CTC Sentinel 3

SEPTEMBER 2010 . VOL 3 . ISSUE 9 COMBATING TERRORISM CENTER AT WEST POINT CTC SENTINEL OBJECTIVE . RELEVANT . RIGOROUS Contents Reevaluating Al-Qaìda’s FEATURE ARTICLE 1 Reevaluating Al-Qaìda’s Weapons Weapons of Mass Destruction of Mass Destruction Capabilities By Peter Bergen Capabilities REPORTS By Peter Bergen 5 The Evolving Terrorist Threat in Yemen By Christopher Boucek 8 The U.S.-Pakistan Relationship and Finding an End State in Afghanistan By Moeed W. Yusuf 11 Piracy in the Horn of Africa: A Growing Maritime Security Threat By Peter Chalk 15 Al-Qaìda’s Key Operative: A Profile of Mohammed Ilyas Kashmiri By Seth Nye 19 The Role and Significance of Signature Attacks in the Iraqi Insurgency By Michael Knights 22 Recent Highlights in Terrorist Activity 24 CTC Sentinel Staff & Contacts wo months after the 9/11 coyly, “Go to the next question.”3 After attacks, Usama bin Ladin the interview was finished, Mir followed claimed to possess a nuclear up this exchange over tea with Bin capability.1 On the morning of Ladin’s deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri. “I TNovember 8, 2001, the Saudi militant was asked this question to Dr. al-Zawahiri: eating a hearty meal of meat and olives that it is difficult to believe that you have as Hamid Mir, a Pakistani journalist, nuclear weapons,” Mir explained. “So he interviewed him in a house in Kabul. Mir said, ‘Mr. Hamid Mir, it is not difficult. asked Bin Ladin to comment on reports If you have 30 million dollars, you can About the CTC Sentinel that he had tried to acquire nuclear go to the black market in Central Asia, The Combating Terrorism Center is an and chemical weapons, to which the al- make contact with a disgruntled Russian independent educational and research Qaìda leader replied: “I wish to declare scientist and get from him suitcase institution based in the Department of Social that if America used chemical or nuclear nuclear weapons.’”4 Sciences at the United States Military Academy, weapons against us, then we may retort West Point. The CTC Sentinel harnesses with chemical and nuclear weapons. Al-Qaìda’s nuclear weapons claims the Center’s global network of scholars and We have the weapons as deterrent.”2 came after a long quest by the terrorist practitioners to understand and confront Mir asked, “Where did you get these organization to research nuclear contemporary threats posed by terrorism and weapons from?” Bin Ladin responded technology and acquire nuclear materials. other forms of political violence. Sensing the inadequacy of his own knowledge about nuclear weapons, Abu 1 This marked Usama bin Ladin’s first public statement The views expressed in this report are those of claiming to have a nuclear capability. the authors and not of the U.S. Military Academy, 2 Hamid Mir, “Osama Claims he has Nukes: If US Uses 3 Ibid. the Department of the Army, or any other agency of the U.S. Government. N-Arms it Will Get Same Response,” Dawn, November 10, 4 Personal interview, Hamid Mir, Islamabad, Pakistan, 2001. May 11, 2002. 1 SEPTEMBER 2010 . VOL 3 . ISSUE 9 Khabab al-Masri, the terrorist group’s analysts reached the same conclusion in the United States and the United in-house weapons of mass destruction in 2002.9 There is evidence, however, Kingdom were awash in stories about researcher, asked his al-Qaìda bosses that al-Qaìda experimented with crude a group of men arrested in London who in a pre-9/11 memo whether it was chemical weapons, explored the use of possessed highly toxic ricin to be used possible to get more information about biological weapons such as botulinum, in future terrorist attacks. Two years nuclear weaponry “from our Pakistani salmonella and anthrax, and also made later, however, at the trial of the men friends who have great experience in multiple attempts to acquire radioactive accused of the ricin plot, a government this sphere.”5 For that information, al- materials suitable for a dirty bomb.10 scientist testified that the men never Qaìda’s leaders turned to Dr. Sultan had ricin in their possession, a charge Bashiruddin Mahmood, a recently After the group moved from Sudan to that had been first triggered by a false retired senior Pakistani nuclear Afghanistan in 1996, al-Qaìda members positive on a test. The men were cleared scientist sympathetic to the Taliban.6 escalated their chemical and biological of the poison conspiracy except for an Mahmood failed polygraph tests about weapons program, innocuously code- Algerian named Kamal Bourgass, who his meetings with al-Qaìda’s leaders naming it the “Yogurt Project,” but only was convicted of conspiring to commit once those encounters became known earmarking a meager $2,000-4,000 a public nuisance by using poisons or to U.S. and Pakistani investigators. explosives.13 It is still not clear whether Mahmood met with Bin Ladin over al-Qaìda had any connection to the the course of two meetings just weeks “There is no evidence plot.14 before the 9/11 attacks, during which he that al-Qaìda’s quest for provided information to the al-Qaìda In fact, the only post-9/11 cases where leader about the infrastructure needed nuclear weapons ever went al-Qaìda or any of its affiliates actually for a nuclear weapons program.7 beyond the talking stage.” used a type of WMD was in Iraq, where al-Qaìda’s Iraqi affiliate, al-Qaìda in Bin Ladin’s and al-Zawahiri’s portrayal Iraq (AQI), laced more than a dozen of of al-Qaìda’s nuclear and chemical its bombs with the chemical chlorine in weapons capabilities in their post-9/11 for its budget.11 An al-Qaìda videotape 2007. Those attacks sickened hundreds statements to Hamid Mir was not based from this period, for example, shows a of Iraqis, but the victims who died in any reality, and it was instead meant small white dog tied up inside a glass in these assaults did so largely from to serve as psychological warfare against cage as a milky gas slowly filters in. An the blast of the bombs, not because of the West. There is no evidence that al- Arabic-speaking man with an Egyptian inhaling chlorine. AQI stopped using Qaìda’s quest for nuclear weapons accent says: “Start counting the time.” chlorine in its bombs in Iraq in mid- ever went beyond the talking stage. Nervous, the dog barks and then moans. 2007, partly because the insurgents Moreover, al-Zawahiri’s comment about After struggling and flailing for a few never understood how to make the “missing” Russian nuclear suitcase minutes, it succumbs to the poisonous chlorine attacks especially deadly and bombs floating around for sale on the gas and stops moving. This experiment also because the Central Intelligence black market is a Hollywood construct almost certainly occurred at the Darunta Agency and U.S. military hunted that is greeted with great skepticism training camp near the eastern Afghan down the bomb makers responsible for by nuclear proliferation experts. This city of Jalalabad, conducted by the the campaign, while simultaneously article reviews al-Qaìda’s WMD Egyptian Abu Khabab.12 clamping down on the availability of efforts, and then explains why it is chlorine.15 unlikely the group will ever acquire a Not only has al-Qaìda’s research into nuclear weapon. WMD been strictly an amateur affair, Indeed, a survey of the 172 individuals but plots to use these types of weapons indicted or convicted in Islamist Al-Qaìda’s WMD Efforts have been ineffective. One example terrorism cases in the United States In 2002, former UN weapons inspector is the 2003 “ricin” case in the United since 9/11 compiled by the Maxwell David Albright examined all the Kingdom. It was widely advertised as a School at Syracuse University and the available evidence about al-Qaìda’s serious WMD plot, yet the subsequent New America Foundation found that nuclear weapons research program and investigation showed otherwise. The none of the cases involved the use concluded that it was virtually impossible case appeared in the months before the for al-Qaìda to have acquired any type U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, when media 13 Stenersen, p. 48; Walter Pincus, “London Ricin Find- 8 of nuclear weapon. U.S. government ing Called a False Positive,” Washington Post, April 14, 58:1 (2002). 2005. For details on Bourgass, see Duncan Campbell, 5 Roland Jacquard, L’Archive Secretès d’al Qaida (Paris: 9 Thom Shanker, “U.S. Analysts Find No Sign Bin “Yesterday’s Trial Collapse has Exposed the Deception Jean Picollec, 2002), p. 291. Laden Had Nuclear Arms,” New York Times, February Behind Attempts to Link al-Qaida to a ‘Poison Attack’ on 6 Graham Allison, Nuclear Terrorism: The Ultimate Pre- 26, 2002. London,” Guardian, April 14, 2005. ventable Catastrophe (New York: Henry Holt, 2004), pp. 10 Barton Gellman, “Al Qaeda Nears Biological, Chemi- 14 Vikram Dodd, “Doubts Grow Over al-Qaida Link in 20-22. cal Arms Production,” Washington Post, March 23, 2003. Ricin Plot,” Guardian, April 16, 2005. 7 Peter Baker, “Pakistani Scientist Who Met Bin Laden 11 Anne Stenersen, Al-Qaida’s Quest for Weapons of Mass 15 Stenersen, p. 42; “‘Chlorine Bomb’ Hits Iraq Village,” Failed Polygraphs, Renewing Suspicions,” Washington Destruction: The History Behind the Hype (Saarbrücken, BBC, May 16, 2007; Personal interview, Charles Faddis, Post, March 3, 2002. Germany: VDM Verlag, 2009), p. 35. Central Intelligence Agency officer involved in the effort 8 David Albright, Kathryn Buehler, and Holly Higgins, 12 Nic Robertson, “Tapes Shed New Light on Bin Laden’s against Iraq’s chlorine bomb makers in 2007, Washing- “Bin Laden and the Bomb,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists Network,” CNN, August 19, 2002.

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