UNITED NATIONS - There is a "high probability" that al-Qaida will attempt an attack with a weapon of mass destruction in the next two years, the U.S. government said in a report Monday.
The report to a U.N. Security Council committee monitoring sanctions against the terrorist group did not say where the Bush administration believes such an attack might be launched.
But the United States said it believes that despite recent setbacks, "al-Qaida maintains the ability to inflict significant casualties in the United States with little or no warning."
Any idea where AQ might get the radioactive material for a dirty bomb? Why, from unguarded, looted sites in Iraq, of course! From the British military analyist Janes:
The chaos in Iraq is creating the kind of environmental and security risks previously seen only in the territories of the former Soviet Union after 1991.
The Baghdad Nuclear Research Facility, another important nuclear site that has been looted, houses the remains of the Osirak reactor bombed by Israel in 1981 and the USA during the 1991 Gulf war. It contains spent reactor fuel, as well as radioactive isotopes including caesium and cobalt - materials that could be used by terrorists for making radiological dispersal devices (commonly known as 'dirty bombs'). Terrorists could obtain the material either directly or from looters selling material on the black market.
Jeebus.