CourcyInt

COURCYINT SPECIAL BULLETIN

To: All Courcy's Intelligence Service members

Date: 12 February 2004

From: Joe de Courcy, Chief Executive, Courcy's Intelligence Service

Subject: DOES AL-QAIDA HAVE A NUCLEAR CAPABILITY?

SUMMARY

The London-based Arabic-language al-Hayat newspaper is continuing to assert that al-Qaida acquired a nuclear capability from the Ukraine in the late 1990s.

ANALYSIS

In this week's Courcy's Intelligence Review we alerted subscribers to reports alleging that al-Qaida had acquired one or more tactical nuclear weapons from Ukraine.

On Sunday, al-Hayat quoted sources close to al-Qaida as saying the group bought the weapons in suitcases in a deal arranged when Ukrainian scientists visited the Afghan city of Kandahar in 1998.  The report was linked to claims made by the former Russian National Security Adviser Alexander Lebed that up to 100 portable suitcase-sized nuclear bombs had gone missing following the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991.

The Lebed claim was denied at the time, with Russia saying that no such weapons had ever existed; and the present claim that such weapons have been sold to al-Qaida by Ukrainian scientists have been dismissed by the Ukrainian foreign ministry as "totally groundless".

Yesterday, however, al-Hayat returned to the story.  Reporting from Islamabad in Pakistan, the paper's correspondent Ahmad Muwaffaq Zaydan wrote:

"Reliable sources in Islamabad yesterday confirmed to al-Hayat the information that a Ukrainian national had sold nuclear technology to the al-Qaida organization.  The sources said that a Ukrainian nuclear scientist - whose name is believed to be Viktor - visited the former Taleban stronghold of Kandahar in 1998 and played the role of intermediary in this deal.  The same sources said that the Americans learned about the affair and were able to immediately track the deal all the way to the Ukraine.  The sources added [that] the matter remained secret and its details were not revealed.  The sources were referring to the purchase by al-Qaida of briefcases containing nuclear weapons which it stored in safe places when it was a guest of the Taleban movement..."

As to how al-Qaida might use such a capability, in its earlier report al-Hayat quoted its source as saying that the group would use the weapons only inside the United States or if it faced a "crushing blow" which threatened its existence, such as the use of nuclear or chemical weapons against its fighters.

We are unable to verify the truth or otherwise of this report, and we do not have access to al-Hayat's source.  Nevertheless, we would make five points:

1.  Alexander Lebed was in a position to know about missing nuclear weapons, if there were any.

2.  Al-Qaida has certainly sought such a capability.

3.  The alleged method of acquisition is reasonably plausible.

However,

4.  Al-Qaida clearly has an interest in talking up its capabilities, and

5.  Pakistan itself might have an interest in diverting attention from its proliferation misdeeds with such a smokescreen.

Our conclusion?  We verge towards the view that this is a fabrication, and, besides, to mount such an attack in the US (which is the declared target) looks to be beyond the group's capability at present given that it has been unable to mount another spectacular attack within the United States since September 2001.

But anything is possible, and on the negative side there can be no questioning the fact that al-Qaida has survived the post-9/11 onslaught; that it or its affiliates have successfully attacked targets in Indonesia, Morocco, Turkey, Kenya, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia since 9/11; that the group has begun to have an impact within Iraq; that it clearly has no qualms about inflicting mass deaths; that the post-9/11 generation of al-Qaida militants has a desire to surpass the "achievements" of their predecessors; and, as the head of Germany’s BND foreign intelligence agency Rudolf Adam said earlier this week, that "pressure is mounting on al-Qaida to reassert its effectiveness and its ability to strike another really high-value target".

END