ABSTRACT
It has been often stated that the prospect of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) terrorism is the foremost danger to American national security. Since the September 11 attacks on the United States, this has become a more realistic danger because of al-Qa‘ida’s increasing global network and demonstrated desire to kill thousands of innocent civilians, as described by Jeffrey M. Bale in Chapter 1 of this volume. Evidence suggests that the network has made multiple attempts to acquire and weaponize chemical, biological, radioactive, and nuclear (CBRN) agents and to disseminate technical information to its supporters. Reportedly, al-Qa‘ida cells or affiliates have attempted to acquire biological agents, various chemical agents, radiological material, and uranium since the mid1990s. The individual chapters in Section II (“Agents of Harm”) of this book discuss each
Introduction 101 Al-Qa‘ida’s Interest and Attitude toward WMD 102 How Jihadist Disseminate Training-Overview of Jihadist Web Sites 104 Operational Web Sites 105
Structure of an Average Operational Jihadi Web Site 105 Nature of Instructions Provided on the Internet 106 Chemical and Biological Weapons (CBW) 109 Al-Mubtakkar Device 110 Radiological and Nuclear Weapons 111 Assessment of Quality of CBRN Production Instructions 112 Other Prominent Sunni Jihadist Organizations 116 Shi‘i Jihadist and Weapons of Mass Destruction 118 Mirsad-1 Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) 122 Relevance to CBRN 122 Conclusion 123 Notes 125
weapon type in greater detail. There are also allegations that the network has planned to use biological and chemical agents in terrorist attacks, in addition to its plans for attacking nuclear facilities.1
