Russian experts say Al Qaeda likely bullshitting about having suitcase nukes
 

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cg...NG8D5PM7L1.DTL

Moscow -- Ayman al-Zawahri, al Qaeda's No. 2 man, has bragged that the terrorist group bought suitcase nuclear bombs from former Soviet nuclear scientists in Moscow and Central Asia, but experts on Russia's nuclear program dismiss the statements, saying Osama bin Laden's deputy is bluffing.

[...]

Russian nuclear officials and experts on the Russian and post-Soviet nuclear programs adamantly deny that al Qaeda or any other terrorist group could have bought Soviet-made suitcase nukes, which were built in the 1960s for use against NATO and U.S. targets by special Soviet military intelligence agents.

"(Al-Zawahri) is bluffing," an unnamed official at the Russian Federal Nuclear Energy Agency told the official Ria-Novosti news agency Monday. "It is practically impossible not only to buy nuclear weapons but even their components in Russia."

U.S. security experts have also said it is unlikely that bin Laden is close to acquiring nuclear weapons technology, although he clearly wants it. A U.S. federal indictment handed down in 1998 charges that beginning in 1993 al Qaeda members "made efforts to procure enriched uranium for the purpose of developing nuclear weapons.''

Maxim Shingarkin, a former major in the Russian military's secretive 12th Department, which is in charge of strategic weapons, said suitcase nuclear bombs, if they are still in Russia's arsenal, were too difficult to maintain and had too short a lifespan to make them feasible as terrorist weapons. He said Russia only had built about 100 suitcase bombs and had not produced any new ones since the 1991 breakup of the Soviet Union

Wonder what the fallout from a suitcase nuclear bomb would be?

Yehhhh that's the ticket.

Typical governmental deny, deny, deny . . .

If exploded in the NYC Biz district, it would be an economic calamity too great to contemplate. Most of the money in the world flows thru there.

I always believe the Russians to be honest people and would never do anything like sell nukes to terroists for money

They will probably use them somewhere in one of 52 states between Canada and Mexico ..

next they will have macdaddy nukes.

yeah, especially since they don't need the money :)

Russians will be Russians, I guess they will just do their business if they think they need to go through with it.

Two links of additional interest.

Best report from open sources on suitcase nukes
http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/020923.htm

The Effects of Nuclear War Office of Technology Assessment (May 1979)
Chapter 2, page 33 has what might happen with a 1KT terrorist weapon.
http://www.fas.org/nuke/intro/nuke/7906/790604.pdf

52 you say?

:1orglaugh

You don't count hawaii and alaska it's impossible.

:ticking

They always like to scare the shit out of us,
people.