Osama bin Laden May Use Nuclear Weapons for Another Terror

Wall Street Journal reported on Oct. 17 that Osama bin Laden, who is the man behind the September 11 terrorist attack on the U.S., had attempted to acquire nuclear weapons or materials for manufacturing nuclear weapons, and thus it would be possible that he might use them for another terrorism attack.

The United Nations` Anti-Terrorism Bureau stated on a report submitted to the General Council of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in May, citing resources from intelligence agencies, that bin Laden was trying to obtain small-sized nuclear weapons. The U.S. Intelligence circles are aware that Al-Qaeda, the terrorist network led by bin Laden, is attempting to acquire nuclear weapons.

A member of Al-Qaeda, who had been arrested for the terror attacks on the U.S. Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, attested at the trial held in New York in February that he had mediated a meeting to help Al-Qaeda to acquire uranium in early 1990`s.

Worries about the theft of nuclear materials were elevated as a car containing about 2.7 kilograms of concentrated uranium was disclosed in 1994 in Czecho, which was suspected of having been flown out from the former Soviet Union. The U.S. is supporting Russia`s modernization process of old nuclear facilities because of such worries.

IAEA sees that it is hardly probable for nuclear weapons to be used at terror attempts because nuclear weapons and nuclear materials are under relatively tight security and manufacturing nuclear weapons is not simple.

But Wall Street Journal reported that terror attacks using nuclear weapons are not impossible because technical barriers become low to the extent that some college students were able to design a nuclear weapon of the primitive level and nuclear materials are belong sold in black markets.

Han Ki-Heung eligius@donga.com