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Pro-Bin Laden web site posts plans to sap 'enemy's morale'

Special to World Tribune.com
GEOSTRATEGY-DIRECT.COM
Wednesday, March 6, 2002

    An Internet site supporting Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaida terrorist organization claims that the group plans a Òwar of attritionÓ on U.S. military forces in Afghanistan.
    The web site, known as Al Ansar, reported that ÒmujahideenÓ fighters in Afghanistan have broken up into small groups in order to make it harder for U.S. and Afghan forces to find them.
    ÒThis is a highly effective weapon that has already borne fruit and is still affecting the enemy's morale,Ó the web site stated. ÒAll the mujahideen leaders and all the mujahideen are still ghosts as far as the enemy is concerned, as are the places where they might assemble, be pursued, or arrested.Ó
    The report stated that most of the Taliban fighters who had been captured were not senior officials, and the captured Al Qaida terrorists who were taken into custody were new volunteers. It said there were no senior leaders among them.
    An article by Abu Ubaydah al Qarshi stated in the same edition that the ÒIslamic movementÓ may have weapons of mass destruction.
    The weapons can be produced from the large quantities of weapons-grade material that goes missing from Russia every year, he said. ÒIt is known that the quantity of radioactive material that is necessary for making a nuclear bomb is not huge and weighs only between 20 kilograms for radioactive plutonium and 40 kilograms if enriched uranium is used. Even the expertise needed is not confined anymore to world-class engineers. Any university student who excels in physics can do it..Ó
    Al Qarshi stated that the Islamic radicals could obtain a nuclear bomb if they are not able to produce one. He noted that Russia had reported losing small tactical nuclear weapons in 1997.

    He also said Islamic radicals also are considering resuming Ònaval jihad,Ó like the October 2000 bombing of the USS Cole in Aden, Yemen.
    Al Qarshi also said the extremists sought to wage economic war on the United States by hinting at future attacks on oil installations.
    The report was disclosed in Al Quds al Arabi, the Saudi Arabic newspaper base in London. After the newspaper identified Al Ansar as an Al Qaida web site earlier this month, the newsletters stated that ÒAl-Ansar does not speak on behalf of Al Qaida or any other organization. It has not claimed to do so in any of its edition.Ó Still, the newsletter then noted that it Òdoes not disavow the religious brotherhood between it and all Muslims in the world. It even believes that one of the religious duties is to support the mujahideen against the crusade everywhere, even if it is just a single word of truth.Ó

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