Russian Officials, Experts, Dispute Al-Qaeda Nuclear Weapon Claim

Russian officials and experts on Russia’s nuclear weapons dispute a recent claim by a Pakistani journalist that al-Qaeda has purchased former Soviet suitcase-size nuclear weapons, the San Francisco Chronicle reported today (see GSN, March 22).

Pakistani journalist Hamid Mir told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. last week that during a 2001 interview, senior al-Qaeda operative Ayman al-Zawahri bragged about purchasing Russian suitcase nuclear weapons in Moscow and Central Asia. Russian officials and experts, however, deny that al-Qaeda could have purchased the weapons, according to the Chronicle.

“(Al-Zawahri) is bluffing,” a Russian Federal Nuclear Energy Agency official said yesterday. “It is practically impossible not only to buy nuclear weapons but even their components in Russia,” the official said.

Russia’s suitcase nuclear weapons were too difficult to maintain and only had a lifespan of one to three years, making them almost impossible to be used now by terrorists, said Maxim Shingarkin, a former major in the Russian Defense Ministry’s 12th Directorate, which oversees Russia’s nuclear weapons. In addition, the former Soviet Union kept its supply of suitcase nuclear weapons in its western states, such as Ukraine, and not in Central Asia, Shingarkin said (Anna Badkhen, San Francisco Chronicle, March 23).

Former U.S. Senator Sam Nunn (D-Ga.) said yesterday that al-Qaeda was more likely to obtain the weapon-grade materials needed to make a nuclear weapon than an actual device.

“Plutonium or highly enriched uranium could make a crude bomb, and that crude bomb could take out an American city or any other city in the world,” Nunn said during a speech at Georgia Tech University. “Everybody in the world has a stake in getting every single kilogram of weapon-grade material under secure control and that is a global partnership, (it) has to be a global partnership to do that,” he said (Jon Shirek, 11Alive.com, March 22).

[EDITOR’S NOTE: Sam Nunn is chief executive officer of the Nuclear Threat Initiative.  NTI is the sole sponsor of Global Security Newswire, which is published independently by National Journal Group.]

Back to top
About Newswire  |  Contact National Journal  |  Re-Use Guidelines © Copyright 2008 by National Journal Group, Inc. The material in this section is produced independently for NTI by National Journal Group, Inc. Any reproduction or retransmission, in whole or in part, is a violation of federal law and is strictly prohibited without the consent of the National Journal Group, Inc. All rights reserved.