May 02, 2007	Wednesday	Rabi-us-Sani 14, 1428

WASHINGTON, May 1: Al Qaeda is desperate to acquire a nuclear bomb and has in the past worked with some officials of the Pakistani nuclear establishment to achieve this goal, former CIA Director George J. Tenet writes in his new book.

In "At the Centre of the Storm," Mr Tenet writes at some length about Al Qaeda's attempts to obtain or develop a nuclear weapon.

"I am convinced that this is where (Osama bin Laden) and his operatives desperately want to go," Mr Tenet writes. "They understand that bombings by cars, trucks, trains and planes will get them some headlines, to be sure. But if they manage to set off a mushroom cloud, they will make history."

Mr Tenet details several attempts by the CIA to prevent Al Qaeda from acquiring nuclear weapons.

Just weeks before the Sept 11 attacks, a Pakistani organisation, Ummah Tameer-i-Nau, or UTN, had met Osama and his deputy, Ayman Zawahiri, in Afghanistan to discuss how Al Qaeda "should go about building a nuclear device," the CIA was told. “CIA passed our information on UTN to our Pakistani colleagues, who quickly hauled in seven board members for questioning. This investigation was ill-fated from the get-go. … Pakistani intelligence interrogators treated the UTN officials deferentially, with respect befitting their status in Pakistani society.”

Mr Tenet writes that in the fall of 2001, a Western intelligence service provided CIA “a remarkable piece of information that helped break the case open.”

The unidentified agency told CIA that UTN officials Sultan Bashiruddin Mahmood and Chaudhri Abdul Majeed discussed with Al Qaeda officials, “around a campfire,” how the terrorist group should “go about building a nuclear device.”

Mr Tenet describes Mr Mahmood as the former director for nuclear power at Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission an Mr Majeed as a prominent nuclear engineer.

Mr Tenet also gives details of an attempt by Al Qaeda leaders in Saudi Arabia to buy what he described as three black-market Russian nuclear devices in 2002 and 2003.

And in early 2003, Al Qaeda cancelled a planned cyanide attack on the New York City subway, Mr Tenet writes. Zawahiri recalled the operatives in New York because "we have something better in mind."

Mr Tenet writes that the CIA still does not know exactly what Zawahiri meant but adds that the cyanide attack "was not sufficiently inspiring" for Al Qaeda, suggesting the network wants to strike the US with a nuclear bomb.

The book also includes a picture of Mr Tenet standing besides a container of P2 centrifuge casings that the Khan network of nuclear proliferators allegedly sold to Libya. The Libyans surrendered them to the US when they rescinded their nuclear programme.

The picture was taken on Dec 9, 2005, at an event commemorating the third anniversary of Libya renouncing its WMD programmes.

According to Mr Tenets, the Libyans ordered more than 10,000 such casings. Only 1,200 are needed to produce enough uranium for a Hiroshima-size nuclear weapon each year.