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Q&A with Jim Clancy

What are al Qaeda's Weapons of War?

Aired November 15, 2001 - 15:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
SHIHAB RATTANSI, HOST: It was first splashed across the front page of a newspaper in Pakistan. The ultimate weapon was in the hands of the world's most wanted man. Authorities said they doubt it's true. Now, new evidence of al Qaeda's weaponry. In Afghanistan, singed files were found, plans for nuclear devices.

And another volume of the organization's terrorist manual, a how-to for creating chemical and biological terrorism, has come to light.

On this edition of Q&A: al Qaeda's weapons of war.

Good evening and welcome to Q&A. I'm Shihab Rattansi. Jim Clancy is on assignment.

Details are emerging of just what weapons of terror Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network may have. In Kabul, a "London Times" reporter discovered plans for nuclear devices in a building used by al Qaeda members. The files were apparently partly burnt, but they're said to contain detailed bomb making instructions.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RICHARD BUTLER, FMR. CHIEF U.N. WEAPONS INSPECTOR: What do the documents tell us? They tell us that they have been trying to make a Nagasaki-type bomb. That is a bomb that implodes with plutonium at its core and creates a massive explosion. We also have learned that Pakistani scientists who are religious fundamentalists have crossed the border and tried to help them. That's terrible news.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RATTANSI: U.S. -- but the U.S. Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge downplayed the discovery. He says the material was found on the Internet years ago and was widely available to anyone. But does that mean Mr. -- Osama bin Laden can't build a nuclear weapon. And there are, of course, other revelations about al Qaeda's tools of terror.

CNN's Mike Boettcher has learned of material on chemical and biological weapons that was distributed to al Qaeda members. Mike Boettcher is with us in our studio.

And from Moscow, we have military analyst Pavel Felgenhauer.

And indeed where to begin chemical, biological, or indeed nuclear? Let's begin with the latest on the nuclear weapons. Pavel Felgenhauer, can I actually learn how to build a nuclear weapon from the Internet?

PAVEL FELGENHAUER, RUSSIAN MILITARY ANALYST: Oh, yes, rather primitive weapon, sort of, of the style of the Hiroshima or Nagasaki. Well, Hiroshima is actually easier, and it's not that -- if you have the right components, you can make it.

RATTANSI: And what do you...

FELGENHAUER: It would be rather bulky and compared with modern American and Russian warheads that will -- it's energy yield will be not that big but it will work.

RATTANSI: And what do you make of the documents that were found in Kabul? I mean, there was an extract from one set of notes, which we're told was on headed note paper from the Hotel Grand in Peshawar, dated 1998.

It said, "Naturally, the explosive liquid has a very high and mechanical energy, which is translated into destructive force that can be tamed, controlled, and can be used as a useful propulsive fuel, if certain methods were applied to it." What are they talking about?

FELGENHAUER: I'm afraid I don't know what they're really talking about. And I'm not so sure that they actually really have the components to make a real nuclear weapon. Of course, bin Laden has being publicly saying for several years that he wants to acquire. But wanting to acquire and actually getting is two different things.

He says -- recently he told a reporter, a Pakistani reporter, that you can buy, for $20 million, $30 million in Central Asia, a former Soviet nuclear device. Well, I don't think you can really buy it so easily. There's a lot of fakes on that market. Some of them are actually a military-made training devices that simulate a nuclear bombs but are not actually nuclear bomb.

RATTANSI: Yes, well, let's bring Mike Boettcher...

FELGENHAUER: But now it's most likely...

RATTANSI: Yes, go ahead, Pavel.

FELGENHAUER: Yes, most likely al Qaeda doesn't have a workable nuclear explosive.

RATTANSI: All right, let's bring Mike Boettcher...

FELGENHAUER: But of course they can make dirty bombs.

RATTANSI: Right. Well, we'll get on the issue of dirty bombs in a moment, but let's bring Mike Boettcher in now who joins us in the studio.

Mike, you've been doing some research on, indeed, the sort of information that is circulating apparently amongst members of the al Qaeda network.

MIKE BOETTCHER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, absolutely, and if you look at their 10-volume encyclopedia of Afghani resistance that is better known as the encyclopedia of Jihad, it becomes clear that they have been going out and they can get information from the Internet and from other various sources and over the years, have been compiling a body of knowledge on how to go out and commit certain acts of terrorism.

And we discovered in our trips through the Middle East and through North Africa talking to officials of various intelligence agencies who are a part of the anti-terrorism coalition, we have learned that, indeed, they do have, Shihab, the materials to go out there and build a chemical and biological weapon. But what is very unclear is whether they have the capability to build a nuclear weapon.

RATTANSI: And, I mean, you've found this latest volume of this manual, this how-to manual on committing terror attacks. What was in that?

BOETTCHER: Well, inside this manual was a collection of recipes, so to speak, on how to build various devices, everything from poisoning to making ricin and botulinum toxin.

Let's take a look, if we can, at the report that we filed on this. And you can see the report and take a look at the various aspects of this volume on chemical-biological manuals.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(voice-over): The extent of al Qaeda's operational knowledge was once contained in these, the never before seen 10-volume encyclopedia of Afghan resistance, which the intelligence service of an anti-terrorism coalition partner allowed CNN to videotape.

In the forward to each volume, this, "To the beloved brother Osama bin Laden, who fought in Afghanistan with his soul and his money, who still resists there and presses forward with the Jihad until now."

Inside, platitudes give way to precise instruction in a variety of lethal techniques. "Killing from Close Range", the title of one with a section on ambushes, complete with diagrams. Another volume is called "Bombs and Landmines." The explosives volume contains directions on how to set detonators in the blocks of TNT and plastic explosives.

(on camera): Since the mid 1990s, the encyclopedia of Jihad is been the guidebook for al Qaeda operations, but now CNN has learned a new, even more frightening volume has been added to the collection.

(voice over): The recently published 11th book in the collection, distributed on CD-ROM to al Qaeda cells, is a how-to manual for chemical and biological terrorism. CNN was permitted by an intelligence agency that intercepted the volume to inspect the entire almost 500-page document and was given three chapters of the manual, in order to prove its existence.

It is currently being analyzed by Western intelligence agencies. It's not known how many copies of the CD were produced. Precise deadly formulas pack the new volume. All can be made from ingredients readily available to the public. For example, a chapter entitled "Purifying Manure" describes a clear-cut goal -- quote -- "To acquire pure forms of ammonium nitrate without any foreign substances in order to prepare RDX" -- a powerful explosive compound.

"The Poisonous Letter" is the title of one section on poison inks. "Write a letter to the victim mentioning very exciting and very interesting news," it reads. "Wipe the envelope from the inside with silicone sealant," it goes on, "so it would not kill the mailman."

In the chapter called "Science of Explosives", precise chemical formulas are followed by step-by-step instructions in the manufacture of lethal weapons of mass destruction.

Biological warfare sections of the new volume give exact formulas for the production of deadly toxins, botulinum and ricin. But there was no evidence of instructions on how to make or distribute anthrax.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(on camera): Have they actually been able to use those formulas and make weapons? The belief is yes.

In 1999, in a trial in Egypt against a man named Ahmad Mabruk, he told a reporter there, Mohammed Salah, who's considered in Egypt one of the best reporters on the whole al Qaeda network -- he told this person in between breaks in the trial -- behind the cage that they're kept in in an Egyptian courtroom -- that confirmed that al Qaeda did have, does have biological and chemical weapons. And he said though that Osama bin Laden had given the order, they were only to be used in a matter of extreme emergency, whatever that is -- Shihab.

RATTANSI: Give us an idea of the kind of ease with which one could acquire the sort of chemicals listed in these manuals.

BOETTCHER: Well, you know, that is the interesting thing about this particular manual. It's not telling them how to make huge weapons that kill thousands of people. If you built it big enough, I guess you could.

But these are formulas for chemicals and biological weapons and germs that could be made with items that could be bought in a store in the public domain. These aren't items you have to steal out of the old Soviet arsenal. So this is meant to give to self-sustaining al Qaeda cells around the world the capability to make their own weapons.

RATTANSI: Pavel Felgenhauer, if I can bring you in here. Does this similar, sort of, principal seem to be at work, from what we can tell, as far as the threat of nuclear terrorism goes? These aren't things, again, from the Soviet arsenal. These are everyday radioactive materials that could be bundled up with some TNT and detonated.

FELGENHAUER: Yes that's much easier to make and actually it would be much more effective than chemical, biological agents. Well, because chemical and especially biological agents are rather tricky. The biological ones are living organisms and you have to -- well, you have to have the right concentration. You have to have the right arousal effect at the time when is it a sunny day or not a sunny day and the temperature and lots of other kind of things, on the wind.

Chemical weapons are also not really that effective because also -- I mean, you have to have good delivery systems that do not destroy the agent when they deliver. With radioactive isotopes, it's much more easier. They can withstand anything. Nothing happens when they want any chemical explosion and they contaminate for centuries, if not sometimes, millenniums, especially in big cities, like it happened say in the Prepak (ph) city near Chernobyl. After '86, the city has been abandoned.

The Russian authorities made a big effort, tried to clean it up. It's impossible to clean a modern city from radioactive dust -- I mean, all the places where radioactive dust can get into. The only -- if such a contamination happens in any kind of city, either should abandon it for centuries or millenniums or you have to actually tear it to the ground, cover the ground with a meter of concrete and then maybe build on top of that.

RATTANSI: But what level of regular...

FELGENHAUER: So this is a very deadly weapon.

RATTANSI: I am sorry, Pavel. I will get the whole delay with Russia sorted out in a minute. But just to interrupt quickly, what level of radioactive material do you need in order to make what is a so called dirty bomb? I mean, could you use material from radiography equipment in a hospital, for example.

FELGENHAUER: Well, that's not enough a bit. You need some more. Better choice, say, would be mox fuel, which contains plutonium -- unused mox fuel. Of course, if you are ready to sacrifice the lives your operatives, you can also use used fuel from commercial nuclear power stations and so on.

Of course, the more, the better. But the problem is that there's no such thing as a level of -- acceptable level of radioactivity, especially, if you are talking about small particles, hot spots of isotopes. I mean, such a minute particle of dust gets into your lungs -- well, you might die. And again it's not that -- of course, the more, the better, but even small amounts can make a part of city uninhabitable. And of course this dust may be moved by the wind afterwards. It's a -- even small amounts would be good enough for a deadly terrorist attack.

They may be would not kill many people as anthrax didn't, but they would create panic and they would, of course, if applied to a big city, the economic fallout will be terrible.

RATTANSI: Pavel Felgenhauer and indeed, Mike Boettcher, we will leave it there for a moment.

We'll take a break. But stay with us, our discussion continues in just a moment.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE W. BUSH, U.S. PRESIDENT: We agree it is urgent that we improve the physical protection in accounting of nuclear materials and prevent illicit nuclear trafficking. And we'll strengthen our efforts to cut off every possible source of biological, chemical and nuclear weapons, materials and expertise.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

RATTANSI: Welcome back.

We've been discussing the biological and nuclear threat posed by al Qaeda. Two pieces of evidence have come to light: partially burned documents in a Kabul office containing information on nuclear weapons and a terrorist manual distributed on CD-ROM, amongst other media, containing instructions on waging biological attacks. But how real is the threat?

From Moscow, we've been talking with military analyst Pavel Felgenhauer. CNN's Mike Boettcher is in our Atlanta studio and he discovered details of al Qaeda's chemical and biological terror capability.

And joining us now from Washington: Larry Johnson, a former counterterrorism official with the U.S. State Department.

Mr. Johnson, thanks for joining us. Are you chilled by the latest evidence that has come to light?

LARRY JOHNSON, FMR. U.S. COUNTERTERRORISM OFFICIAL : No, not chilled, and I congratulate Mike on his reporting, it's excellent job.

I hope that the al Qaeda members are studying the manual and trying it out at home, because what they're likely to do is kill themselves as opposed to kill others. It's one thing to put these instructions in a manual, but to really put it into effect is you have to have training camps, you have to have experienced people, and you have to be out there - - have a chance to work with the real agents.

And, fortunately, what's underway right now in Afghanistan is the complete destruction of that infrastructure. If that wasn't underway, yes, then I'd be alarmed and concerned, because what they provided is a blueprint of things they'd like to do. But without the chance to actually sit down hands on and do it real world, they are going to be as much of a threat to themselves as to anyone else.

RATTANSI: Mike, is that the impression that you got traveling around the region?

BOETTCHER: Yes. I mean, and speaking about the manual having looked through this and studied it, I wouldn't want to try this at home, believe me. It's pretty hairy stuff.

I will say that we just spoke probably 30 minutes ago with CNN producer Ingrid Arnesen, who's on the ground in Kabul, who just came out of a house which was apparently being used as an al Qaeda training facility. And there were many notebooks there. Among them, very direct and very well-kept notes from a class about how to make explosives, and how to make detonators, those sorts of things.

And also material talking about the U.S.'s counterterrorism capability and how to get around the FBI in the United States in order to launch a terrorist attack. So these terrorist training facilities that we thought were, you know, out in the countryside were also in Kabul and in classrooms as well, Shihab.

RATTANSI: But, Larry Johnson, would you say that this idea that it's all right in practice -- or in theory rather -- but not in practice. Does that extend to the nuclear capability as well?

JOHNSON: Yes, absolutely.

Look, I've been through the paramilitary training. I've been through the explosives training -- and that was, you know, 15 years ago now -- I wouldn't want to just take a manual and try to do that stuff without someone hands on.

The threat of the nuclear, I think, is a little exaggerated. Yes, if they get access, they're likely to get access to radioactive material that is not weapons-grade. But their ability to reproduce something like we saw at Chernobyl -- you got to remember, Chernobyl was the equivalent of 10 pickup, you know, 10 giant transport trucks filled with radioactive material that exploded and burned and sent the material into the air for days.

Frankly, these terrorist groups do not have that capability right now, because they simply would not have access to the amount of radioactive material to contaminate a large amount of a city that would cause what we've seen in Chernobyl.

RATTANSI: Pavel Felgenhauer, in Moscow, would you agree that they simply don't have access -- terrorists simply don't have access to enough material to cause a real threat?

FELGENHAUER: Well, of course, they don't have the material -- radioactive material contained in a big industrial reactor when it blew. But, of course, it blew rather in -- well, there was a smaller city nearby of about 20,000 inhabitants, but there were mostly bogs and forest and rural areas around. But if you applied, say, in downtown Manhattan, you don't need 10 trucks to make a lot of real big mischief.

And again as with anthrax, the threat -- I mean, the people just don't know, is it safe to live in an area or not. And actually, maybe they'll just simply lose their medical insurance. The economic fallout will be much bigger than the immediate military fallout if applied to a big industrial Western city. And the amount may be not that really big.

RATTANSI: Pavel Felgenhauer, sorry to interrupt once more. But there have been stories, there have been pretty grim anecdotes from Russian officials there up in recent months -- apparently attempts to penetrate the military arsenal in Russia.

There were, of course, always those rumors about suitcase bombs that went astray which have never actually possibly been confirmed, and still a lot of concern over whether the nuclear materials in the former Soviet Union are all accounted for. Can we get assurances on all those issues?

FELGENHAUER: Well, nuclear materials -- I mean, a few so materials -- arms grade -- are more or less, well, under control. And we had, of course, a lot of cases of nuclear smuggling from the former Soviet Union and nuclear theft, but these were never really, per se, arms-grade materials from bombs, though sometimes they were highly enriched. But most of these cases involved radioactive material and radioactive material is not guarded sometimes at all.

As a scientist in the Soviet times, I also acquired for research radioactive materials. And I signed two forms at the same time, one acquiring and the second one immediately. It was all spent in experiment. And then I could do anything with that isotope I wished and no one ever checked me. So you can get these materials. Also, there was -- and still there is a big storage facility of spent nuclear waste and it's in Chechnya and actually it was not under any Russian control for about four years.

RATTANSI: Pavel Felgenhauer, I am going to interrupt there, make a determined interruption this time and let's go to Larry Johnson, quickly because we're running out of time.

JOHNSON: Sure.

RATTANSI: Even with all that information, you still think it's unlikely that we don't have a radioactive threat?

JOHNSON: It's unlikely that they're going to get access to enough radioactive material to cause large-scale contamination in any city anywhere in the United States, or the world for that matter. Could they possibly have a small device that might create a very localized problem? That's potential. But I think we end up exaggerating the capabilities.

These folks are -- right now Mullah Omar and Osama bin Laden are much like Adolph Hitler in his final days in his bunker. And Hitler planned all sorts of great schemes and made all sorts of wild threats, but did not have the troops and means to deliver.

And what we're seeing with bin Laden, and Mullah Omar, and the breakdown of the Taliban is the infrastructure that was in place, that helped deliver the terrible blow on September 11 is being destroyed piece by piece. And it's going to continue to be destroyed in the coming days.

RATTANSI: All right. Well, we will leave there. Larry Johnson, we'll hope you're right. Larry Johnson, former counterterrorism official with the U.S. State Department. Pavel Felgenhauer joining us from Moscow, a former military analyst, in fact, a current military analyst; and our own Mike Boettcher joining us in Atlanta. Thanks very much to all our guests.

THE NEWS is up next on CNN.

END

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