| FrontPageMag.com | By Robert Spencer | By Hugh Fitzgerald | Books | Dhimmi Watch | Islam 101 | Qur'an Blog | Raymond Ibrahim | Robert Spencer |  |
|
|
|||||||||||
|
|
Could this be behind the threat of 100,000 deaths?
"An al-Qaida representative bought enriched uranium capable of being used in a so-called dirty bomb from the Congolese opposition in 2000, according to a French newspaper report."
The report asserts that "in sworn testimony an unnamed former soldier from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) . . . 'described a meeting which took place on 3 March in (the German city of) Hamburg between some Congolese men and an Egyptian by the name of Ibrahim Abd.'"
Something about Abd made the soldier "realise" that he was tied to al-Qaeda. "According to Le Progres, the Egyptian was able to acquire two bars of enriched uranium 138. Only highly enriched uranium can be used in the manufacture of an atomic bomb, but anti-terrorist experts take more seriously the threat of a 'dirty bomb', in which radioactive material is disseminated via a conventional explosive."
Coming from Al-Jazeera, which has now been fully unmasked (see the Nov. 10 entry) as another jihadist entity, this could amount to nothing more than another empty threat, but we do know that Al-Qaeda has been trying to get hold of some uranium for a long time.
POSTSCRIPT: Agence France Press is reporting the same thing.
SECOND POSTSCRIPT: Reader Karl Lembke points out that there is no such thing as uranium-138. My guess would be that uranium-238 was meant. (Of course, I do hope that al-Qaeda paid top dollar for a huge amount of uranium-138!)
Posted by Robert at November 14, 2003 8:37 AM
Print this entry
| Email this entry
| Digg this
| del.icio.us
|
"According to Le Progres, the Egyptian was able to acquire two bars of enriched uranium 138. "
Uranium 138? No such thing.
The most popular isotopes are U-238 and U-235. Naturally occurring uranium is about 0.7% U-235. Anything higher than that is "enriched", and anything lower than that is "depleted". Depleted uranium is a lot easier to buy, and is used in a number of applications, including, believe it or not, radiation shielding.
Posted by: Karl Lembke at November 14, 2003 10:58 AMI hope they paid top dollar for U-238 which is radioactively quite harmless and will not go "bang"
Posted by: Dean Douthat at November 15, 2003 10:35 PMI hope they paid top dollar for it, too. The only problem is, I think uranium will find its way to the bone marrow and radiate it with alpha particles. The good news is, it has a very low specific activity, so it takes a LOT to cause a significant increase in cancer risk.
I suppose we could let them know that if they buy several hundred billion Coleman lantern mantels, they might get enough thorium to make something go boom...
Posted by: Karl Lembke at November 17, 2003 12:06 AM
(Note: The Comments section is provided in the interests of free speech only. It is mostly unmoderated, but comments that are off-topic, offensive, slanderous, or otherwise annoying stand a chance of being deleted. The fact that any comment remains on the site IN NO WAY constitutes an endorsement by Jihad Watch or Dhimmi Watch, or by Robert Spencer or any other Jihad Watch or Dhimmi Watch writer, of any view expressed, fact alleged, or link provided in that comment.)