In These Times
January 28, 1992

New black market: Soviet nukes on the loose
By Paul DeRienzo

The discovery by Italian officials of an arms-smuggling ring has spurred concern among security experts over the fate of some of the 27,000 nuclear weapons that belonged to the former Soviet Union. According to the Milan newspaper Corriere Della Sera, an October arrest of seven people in the northern Italian city of Como, near the Swiss border, also netted a small sample of plutonium, the fuel used to manufacture nuclear weapons.

In October, Swiss officials in Zurich had seized 66 pounds of uranium, also potential nuclear weapons fuel. Experts believe the uranium and plutonium are both from the Soviet Union. Newsday quotes an Italian deputy prosecutor, Romano Dolce, as saying that the arrests in both countries are linked to an alarming increase in the smuggling of nuclear material since the August coup in Moscow.

Dolce, in an interview for Italian television, also said that documents seized with the 0.1 milligrams; of plutonium-which was apparently used as a sales sample-provide evidence that nuclear artillery shells have already been sold from a major military base near Irkutsk in the Russian republic.

The same documents reportedly name former agents of the now-dissolved KGB and GRU, the Soviet secret police and the military intelligence agency of the former Soviet army respectively, as involved in the smuggling of nuclear weapons as well as uranium and plutonium. Corriere Della Sera, a respected daily, reports that Soviet battlefield nuclear weapons with a range of between 30 and 60 kilometers, were being offered for sale at $20 million apiece.

March 22, 2004 - 12:16AM

Osama bin Laden's terrorist network claimed to have bought ready-made nuclear bombs on the black market, the al-Qaeda chief's biographer has said.

Pakistani journalist Hamad Mir said bin Laden's deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri, made the claim following an interview by Mr Mir with bin Laden in November 2001.

Mr Mir said he told al-Zawahri it was difficult to believe al-Qaeda had nuclear weapons when they did not have the equipment to maintain or fire them.

"Dr Ayman al-Zawahri laughed and he said 'Mr Mir, if you have $30 million, go to the black market in central Asia, contact any disgruntled Soviet scientist, and a lot of ... smart briefcase bombs are available,'" Mr Mir said in an interview with ABC TV's Andrew Denton.

I. Introduction

There is a distinct possibility that “madness” will lead to the next nuclear conflict. Terrorist groups, and even terrorist individuals, have the money, means, and motive to build or purchase their own nuclear device[2] and some have already tried.[3] Unfortunately, the terrorist attempt to acquire and use nuclear weapons is a natural progression of events. However, the rapidity of the progression is disturbing. Terrorists are utilizing computerized files, e-mail, and encryption software in order to hasten the accomplishment of their objectives.[4] It may not be a question of if they acquire nuclear weapons, but only a question of when.

Lebed: Some 'suitcase' nukes missing
Commandos from the Russian security service, the FSB, train for possible terrorist attacks.

Russian officials have reported two dozen thefts or attempted thefts of nuclear-related items. U.S. officials have confirmed seven nuclear smuggling incidents, with all of the nuclear material involved recovered.

Another concern are so-called "suitcase" nukes, small nuclear devices developed by the United States and the Soviet Union.

Alexander Lebed, Russian President Boris Yeltsin's former national security adviser, says more than 100 of these "suitcase" nukes are unaccounted for -- a charge vehemently denied by the Russian government.

Vaclav Havlik became involved in international trade shortly after the Berlin Wall fell, which opened up new opportunities for commerce in the former Soviet Union. He began with groceries, medical supplies, and other consumables, bringing them in to the hungry Russian market. As his contacts expanded, he realized that demand for Western goods and money was so strong, that people were willing to offer virtually anything in exchange, including nuclear materials. Havlik was arrested near Landshut, Germany for smuggling uranium and sentenced to thirteen months in jail. He has served his time, and now runs a bar in Prague.

Gustav Illich is a slovakian trader who was snared in a German sting operation on nuclear smuggling. He boasts of good ties to higher-ups in the Russian military and mafia, and during the course of his search for material claims to have even been offered material from a nuclear warhead. In the sting operation, Illich provided German police with uranium samples on four different occasions, including one sample of 87.7% enriched uranium identical to the material seized in Prague six months later.


Yuri Smirnov is the first known thief of bomb grade nuclear materials in Russia. He worked as an engineer at the Luch plant near Moscow in a laboratory handling highly enriched uranium. From May to September 1992, while his co-workers were taking smoking breaks, Smirnov skimmed off roughly 1.5 kilograms of highly-enriched uranium.

NewsMax Wires
Monday, Mar. 22, 2004
SYDNEY, Australia — Usama bin Laden's terror network claims to have bought ready-made nuclear weapons on the black market in central Asia, the biographer of Al Qaeda's No. 2 leader was quoted as telling an Australian television station.
In an interview scheduled to be televised on Monday, Pakistani journalist Hamid Mir said Ayman al-Zawahiri claimed that "smart briefcase bombs" were available on the black market.

It was not clear when the interview between Mir and al-Zawahiri took place.

U.S. intelligence agencies have long believed that Al Qaeda attempted to acquire a nuclear device on the black market, but say there is no evidence it was successful.

In the interview with Australian Broadcasting Corp. television, parts of which were released Sunday, Mir recalled telling al-Zawahiri it was difficult to believe that Al Qaeda had nuclear weapons when the terror network didn't have the equipment to maintain or use them.

"Dr Ayman al-Zawahiri laughed and he said 'Mr. Mir, if you have $30 million, go to the black market in central Asia, contact any disgruntled Soviet scientist, and a lot of ... smart briefcase bombs are available,'" Mir said in the interview.

"They have contacted us, we sent our people to Moscow, to Tashkent, to other central Asian states and they negotiated, and we purchased some suitcase bombs," Mir quoted al-Zawahiri as saying.

Al-Qaeda has never hidden its interest in acquiring nuclear weapons.

The U.S. federal indictment of bin Laden charges that as far back as 1992 he "and others known and unknown, made efforts to obtain the components of nuclear weapons."

The Associated Press

Updated: 5:33 p.m. ET March 21, 2004

SYDNEY, Australia - Osama bin Laden’s terror network claims to have bought ready-made nuclear weapons on the black market in central Asia, the biographer of al-Qaida’s No. 2 leader was quoted as telling an Australian television station.


In an interview scheduled to be televised on Monday, Pakistani journalist Hamid Mir said Ayman al-Zawahri claimed that “smart briefcase bombs” were available on the black market.

It was not clear when the interview between Mir and al-Zawahri took place.

Monday, Mar. 29, 2004. Page 3

Ukraine Says Several Hundred Missiles Are Missing

The Associated Press KIEV — Several hundred Soviet-built missiles are unaccounted for in Ukraine's military arsenals, Ukrainian Defense Minister Yevhen Marchuk said in an interview that could raise new international concern about weapons leaks.

"We are looking for several hundred missiles," Marchuk was quoted as saying in an interview published in the Den newspaper late last week. "They have already been decommissioned, but we cannot find them."

Marchuk stopped short of saying that the missiles had been sold and appeared to suggest that they had been dismantled without proper accounting — an apparent jab at his predecessors.

He did not say what types of missiles are unaccounted for, but Defense Ministry spokesman Kostyantyn Khivrenko said that the minister was referring to S-75 air defense missiles, known in the West as SA-2s.

Khivrenko said that hundreds of such missiles from Soviet arsenals in Warsaw Pact member countries had been brought to Ukraine for dismantling but were lost due to "accounting problems."

Originally posted by Leveller

Originally posted by Pisky
But what if China & Russia are financially backing the Muslims. The UK and US have done it in the past (With Saddam and Osama). It's quite possible. Not an obvious 'uniting' of their forces, but a financial one whereby China/Russia supply the Muslims with weaponry and intelligence.

Very doubtful. China and Russia don't have the financial resources. You've also got to remember that all of the money that goes into Muslim economies is supplied by the West - they are non-productive societies. They rely on the purchase of oil to keep their regimes afloat.

Funding terrorism is nowhere near the same as funding a national army. Neither China nor Russia would take the risk - they're just as likely to be used against them as they are the West. And neither have the financial or technological resources to make available.

Muslim countries are now using the "euro" and are avoiding the US dollar, if you haven't heard.

That's one of the things Bin Laden has asked those in his and other terrorist organizations. he also asked every Muslim to do this.

Muslims eye euro as new oil currency
Since 1901, when drillers unleashed a Texas gusher and created the modern oil industry, barrels of oil have been sold for greenbacks. Whether they buy oil in Alaska, Norway or Bahrain, today's customers pay in US dollars.

But when the United States launched its military attack against Iraq last month, many Muslim clerics began demanding that Arab countries sell oil for euros, not US dollars. That move could send shock waves through the world oil market and the US economy.

Newspaper columnists and antiwar activists in countries from Morocco to Indonesia have rallied behind the sentiments shouted in a Nigerian street protest witnessed by a Wall Street Journal reporter this week: "Euro yes! Dollar no!"

Using currency to wage economic warfare against the US "has been talked about, off and on, since the Arab oil embargo in the 1970s", said Robert Lynch, senior currency strategist in the New York office of BNP Paribas.

"It is mostly a threat" rather than a real possibility, Mr Lynch said, because switching from dollars could economically harm many Muslim countries that already hold lots of US dollars - notably Saudi Arabia. Still, given the level of Muslim anger directed at the US following the war, "anything is possible", he said. "If oil trading shifted from dollars to euros, it would be a hugely significant event and certainly a negative one" for the US economy, he said.

China and Russia have enough resources. China has more than Russia, and all they have to do to support terrorism is sell them some of their weaponry, and give them the go ahead to use those weapons against the US and others.

China Reveals Nuclear War Plans Against U.S.
UPI
Monday, March 20, 2000
WASHINGTON -- China's People's Liberation Army has outlined plans, including a nuclear conflict with the United States, to "liberate" Taiwan, Hong Kong's South China Morning Post newspaper reported Monday.
The PLA issued a 16-page publication, the Howangjio Weekly, that was devoted to Taiwan, that was sold on street corners. In contrast, most Chinese newspapers had little to say about Taiwan's pro-independence vote.

The publication included plans to send 200,000 fishing vessels with a two-million-strong invading force to take over Taiwan. It also included photographs of what it said were the most advanced secret weapons in the world. These included laser weapons to disable the U.S.-owned F-17's guidance systems, the newspaper said.

The PLA has reportedly been working on a new generation of nuclear weapons, the publication said, and it outlined steps by which China would threaten the United States with nuclear war. China would then sway U.S. public opinion by making economic concessions, and it would increase arms purchases from Russia, the Post reported.

Excerpt taken from.
www.newsmax.com.../3/20/215316

Is one paranoid to think China would ever have a war with the United States?

Would it not be earth-shaking if Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld publicly said the United States would have a war with China? It would be headline news in all the newspapers and on the TV networks.

Yet this is exactly what Secretary Rumsfeld's Chinese equivalent said. Chinese Defense Minister Gen. Chi Haotian publicly said: 'War [with the United States] is inevitable; we cannot avoid it. The issue is that the Chinese armed forces must control the initiative in this war. … We must be prepared to fight for one year, two years, or even longer." (NewsMax.com, 4-9-01).

Excerpt taken from.
www.newsmax.com...

World Tibet Network News
Published by the Canada Tibet Committee
Tuesday, October 23, 2001


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

2. China assisting Taliban in war against US

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
MONDAY, OCTOBER 22, 2001
THE TIMES OF INDIA

ISLAMABAD: Taliban commander-in-chief Jalaluddin Haqqani has claimed that
the militia was "in touch" with China, which was assisting them in the war
against the US.

Before leaving for Afghanistan after holding talks with Pakistani officials
here, Haqqani, who is also the minister for frontier regions, told reporters
"China is still assisting the Taliban in the war against the US".

He further said that the Afghan militia "continued to be in touch with
Beijing." He, however, declined to divulge the nature and quantum of the
assistance being provided by China.

Haqqani, whose visit to Islamabad raised eyebrows, said that China would
react sharply in the longer run as the US would dig in Afghanistan.

Excerpt taken from.
www.tibet.ca...

TextWhile U.S. battles terrorism around the globe and in its own backyard, it ignores a growing arms buildup in China and cautions Taiwan not to provoke the mainland, reports Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin.

China was the developing world's largest arms customer last year, signing trade agreements worth more than $3.6 billion, the online intelligence newsletter reports in the current issue. Russia remains the biggest arms supplier to China. Since 1996, China has purchased from Moscow at least 72 Su-27 jet fighters, two Sovremenny-class destroyers, missiles systems and four Kilo-class attack submarines.

Last year China agreed to buy eight Kilo-class project 636 submarines and had options to purchase two additional destroyers and surface-to-air missiles.

Most of China's arms buildup is oriented to its No. 1 foreign policy and military objective – the reunification of Taiwan with the mainland.

As evidence, G2 Bulletin reports, China has built up its missile battery along the Fujian coast opposite Taiwan. There are now about 450 missiles in position, with the number increasing by 75 a year.

China continues to hone "credible options" to attack Taiwan and could act quickly against what it sees as a renegade province backed by America, the intelligence publication said.

Excerpts taken from.
www.worldnetdaily.com...

China has called for urgent talks with the US over its controversial plans for a National Missile Defence system (NMD).
Senior arms negotiator Sha Zhukang launched a scathing attack on the US plans, saying it could spark a new arms race, but expressed hope that dialogue might "narrow our differences".

His comments come in the wake of a report delivered to the US Senate urging Washington to sell NMD-linked weapons systems to Taiwan to counter what it described as a growing threat from China.

Excerpts taken from.
news.bbc.co.uk...

Why in the world would China not want the US to have a National Missile Defense System? Is not like we are saying we are pointing any intercontinental ballistic missiles at them...

"We have been reducing the size of our force and cutting back on the defense budget for 16 straight years," reports Congressman Floyd Spence, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. "We're to the point now that we've reduced the force 35 to 45 percent. We've got three people doing the work of five in the military," the South Carolina Republican complains. "We're wearing out people and equipment with all these deployments around the world. We've deteriorated our force to the extent that we would have a difficult time fighting off the security threats to our country," Spence warns. "Plus," he adds, "we still don't have a national missile defense and there are nations with intercontinental ballistic missiles and nuclear warheads pointing at us."

Excerpt taken from.

politickles.com...


I have yet to see a threat from the US to China, as openly as China has threatened the US.


China and Russia Align against the US?

China and Russia Align Against U.S.
By Kenneth R. Timmerman

China's President Jiang Zemin went to Moscow in mid-July as if to receive a Russian bride. In the bride's trousseau were some of the best military and nuclear technology money can buy. Also included: an extended family of alliances, guaranteed by three generations of Communist godfathers. In exchange, Jiang handed Vladimir Putin, the former KGB officer who now is president of the Russian Federation, new contracts potentially worth tens of billions of dollars to Russian enterprises.

In Washington, Bush-administration officials reacted to the news of the Sino-Russian Friendship Treaty inked in Moscow on July 16 with quiet equanimity. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher dismissed the pact at his daily briefing, calling it "a treaty of friendship, not an alliance." At the White House, presidential spokesman Ari Fleischer noted that diplomacy was "not a zero-sum game." Echoing Boucher, he added: "Just because Russia and China have entered into an agreement does not necessarily mean it's something that would be adverse to the interests of the United States."

Official Washington was downplaying what outside observers and some top Bush-administration national-security officials say privately was a sweeping shift in the strategic balance of power that only can mean bad news for the United States. These critics say the Sino-Russian pact not only will expand Russian arms sales to China, which already had shifted the balance of power in the Taiwan Strait, but commits the two giants to a broad international agenda squarely opposed to core U.S. interests, making common cause in economic, diplomatic and military arenas.
But potentially most disturbing is Article 9, which contains language outlining a mutual-defense pact whenever one of the parties "believes there is a threat of aggression."

"With this treaty it would appear, for example, that any military move by China against Taiwan would now be backed up by the enormous nuclear arsenal of the former Soviet Union," Inhofe tells Insight. "Such an arrangement has profound strategic implications for the future."

Russia war-gamed how its forces could support a Chinese military takeover of Taiwan during exercises conducted Feb. 12-16. As first reported by Bill Gertz of the Washington Times, Russian commanders escalated the conflict by threatening nuclear-missile strikes on U.S. forces in South Korea and Japan. This is the first time Russia is known to have carried out a simulation involving joint war-planning with China or to have practiced fighting the United States in the Pacific.

China repays the favor on the Taiwan issue by agreeing in the treaty to support Russian dominance of Chechnya, which sits astride strategic transportation routes that command access to the vast oil resources of Central Asia and the Persian Gulf. While NATO is not mentioned by name in the 25 articles of the treaty, in an interview with the Italian daily Corriere della Sera that appeared just as he was signing the pact with Jiang, Putin suggested that "NATO could be disbanded as was the Warsaw Pact."

"This is a strategic relationship," a top national-security official told this reporter six months ago, before being tapped to join the Bush administration. "That is the phrase the Chinese and the Russians use themselves. It has concrete manifestations - Russian arms sales - and it is specifically aimed against the United States." That official could not be reached for comment.

Excerpts taken from.
www.insightmag.com...

Leveller, i think you have been living under a rock, because China's economy is strong, they keep increasing their military budget.

Now they are trying to win against the US in settling military bases on the Moon.