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!)