indistinguishable from Mexico's official ID, now accepted in the U.S. to open bank accounts and obtain driver's licenses.

According to Williams' sources, thousands of al-Qaida sleeper agents have now been forward deployed into the U.S. to carry out their individual roles in the coming "American Hiroshima" plan.

Tancredo: If They Nuke Us, Bomb Mecca

FULL STORY at http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,162795,00.html

A Colorado congressman told a radio show host that the U.S. could "take out" Islamic holy sites if Muslim fundamentalist terrorists attacked the country with nuclear weapons.

Rep. Tom Tancredo made his remarks on WFLA-AM in Orlando, Fla. His spokesman stressed he was only speaking hypothetically.

Talk show host Pat Campbell asked the Littleton Republican how the country should respond if terrorists struck several U.S. cities with nuclear weapons.

"Well, what if you said something like — if this happens in the United States, and we determine that it is the result of extremist, fundamentalist Muslims, you know, you could take out their holy sites," Tancredo answered.

"You're talking about bombing Mecca," Campbell said.

"Yeah," Tancredo responded.

The congressman later said he was "just throwing out some ideas" and that an "ultimate threat" might have to be met with an "ultimate response."

Spokesman Will Adams said the four-term congressman doesn't support threatening holy Islamic sites but that Tancredo was grappling with the hypothetical situation of a terrorist strike deadlier than the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

"We have an enemy with no uniform, no state, who looks like you and me and only emerges right before an attack. How do we go after someone like that?" Adams said.

"What is near and dear to them? They're willing to sacrifice everything in this world for the next one. What is the pressure point that would deter them from their murderous impulses?" he said.

Where nuke proliferation leads - 6-year hypothetical scenario

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/printer-friendly.asp?ARTICLE_ID=46392

- North Korea will have a nuclear arsenal of eight to 10 warheads by next year.

- Iran will conduct nuclear tests in 2007.

- Japan will withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and rapidly develop a nuclear deterrent of its own by 2007.

- South Korea does the same a year later.

- North Korea begins developing three to 12 nukes a year at the same time.

- A Chinese-Japanese nuclear arms race begins by 2007.

- By 2009, North Korea tests a long-range inter-continental ballistic missile capable of reliably and accurately hitting North America.

- By 2009, North Korea has enough nukes stockpiled to begin selling to other nations – like Venezuela and Nigeria
.
These are just a few of the projections nuclear expert Allison Graham, director of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government and former assistant secretary of defense, makes in the October issue of Atlantic Monthly.

Graham is the author of the highly acclaimed "Nuclear Terrorism," who believes it is entirely possible that al-Qaida already has nuclear weapons hidden in U.S. cities.

He writes in the upcoming issue of Atlantic Monthly that, unless something is done to prevent the production of nuclear weapons in countries like Iran and North Korea, shortly it will be impossible to keep them out of the hands of terrorists.

In addition, he says proliferation will lead to many other nations – including Saudi Arabia and Egypt – going nuclear.

As WorldNetDaily reported, Allison believes it is possible that al-Qaida is hiding nuclear bombs in one or several American cities today," he wrote in the Chicago Tribune last month. "So who can say that the trucks the FBI warned about might not contain weapons of mass destruction?"

Allison explains that the highly enriched uranium needed to build a simple nuclear weapon is smaller than a football.

"It could be smuggled through American borders and into the metropolis the way illegal drugs come into the city every day: in uninspected cargo containers delivered by ships and trains, contraband smuggled over the Canadian-American border, or innumerable other ways," he says.

Allison reminds Americans that in May 2003, bin Laden obtained a fatwa from a Saudi cleric providing religious justification for al-Qaida'a use of nuclear weapons against the U.S.

"Titled 'A Treatise on the Legal Status for Using Weapons of Mass Destruction Against Infidels,' it asserts that 'if a bomb that killed 10 million of them and burned as much of their land as they have burned Muslims' lands or dropped on them, it would be permissible,'" he explains.

Bin Laden has repeatedly promised to trump Sept. 11 with a more spectacular terrorist attack on the U.S.

"The ultimate terrorist spectacle would be an American city enveloped by a nuclear mushroom cloud," writes Allison.

As WND has reported, for more than 10 years, bin Laden has planned to use nuclear weapons in a terrorist attack on the U.S. The plan is dubbed "American Hiroshima." In fact, as first reported in Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin, captured al-Qaida operatives and documents suggest the weapons have already been smuggled into the country.

China, Russia Toast Success of War Games.

China praised its first joint military exercises with Russia on Friday for lifting relations to an all-time high and opening room for further cooperation, Reuters news agency reported.

Eight days of drills involving more than 10,000 troops from the former Cold War foes' armies, navies and air forces concluded with a practice air and ground assault in China's eastern Shandong province.

"Through the exercises, the two armed forces... improved their capabilities to meet new challenges and threats and to fight international terrorism, extremism and separatism," Xinhua quoted Chinese Defense Minister Cao Gangchuan as saying. "China and Russia have reached an unprecedented height in their strategic partnership," it said in a commentary.

Ties between Beijing and Moscow have grown closer in recent years around points of common ground that include concern about instability in Central Asia. Both countries want to keep political turmoil in Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan from spilling over their borders and to check the U.S. presence in the region.

The two countries, which share a 4,300-km (2,700-mile) frontier, are also players in six-party talks on North Korea's nuclear crisis, reflecting shared security interests.

China has been looking to Russia for energy resources to feed its booming economy, while Moscow is keen to boost sales to Beijing of military hardware like the advanced bombers and fighter jets showcased during the war games.

The state-run People's Daily said on Friday the two countries would increase military trade from the current volume of $60 billion to $80 billion by 2010. China would also pour $12 billion of investment into Russia's energy sector and infrastructure construction before 2020, the newspaper, a mouthpiece for the ruling Communist Party, said.

"The war games also made clear that China is willing to cooperate with other countries militarily and is serious about learning from its peers as it modernizes its armed forces," Xinhua said. "More moves to deepen China's military communication with other countries can be expected."

Xinhua quoted Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov as saying Russia and China may hold more joint military exercises in the future.

Iran Willing to Share Nuclear Technology With Other Muslim Nations
FULL STORY at http://www.breitbart.com/news/2005/09/15/D8CKQ3G00.html

Iran is willing to provide other Islamic nations with nuclear technology, Iran's hard-line president said Thursday.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad made the comments after meeting Turkey's prime minister on the sidelines of a gathering of world leaders at the United Nations, according to the state-run Islamic Republic News Agency.

Ahmadinejad repeated promises that Iran will not pursue nuclear weapons, IRNA reported. Then he added: "Iran is ready to transfer nuclear know-how to the Islamic countries due to their need."

Iran has said it is determined to pursue its nuclear program to process uranium and produce energy, despite European attempts to limit it. The United States accuses Tehran of secretly seeking to develop nuclear weapons, a charge Tehran denies.

Meanwhile, diplomats and government officials in Europe said a U.S.- European drive to refer Iran to the U.N. Security Council is encountering fierce opposition and could be postponed despite deep international concerns about Tehran's nuclear agenda.

Satellite Wars
FULL STORY at http://www.washtimes.com/national/20050921-102706-1524r.htm

The U.S. military is bracing for future attacks in space, and the Air Force has deployed an electronic-warfare unit capable of jamming enemy satellites, the general in charge of space defenses says.

"You can't go to war and win without space," said Gen. Lance Lord, the four-star general in charge of the Colorado-based Air Force Space Command.

Gen. Lord said in an interview with The Washington Times that his command plays a key role in monitoring space, protecting satellites from attack or disruption and preparing to carry out strikes on enemy spacecraft.

Gen. Lord said the United States has a major strategic advantage over other nations' militaries because of its satellite communications and intelligence capabilities. "So we've got to protect that advantage," he said.

"We're not talking about weaponizing space. We're not talking about massive satellite attacks coming over the horizon or anything like that. This is really a way to understand space situational awareness, who's out there, who's operating. We understand that," Gen. Lord said.

The top priorities of the space command are monitoring space and knowing the threats. Two other missions are defending satellites and conducting offensive operations against enemy spacecraft or ground signals that threaten U.S. satellites.

"We understand that jamming has gone on and other things have occurred, and we watch that very closely," Gen. Lord said.

He declined to identify specific nations that are working on anti-satellite weapons.

Other defense officials said China is a key worry as far as space warfare, partly because it has tested electronic signal jamming against satellites.

"We watch China," one official said. "They've had 45 successful launches since 1996. They will be a very robust and potent competitor in the future, and we want to make sure we understand who they are and how they're emerging in this business. They look at us; we look at them."

Russia also in the past has deployed anti-satellite weapons and is developing anti-satellite jamming weapons.

Gen. Lord dismissed assertions by critics that the Air Force's plans to use small spacecraft for maintenance could include using the craft as anti-satellite ramming devices.

"Anytime you have a satellite out there, if you run it into something else, you've got that kind of capability. That is not what we're doing," he said.

Instead, offensive anti-satellite weapons currently are limited to "countercommunications" operations -- interrupting the signals sent from the ground to satellites that try to disrupt U.S. military or civilian spacecraft, Gen. Lord said.

The 76th Space Control Squadron, based at Peterson Air Force Base, Colo., last year deployed the first offensive countercommunications system that uses mobile teams that can fire electronic jamming gear capable of knocking out enemy satellite communications.

"If somebody is trying to use space against us, we could interrupt, in a reversible kind of way, those kind of capabilities as needed and as directed by U.S. policy," Gen. Lord said.

Edging closer to doomsday
http://www.duluthsuperior.com/mld/bradenton/news/opinion/12444003.htm

In 1947 a group of concerned atomic scientists created what became known as the Doomsday Clock. It was set at seven minutes to midnight. The purpose of this clock was to use a universally recognized device in such a way that the laymen of the world could more readily grasp not only the danger of nuclear annihilation but precisely how close we were/are to experiencing it. It has over the years fluctuated from a low of two minutes 'til midnight during height of the Cold War in the 1950s, to a high of 17 in the years following the disintegration of the Soviet Union. Due to the recent expansions of the nuclear arsenals of India, Pakistan, North Korea and now Iran, it is back to its original starting point.

The Doomsday Clock of the nuclear era, as frightening as it is, has always been based upon a possibility, not a certainty. Even in the darkest days of nuclear brinkmanship between the United States and the Soviet Union, there was always a chance that the worst could and would be averted. Fortunately, to this point in time that hope has been realized.

Unfortunately, life has the unsettling tendency to replace one problem with another. This new challenge, while nowhere near as cataclysmic as nuclear warfare, has the potential to be equally life-altering. And I am afraid that this is one clock that cannot be stopped.

To say that oil is important to the functioning of the modern world is the equivalent of saying that oxygen is important to the continuation of human life. At this point in time we as a society simply could not do without it. This is a condition that we had better start taking very seriously because the day is coming sooner than we think when we will no longer be able to count on King Oil to get us where we want to go, bring us the things we both want and need and keep the cold night air at bay.

There is much debate about the actual date of the start of the irreversible decline in the world's supply of oil - estimates range from 10 years from now to sometime in the latter half of this century - but none about the inevitability of its eventual arrival. We will run out of oil. That is not a prediction, it is a fact. What we plan on doing about it, and even more importantly, when we plan on planning to do something about it, is all that matters.

There are some who would say that commentary such as this is alarmist and/or baseless, and they would invariably point out that such cries of approaching gloom and doom have indeed proven themselves unfounded in the past. John Malthus is the name most often brought up in such discussions.

Malthus was a British economist who has gained notoriety as one of the great false prophets of the modern era. It was he who struck a note of fear into the hearts of those who take notice of such things by the publication of his seminal work, "An Essay on the Principle of Population." In this work he advocated that humanity would soon outstrip its ability to feed itself unless its population growth was checked by moral restraints, war, disease or ultimately the aforepredicted famine. Writing at the dawn of the 19th century, his contention did seem plausible. What he had no way of knowing, of course, was the torrent of advancements that would soon follow in fields as wide-ranging as soil conservation, water management, fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, plant genetics, etc. That the earth is now home to more than 6 billion people most likely has Mr. Malthus spinning in his grave.

The fundamental difference between the production of food and the reliance on oil, and the fundamental flaw in Malthus' thinking, is that food is a commodity that is replaceable in a relatively short and very predictable time frame. Oil is the by-product of years of the decomposition of organic materials. Any and all attempts at making synthetic oil have proven to be prohibitively expensive or of too small a yield to even approach meeting the demand. And even if a heretofore unknown giant field of good old-fashioned oil is discovered in the near future, that will only delay the inevitable. We will still run out of oil sooner or later.

Finding alternative sources of energy is not a pie in the sky dream; it is an inescapable imperative.

As it was with the solving of the Malthusian challenge, the problem can and will be fixed through techniques and processes that we can scarcely imagine now. But only if we take the problem seriously enough now to bring to bear the full-scale effort that it will require. This is a problem that will take the combined effort of the genius and the ingenious alike. If we wait any longer to begin this monumental task, we run the extreme risk of having waited too long.

Unfortunately, the powers that be seem perfectly willing to maintain the status quo.

This is not meant to imply that the mindset of the multinational corporations that dominate the world's energy markets is the sole source of the problem, but it most certainly is a major part of it - even if their internal motivations are perfectly understandable. Any for-profit business entity is precisely that: an organization whose sole purpose is to not only create but to maximize its profit. And making money, they most assuredly are. With oil prices being what they are, they are reaping riches unknown in the annals of human civilization. These companies - as well as many in the highest offices of our national political leadership who gladly do their bidding - will not change their well-established methodology until they are given ample incentive to do so.

Speaking of motivation and incentives: Did it feel a little closer to midnight the last time you filled up your tank?

Experts Say Suicide Mission in United States Is Inevitable
http://abcnews.go.com/International/story?id=942343&page=1

Suicide attacks have been around for decades, but the string of blasts that paralyzed London on July 7 marked the first time the tactic has been used in Western Europe. Experts say the bombings are a wake-up call to all European countries and the United States — states geographically removed from conflict areas where suicide bombings are common.

Opinions differ as to whether suicide recruits would be homegrown or imported.

Bruce Newsome, a terrorism researcher at the think tank RAND, said the plot carried out by four men in London is a "likely model for future U.S. attacks." The bombers, all British citizens, had no criminal records, weren't on any watch lists and had no extremist pasts. (A fifth man, believed to be the mastermind of the plot, has been arrested in Egypt.) Tracking such potential perpetrators is nearly impossible because there are no warning signs, Newsome said.

For a long time, Brits reassured themselves that because the United Kingdom was liberal and a safe haven to fundamentalist Muslims, it would never become a target, Newsome explained. Although intelligence forces have been good at thwarting past attempts of attack on Britons, Brits still remain No. 3 on the al Qaeda hit list (after Americans and Jews), he said. British Prime Minister Tony Blair has been President Bush's closest ally in fighting the war on terror and in Iraq.

Regardless of reasons, people were shocked to learn that homegrown recruits carried out the bombings.

Like anarchists, many jihadis are college-educated, middle class and often they seek a guru rather than a formal structure, said Scott Atran, terrorism expert and professor at the University of Michigan, describing exactly what police detectives discovered about the London bombers. Their hard-to-penetrate social networks consist of about 70 percent friends and 20 percent family, he said. They don't necessarily have a fanatical or violent past before they become "born-again" radical Islamists, and many are married. Most would-be suicide bombers Atran has interviewed said they're committed idealists on a mission to "save humanity" and restore dignity to their community.

Using humans as bombs has gained in popularity over the last couple of years. From 2000 to 2003, more than 300 suicide attacks killed more than 5,300 people in 17 countries and wounded thousands, according to Atran, adding that more and more are religiously motivated. The numbers have drastically increased with the Iraqi insurgency opting for suicide bombing as the weapon of choice.

The first major contemporary suicide attack was the December 1981 bombing of the Iraqi embassy in Beirut. The next spate of attacks came in 1983 with Lebanon's Hezbollah party going on a rampage to kick the French and U.S. armies out of the country. Following in its footsteps, the Palestinian Hamas terrorist group has continued using suicide bombers in Israel. In Southeast Asia, the Tamil minority in Sri Lanka perfected suicide attacks by indoctrinating youths at an early age. Once the Tamil secured a measure of autonomy, the suicides stopped. The Sept. 11, 2001, attacks also stand out as a massive suicide operation in the United States.

Atran points out that since the start of the war in Iraq, self-forming, independent jihad groups have blossomed. He believes the London group is one of those decentralized "cells" acting more or less on its own. "The jihadist network is better prepared than ever to carry on without alleged al Qaeda leader, Osama bin Laden," Atran said.

It seems jihad has been growing in popularity with disillusioned European youth.

"Al Qaeda and the jihad movement provide the same attraction that communism did years ago," said Arnaud de Borchgrave, a terrorism expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Europe's huge immigrant population harbors massive discontent as unemployment rises among Muslim men and many of them feel marginalized, he explained. And it's a problem that's not going away.

Atran also blames the lack of mobility in Europe as a primary reason for young Muslims to seek out the jihadi cause. That's why he believes the real danger is not within Iraq or the United States but in Europe. "You've got sophisticated people with money and smarts and that's where the biggest threat is," he said. "There's no place for jihadi movement to take root in the United States." He believes it's much easier to become fully integrated in America and to climb up the social ladder than in most European countries.

Newsome disagrees. He says that failure to advance is not at the root of the problem. "It's relative deprivation as in 'I feel worse off than you' that causes this middle-class angst," he said. Newsome cited Osama bin Laden as a prime example of a wealthy, well-traveled man who felt deprived compared to the Christian elite. In his opinion America is as fertile ground as Europe is for jihadi terrorism.

His theory for a less-prevalent jihadi presence in the United States has more to do with immigration. Europe has 12 million Muslims compared to the United States' 2 million to 6 million, depending on various estimates. In addition, the United States doesn't have the huge influx of Muslim immigrants that Europe does, Newsome said, resulting in a smaller potential audience for violent Muslim fundamentalism.

Regardless of whether the talent is homegrown or comes from abroad, experts agree that suicide terrorism is bound for the United States. Just because an attack hasn't occurred since 2001, doesn't mean we shouldn't fear an attack, said Newsome.

"Jihadists are extremely patient, they don't need to strike right away," he said, citing the eight years that separated the first World Trade Center attack and 9/11. Atran fears the next attack will be even bolder than 9/11 and may involve a nuclear weapon.

Analysts say taking up arms won't deter the next generation of bombers.

"Like pounding mercury with a hammer, applying raw military power likely won't do the trick," said Atran. "Get to know thy enemy instead of fueling the fire of would-be bombers by labeling jihadis as immoral and depraved annihilators," he said.

Atran adds that infiltrating terrorist networks should be the No. 1 priority, instead of dedicating all of our resources to the impossible task of defending every U.S. target.

Nuke terrorists' favorite dates
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=45562

Intelligence gathered from captured al-Qaida documents and interrogations of captured operatives has provided the U.S. with some specific information about Osama bin Laden's favored dates for his decade-long plan for an "American Hiroshima" nuclear terrorist attack – and one of those dates arrives this week.

One of the most frequently cited dates is Aug. 6, the anniversary of the U.S. nuclear bombing of Hiroshima. Saturday marks the 60th anniversary of that attack, so this Aug. 6 would have special significance, reports Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin, the premium, online intelligence newsletter that has broken several major stories tracking al-Qaida's nuclear terrorism plans.

An amateur sleuth, Michael Matuszak, points out, for instance, that Saturday would also mark the 1,426 days since Sept. 11, 2001. He points out that, in the Islamic calendar, this is the year 1426 – and that Aug. 6 would be the first day of the seventh month, the exact midway point of the year 1426.

"It is as if Bin Laden started by scheduling 'American Hiroshima' for 8-6-2005 and then worked backwards to arrive at 9-11-2001 as the precursor," he speculates.

Matuszak arrives at the calculation, however, by including Sept. 11, 2001, in his addition.

The Aug. 6 date and its association with Hiroshima was actually cited by captured al-Qaida operatives, according to U.S. military sources.

So, how high is the risk this week?

This year, falling on a Saturday as it does, some G2B intelligence sources say it is highly unlikely a major nuclear attack will occur.

"In addition to mentioning this date as a preferred target, Al-Qaida operatives have made it clear they also prefer an attack during the daylight during the week to wreak maximum havoc and to be sure the entire world views the images of burning U.S. cities," said one knowledgeable military intelligence source.

Others point out that Aug. 6 arrives in Japan while it is still Aug. 5 in the U.S. Does that raise the threat level this Friday?

So far, no one in the Department of Homeland Security has mentioned raising the threat this week. And though the Aug. 6 date was mentioned by al-Qaida operatives in association with its "American Hiroshima" nuclear attack, no year was ever discussed.

There are several other favored dates mentioned by bin Laden operatives in association with this planned mega-attack on the U.S.

Paul Williams, author of the upcoming book "The Al Qaeda Connection," acknowledges that, according to U.S. military analysts, bin Laden places a great deal of significance on dates. He believes Sept. 11 was chosen because it represented the fifth anniversary of the conviction of Ramzi Yousef for the World Trade Center bombing.

The bombings of the U.S. embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, occurred Aug. 7, 1998, the eighth anniversary of the 1990 U.S. commitment to deploy troops to Saudi Arabia.

Williams says his sources also point to two dates in October as significant. Oct. 2 is the anniversary of the federal court conviction of blind Sheikh Omar Abdul Rahman, "the spiritual mentor of bin Laden and his top lieutenant, Ayman al-Zawahiri. Another date of significance is Oct. 7, the day of the launching of Operation Enduring Freedom.

Other dates mentioned by other bin Laden watchers include Sept. 11 and May 14, the anniversary of the re-creation of the state of Israel in 1948.

But bin Laden also craves the element of surprise. Therefore, the more attention specific dates are given, the more it reduces the likelihood that they will be chosen for the ultimate terrorist attack, say G2 Bulletin sources.

Bin Laden has spent billions of dollars on the successful purchase and development of nuclear weapons – money his al-Qaida terrorist network earned by directing poppy cultivation in the fields of Afghanistan, right under the noses of U.S. occupation forces.

That is the finding of G2 Bulletin sources as well as the investigative work of journalist Williams, and international terrorism expert Yossef Bodansky, author of "Bin Laden: The Man Who Declared War on America."

The vast drug fortune has also aided al-Qaida in smuggling some of those nuclear weapons – along with thousands of sleeper agents – over the Mexican border with the help of the MS-13 criminal street gang, say the sources.

According to captured al-Qaida leaders and documents, bin Laden's terrorist network has a plan called "American Hiroshima" involving the multiple detonation of nuclear weapons already smuggled into the U.S.

Al-Qaida has obtained at least 40 nuclear weapons from the former Soviet Union – including suitcase nukes, nuclear mines, artillery shells and even some missile warheads. In addition, documents captured in Afghanistan show al-Qaida had plans to assemble its own nuclear weapons with fissile material it purchased on the black market.

Besides trying to detonate its own nuclear weapons already planted in the U.S., military sources also say there is evidence to suggest al-Qaida is paying former Russian special forces officers to assist the terrorist group in locating nuclear weapons formerly concealed inside the U.S. by the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Osama bin Laden's group is also paying nuclear scientists from Russia and Pakistan to maintain its existing arsenal and assemble additional weapons with the materials it has invested hundreds of millions in procuring over a period of 10 years.

The plans for the devastating nuclear attack on the U.S. have been under development for more than a decade. It is designed as a final deadly blow of defeat to the U.S., which is seen by al-Qaida and its allies as "the Great Satan."

At least half the nuclear weapons in the al-Qaida arsenal were obtained for cash from the Chechen terrorist allies.

At least nine major U.S. cities, including New York and Washington, have been mentioned as prime targets for the al-Qaida nuclear terrorists.

'An Islamist threat like the Nazis'
By Tony Blankley
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
September 12, 2005
http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20050912-122024-9420r.htm

The threat of the radical Islamists taking over Europe is every bit as great to the United States as was the threat of the Nazis taking over Europe in the 1940s.

We cannot afford to lose Europe. We cannot afford to see Europe transformed into a launching pad for Islamist jihad.

While we in the United States and Europe have vast resources for protecting ourselves, we have thought ourselves into a position of near impotence.

Beyond the growing number of Muslims committed to terrorism is the threat from the Islamic diaspora's growing cultural and religious assertiveness -- particularly in largely secular Europe, where Muslim cultural assimilation has not occurred.

It is beginning to dawn on Europeans that the combination of a shrinking ethnic-European population and an expanding, culturally assertive Muslim population might lead to the fall of Western civilization in Europe within a century.

This phenomenon, called Eurabia, is viewed with growing fatalism both in Europe and in America. Such fatalism, however, is premature.

Last November, an Islamist terrorist's butchering of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh, who had made a movie revealing abuse of Muslim women, aroused deep fears in Holland and across the Continent.

The public anger, which included the burning of mosques in traditionally tolerant Holland, is evidence that the European instinct for survival has not been fully extinguished.

But that survival instinct is threatened by the multiculturalism and political correctness advocated in media and academe -- and institutionalized in national and European Union laws and regulations for half a century.

Europe's effort at cultural tolerance since World War II slowly morphed into a surprisingly deep self-loathing of Western culture that denied the instinct for cultural and national self-defense.

If Europe doesn't rise to the challenge, Eurabia will come to pass. Then Europe will cease to be an American ally and instead become a base of operations (as she already is to a small degree) against us.

What Muslims say and do now is the measure of the political, cultural and military danger facing the West.

Most other religious developments around the world, such as the spread of Christianity in the Southern Hemisphere, have benign or nonviolent consequences.

However, the overwhelming political fact deriving from the ferment in Islam is that, to some degree, some percentage of Muslims are prepared to murder -- and are murdering -- great numbers in what they feel is their religious duty.

Many more Muslims are, to some degree, supportive or protective of these killers. Even more Muslims, while not supportive of such tactics, share many of the terrorists' religious convictions and perceptions.

Radical currents within Islam drive some Muslims to terrorism and push others at least to a more adversarial view of their relationship to non-Muslim nations and cultures in which they live -- whether in Paris, London, Hamburg, Rotterdam, or any American city.

The resurgence of a militant Islam drove the United States to fight two wars in Muslim countries in two years, disrupted America's alliance with Europe, caused the largest reorganization of the U.S. government in half a century (with the creation of the Department of Homeland Security), changed election results in Europe and threatened the stability of most governments in the Middle East.

This resurgence of militant Islam also drove America to pressure Saudi Arabia to change the way it teaches religion to its children and others (through madrasses) around the world. It forced America to pressure Indonesia, the Philippines, Pakistan and Somalia, among others, to change domestic security policies. It prompted America to build a ring of bases in Central Asia across what used to be the Muslim part of the Soviet Union.

And we are only four years removed from the September 11 attacks.

Radical Islamists like Osama bin Laden are not traditionalists. The idea of individual jihad -- separating jihadist decisions from the Muslim community -- is a radical departure. But it is important for recruiting potential terrorists.

Over the past 30 years, the Muslim population in Europe expanded rapidly from a few hundred thousand to more than 20 million. Muslims there and in the United States are arguing over their role in Western societies: Should they integrate, seclude themselves, or convert the West to Islam?

Many Muslims in Europe are content to be law-abiding, culturally integrated citizens. But an increasing number feel some degree of alienation. Many are beginning to believe that they have a religious duty not to integrate.

Radical Islam, sometimes accurately called Islamo-fascism, has all the "advantages" the Nazis had in Germany in the 1930s. The Islamo-fascists find a Muslim population adrift, confused and humiliated by the dominance of foreign nations and cultures. They find a large, youthful population increasingly disdainful of their parents' passive habits.

Just as the Nazis reached back to German mythology and the supposed Aryan origins of the German people, the radical Islamists reach back to the founding ideas and myths of their religious culture. And just like the Nazis, they claim to speak for authentic traditions while actually advancing expedient and radical innovations.

The Islamo-fascist mullahs encourage young Muslims not to turn to their parents for guidance on choosing a wife (or wives). Nor are young Muslims to be guided by parental or community disapproval of making an individual commitment to jihad. They are allowed to drink alcohol, shave their beards and commit what otherwise would be judged immorality in a Muslim -- in order to advance jihad.

In many ways, these radical Muslim fundamentalists are postmodern, not pre-modern. They are designing a distinctly Western, fascistic version of Islam that is less and less connected to the Islam of their Middle Eastern homeland.

Radical Western Islam brings the combative strength and deep faith of authentic traditions while constantly modifying itself to best attack liberal, secular European and American institutions.

The radical Islamists are able to rationalize concessions to modernity with ancient-sounding mumbo jumbo while still sounding like authentic fundamentalists, the only true voice of Islam.

The Nazis overwhelmed German society with these methods 70 years ago. There is building evidence that the radical Islamists are moving ever more successfully down the same path -- particularly within the younger generations in Europe and, to a lesser extent, in the United States.

Many young Muslims in Europe, and some in America, particularly second- and third-generation Muslims, cannot be considered part of a diaspora. They no longer are strongly connected to their family's country of origin, nor do they intend to return.

Instead, they are forming their own Muslim consciousness from the Internet, books, videotapes and audiotapes.

The Internet offers many radical Islamic "experts" and mullahs who function like Dear Abby. European Muslims pose questions on everything from whether to be polite to infidels to how to prepare for jihad. The immediate answer often is a hodgepodge of Koranic citations, quotes from ancient scholars and personal advice.

Within this constantly morphing digital environment, an increasingly radical Islam is emerging in Europe. Disconnected from their homelands, isolated from their non-Muslim neighbors and fellow workers, alienated from their elders, Europe's young Muslims find a weird, disembodied, globalized radical Islam appealing.

Muslim sections of Paris, Rotterdam and other European cities already are labeled "no-go zones" for ethnic Europeans, including armed policemen.

As the Muslim populations -- and their level of cultural and religious assertiveness -- expand, European geography will be "reclaimed" for Islam. Europe will become pockmarked with "little Fallujahs" that effectively will be impenetrable by anything much short of a U.S. Marine division.

Not only will Islamic cultural aggression against a seemingly passive and apologetic indigenous population increase, but the zone of safety and support for the actual terrorists will expand as well.

If the current leaders of Europe do not respond to the Islamist threat boldly and effectively, the common European people might decide to defend their culture as vigilantes. In that case, Europe again will become a bloody urban battleground.

This would be a temporary tragedy for liberal principles of governance, but at least would secure Europe from Muslim domination over the next half-century.

The harm of a vigilante effort against the radical Islamists can be mitigated, if not avoided, if the governments themselves will lead the struggle for European cultural survival.

It should be a prime objective of American policy to encourage European governments and the European Union to lead their people in this struggle, rather than follow them.

Pentagon Drills For Nuke Terror
http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=45880

When authorities tried to arrest a terrorist discovered unloading an improvised nuclear weapon in the port of Charleston, S.C., the bomb was detonated, killing 10,000, injuring 30,000 and exposing as many as 100,000 to high levels of radiation.

That was the scenario at the center of a nuclear terrorism drill, completed this week, one involving thousands of civilians, military personnel and local and federal officials.

"Sudden Respond 05" was led by Virginia's Fort Monroe-based Joint Task Force-Civil Support and was designed to simulate a nuclear terrorist attack that the highest U.S. officials, including President Bush, have said is the No. 1 threat facing the nation.

The drill, one of many like it scheduled around the country, was not designed to stop a nuclear terrorist attack but to deal with its devastating aftermath. Drills in other parts of the country will focus on 15 other scenarios involving the detonation of terrorist weapons of mass destruction.

In this case, the device was a 10-kiloton bomb, said Tom Sobieski, deputy for training and exercises at the task force.

For two weeks prior to the drill, the task force, which spearheads the Defense Department's support for civil authorities leading the response, conducted "in-depth computer modeling" analysis to predict the damage to the southern port, including its infrastructure, facilities, communications as well as how the radioactive plume might move through the atmosphere.

Organizers say the nuclear drills should not frighten civilians but instead encourage them to learn how to protect themselves if such an attack – which some officials have referred to as inevitable – should occur.

"What we're doing is validating what we call our 'nuclear playbook' – our operating procedures for how we would respond to a nuclear scenario," Sobieski told Inside Missile Defense.

Assistant Secretary of Defense for Homeland Defense Paul McHale in an interview last month said the Pentagon, in partnership with other federal departments, is contemplating "truly catastrophic" scenarios that go well beyond recent exercises designed to test the reaction of civilian and military forces to biological and chemical weapons attacks.

"With an unflinching eye, we are taking a realistic look at worse-case scenarios," he told Inside Missile Defense. "We have begun to consider in a very focused way not only mid-range consequence management requirements of the type that could be met by a combination of existing and military and civilian capabilities, but also truly catastrophic events that would go beyond the normal range of challenges reflected in our more recent exercises."

Sudden Response 05 did not, however, attempt to deal with multiple coordinated attacks like those plotted by al-Qaida in its decade-long "American Hiroshima" scenario. Earlier this year, then-Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz approved an "execute order" that directs the military to be prepared to respond to more than a single domestic attack involving chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear weapon.

Sobieski said that before the task force tackles multiple, simultaneous attacks it needs to iron out its procedures for dealing with a single attack.

"We need to make sure we have a playbook in place for responding to a singular event until we moved on to a much more complex problem," he said.

The scenario for the attack was drawn from an approved list of disaster situations maintained by the Department of Homeland Security, Sobieski said.

It is strikingly similar to a scenario detailed by Graham Allison, former Pentagon assistant secretary for plans and policy and current Harvard professor, in his book, "Nuclear Terrorism: The Ultimate Preventable Catastrophe."

A month after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Allison wrote, the Central Intelligence Agency presented Bush with a report that al-Qaida had smuggled a 10-kiloton nuclear bomb into New York City. The president, according to the book, dispatched Nuclear Emergency Support Teams of scientists and engineers to New York to search for the weapon, which was never found.

Allison described the devastation that a 10-kiloton nuclear bomb would visit on Manhattan, were it detonated in the middle of historic Times Square, killing near 1 million people in a few moments.

"The resulting fireball and blast wave would destroy instantaneously the theater district, the New York Times building, Grand Central Terminal, and every other structure within a third of a mile to the point of detonation," he wrote. "The ensuring firestorm would engulf Rockefeller Center, Carnegie Hall, the Empire State Building, and Madison Square Garden, leaving a landscape resembling the World Trade Center site. From the United Nations headquarters on the East River and the Lincoln Tunnel under the Hudson River, to the Metropolitan Museum in the eighties and the Flatiron Building in the twenties, structures would remind one of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Office Building following the Oklahoma City Bombing."

As WND has reported, for more than 10 years, Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida has planned to use nuclear weapons in a terrorist attack on the U.S. The plan is dubbed "American Hiroshima." In fact, as first reported in Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin, captured al-Qaida operatives and documents suggest the weapons have already been smuggled into the country.
"All Palestinian groups remain united in the goal of annihilating the Jewish state of Israel"
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=45917
In a news conference in Damascus, the leader of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad today boasted all Palestinian groups remain united in the goal of annihilating the Jewish state of Israel.

With Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia looking on, Ramazan Abdullah, secretary general of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, said the Palestinian Authority and all Palestinian movements have reached agreement on a joint strategy after Israel's evacuation of the Gaza Strip.

"This war would continue till full liberation of Palestine, restoration of the denied rights of the whole Palestinian nation and briefly speaking uprooting of the usurper Israeli regime," he said, according to a translation by the official Iranian Islamic Republic News Agency.

There would be no disputes between the groups, he asserted because "all Palestinian groups share the mutual concern of securing Palestinians national solidarity, favor restoration of social order and full establishment of Palestinian government organizations, they have all agreed on the need to move toward those objectives solidly and harmoniously."

Though the Palestinian Authority has agreed to disarm terrorists within its territory, Abdullah said there is no dispute about arms between the various groups.

Abdullah made clear there will be no relaxing of hostilities with Israel as a result of the pullback from Gaza.

"The Gaza Strip that is being evacuated after thirty-eight years of occupation is only some 1.5 percent of the historic motherland of the Palestinians, and therefore its evacuation cannot mean the end of the liberation campaign," he said.

Abdullah said the evacuation of the Gaza Strip by Israel did not occur because of negotiations, but rather because of armed struggle.

"Let us not forget we have never succeeded in restoration of any of our denied rights from Tel Aviv relying on negotiations and that it has definitely been the restless resistance of the Palestinians, like that of the Lebanese, that has urged the Zionists to retreat from Gaza Strip and Lebanon," said. "We would therefore, also liberate the rest of the occupied Palestine, particularly the dear occupied Holy Qods, [Jerusalem] by keeping alive our nation's resistance movement."
Israel's Defense Ministry has determined that Iran could destroy the Jewish state with two atomic bombs.

Officials said the ministry and the Israel Defense Forces have conducted simulations of an Iranian nuclear attack for damage assessment and response. They said authorities have determined that two nuclear bombs that explode in the center and north of Israel would destroy most of the population and all vital infrastructure.

The assessment was issued at a conference on Iran and its nuclear program. Deputy Defense Minister Zeev Boim said two Iranian missiles tipped with a nuclear warhead could destroy Israel. Boim said even one nuclear weapon could cripple the country.

"This is a real existential threat," Boim said.

Israel Envisions Missle Strikes From 2 Fronts
http://www.menewsline.com/stories/2005/august/08_28_4.html

Israel's military has begun to prepare for the prospect of missile and rocket attacks from two fronts. Israeli military sources said Hizbullah and Palestinian groups have coordinated in an effort to launch simultaneous missile and rocket strikes from both the Gaza Strip and Lebanon. The sources said Hizbullah has deployed Katyusha and other rockets and mortars for strikes that would precede or follow those by Palestinian groups in the Gaza Strip.

"We think that this time Hizbullah and the Palestinian groups want to increase their lethality and demonstrate their ability to strike from two fronts at the same time," a military source said. "Their goal is to bolster deterrence against us."

The sources said Palestinian military capabilities have increased amid the withdrawal of troops from the Gaza Strip. They said large parts of the eastern and southern Gaza Strip have become accessible to Palestinian gunners, whose mortars and rockets can now reach Israel.