Confessions of an al Qaeda operative

by Stan Lowe, Chairman (retired), Wyoming Veterans’ Commission
Tuesday, August 14, 2007 2:05 PM MDT

A recent book, “The Day of Islam: The Annihilation of America and the Western World,” by seasoned investigative reporter Paul L. Williams, expands upon his earlier two books that revealed al Qaeda’s shocking plans for nuclear terrorism on U.S. soil.

The book begins with testimony of Jamal Ahmed al-Fadl, an embittered former employee of Osama bin Laden, given Feb. 6, 2001, in a federal court case, The United States of America vs. Osama bin Laden, et al. What he said, corroborated by other sources, was extraordinarily revealing.

This diminutive Sudanese man, who wore a perpetual scowl, related his part in the formation of al Qaeda and detailed the history of the organization and named the members of its founding shura, the governing board that chose billionaire bin Laden as its emir. Naturally, he had the checkbook.

Al-Fadl’s chief duties were financial. He was al Qaeda’s paymaster and its “front man” that “cooked deals” with black market arms agents and bought “high end goods.”

One particularly dangerous assignment was to negotiate the terms of sale for enriched nuclear materials n suitable to make bombs n from a Sudanese army and former government minister, an early acquisition followed by others the emir made later.

The negotiations were successful: bin Laden got his enriched nuclear material at the “rock bottom price” of only $1.5 million per kilo.

But what did al-Fadl get for making the great jihad against America a reality? A measly $10,000! He felt underpaid for years, getting only $500 a month while the lowest ranking Arab worker got $1,200.

He showed his displeasure by pilfering more than $100,000 from bin Laden’s holdings, not difficult as he had access to the emir’s accounts in four banks.

Soon afterward, on Sept. 5, 1996 n- a day after bin Laden issued his declaration of war against the U.S. -n al-Fadl went straight to the U.S. Embassy in Kenya to tell his story.

Forty-eight hours later, he was whisked away to America under the highest level of security in the government’s witness protection program, which continued for the next 4-1/2 years.

Does al Qaeda have nuclear weapons? Williams firmly states, “yes.”

His book documents bin Laden’s several purchases of enriched uranium. Also, he bought three Soviet Navy RA-115s, which could neatly fit in a suitcase, from the Ukraine with explosive yields of 0.5 to 2 kilotons (“Little Boy” dropped on Hiroshima had a kick of 10 kilotons, each equivalent to 1,000 tons of TNT).

He paid Muslim Chechen rebels $30 million cash and two tons of choice number 4 heroin, al Qaeda’s major financial source, for 20 portable tactical nukes. The heroin had a street value of $700 million broken down in small packets called “Binnys” in honor of bin Laden.

After the Soviet Union’s fall, many kilograms of highly enriched uranium and nuclear weapons were floating around Europe and elsewhere, easily bought through the black market.

By 1996, more than 3,000 unpaid and disillusioned Russian scientists and technicians left the country to work for al Qaeda, other Muslim terrorist groups, North Korea, Libya and Iran.

After 1996, bin Laden spent between $60 million and $100 million on nuclear scientists and kept a score of former Soviet technicians on the payroll.

He bought highly classified documents for the care and assembly of nuclear weapons from Russian officials.

Williams concludes that a suitcase nuclear device with only a kick of one kiloton, if used in New York City, would have devastating effects in terms of killing thousands, poisoning hundreds of thousands more, resulting later in multitudes of deaths, and “the financial and cultural center of the United States would cease to exist.

“The GNP would drop more than 3 percent in the blink of an eye. Millions would lose their jobs and life savings.”

Print this story   |   Email this story