Can A Nuke Be Smuggled Into The US? New Book Explores The Possibility

Lee Boyland's new book, "The Rings of Allah" explores the very real scenario of Al Qaeda smuggling a series of nuclear weapons into the US, and using them in a massive coordinated strike that could leave millions dead, all right under our noses. The book, which is historical fact with a fictional storyline to tie the events together, details a very likely way in which this could happen.


Boyland's book starts in the early 1990s, just as the former USSR is falling apart, and continues through to the near future, tracing the path of uranium 235 shipments from the former USSR into the hands of terrorists, bent on a massive coordinated strike against the US that could make the events of 9/11 look insiginificant.

From the author, as quoted on Barnes and Noble's website

The Rings of Allah is the first book of the Clash of Civilizations Trilogy.

Radical Islam launches a cataclysmic nuclear attack on the U.S., triggering unimaginable American fury and a worldwide jihad - the Great Jihad. Now the prospects of WW III loom on the horizon - A global religious war incited by Islamic fanatics with values and morals alien to the West. The ultimate clash of civilizations has begun.

The Great Jihad unleashes an unimaginably vicious, worldwide, Islamic uprising. Middleeastern governments are toppled, Westerners murdered, embassies sacked, Israel invaded, and the flow of oil disrupted. America must defend its homeland and Israel. The world is forced by events toward one inevitable conclusion - the total destruction of Islam. The Clash of Civilizations trilogy explores these calamitous events.

As the world spins out of control, America finds its strong new leader. General George Alexander, a man of principles and high moral courage, destined to save the nation and the world from total destruction.

The Rings of Allah sets the stage for the trilogy. Al-Qaeda obtains old Soviet nuclear test devices left over from the late 1940s. The devices become Usama bin Laden's most secret ace in the hole. Only three people, including bin Laden know of the devices, code named Allah's Rings. The test devices are "Little Boy" type nuclear devices. Simple nuclear devices that can be disassembled and then reassembled. Mohammed, bin Laden's lieutenant, is in charge of the project. The U.S. cell leader, Ralph Eid, a native borne citizen formulates a plan to bring the components of the devices into the U.S. and hide them in plain sight in the target cities. The technology is real, the plot entirely feasible, and the consequence is predicted in the 9/11 Commission Report, "Another attack is probably coming; it may be terrible." A realistic story showing that, yes, it can be done.

I have not yet read this book, but I will be reading it in the near future. However, in hearing many interviews with the author, and reading several reviews and previews of the book, it makes you wonder.... just how possible is all of this? Are the nukes already here? What cities will be hit? What will the death toll be? How will we react?

Related News Links:
search.barnesandnoble.com
www.ourmedia.org

[edit on 28-12-2005 by obsidian468]

[edit on 28-12-2005 by obsidian468]

[edit on 28-12-2005 by obsidian468]

Mod Edit: title

[edit on 31-12-2005 by kinglizard]

You kiddin me?
For the record...
A nuke cannot be brought into the USA without our defenses going into action.

These defenses kill the offender with a "soul zapping" machine from orbit.
This soul zapper prevents the attainment of 72 virgins and substitutes 72 foul tempered hillbillys named bubba to the newly dead.

So "Osama whatsit" better think twice...

and anything is possible, but not probable...

[edit on 28-12-2005 by LazarusTheLong]

Thousands if not millions of tons of drugs, knock off products and other types of contraband are smuggled in to the US every year. To me it seems naive to think that nukes, bio/chem are not already in place. I sure hope I'm wrong though!!

Who brought the weapons in? The anthrax spread after the 9/11 tragedy seemed to have been domestic terrorism.

With the borders basiclly unprotected except at some key checkpoints; I certainly don't feel to good about the future.

Hey, like anyone else, I love a little bravado and the beating of the chest every once in a blue moon, but lets be realistic here: yes, a nuclear device can be brought into the US. Nothing is indefensible, and for the record, in the case of suitcase nukes, they can be brought in without US defenses going into action. The only early warning system would be purely based upon intelligence gathering and intelligence gathering programs [ie: Patriot Act, NSA international surveillance monitoring, etc].

A number of past ATS topics have covered this hypothetical aspect of Al Qaeda or some terrorist group acquiring such 'nuke' capabilities, and the possibility of infiltrating the US to use them:
ATSNN: Al Qaeda Under Pressure to Strike Again
ATSNN: Al-Qaida Reported to have Nuclear Weapons
ATSNN: Islamic Terrorists are Ready to Strike U.S.

Yeah, are you kidding?

The border's practically wide open. There's this guy Alex Jones interviewed earlier this month who said that he and some other dudes smuggled a fake nuke into the US from the border. He said they walked into malls and stuff, and that they even walked up to a federal building.

So, yeah, it could happen. But, the REAL terrorists will make sure any bombs get in when they're ready for another attack. Ask those Republicans who said that a terror attack would be one way to rally the masses behind Bush. Ask that senator who said we'll be sorry we let the Patriot Act provisions fail when the boogyman gets us. Ask Cheney, who said that Al-CIAda WILL attack, and it WILL be nuclear if we continue to question 9/11.

Is it possible? Probably.

Is it likely? I doubt it.
While I don't doubt that groups like Al Quaeda would like to do it, I doubt they have the means to acquire such a weapon or to bring it to the US. Note that they haven't been able to stage a single conventional attack in the US since 9-11, for one thing, porous borders or not.

Secondly, nuclear weapons are not that easy to hide, any critical mass of plutonium is going to produce a great deal of radiation that can be detected easily unless it is very well shielded - and a "suitcase nuke" by it's very nature isn't going to be.

Also there are radiation monitoring systems in place in the US, the "suitcase nuke" is a threat that has existed since the Cold War. There are also mobile systems that can take a closer look, as the recent flap over FBI radiation monitoring makes clear.

Interesting to note, in a prior thread I started, I posted some information I learned from a friend who is in the Coast Guard regarding port security (or lack thereof). The borders are pretty much wide open, and it's quite possible that uranium 235 could be smuggled in, onboard a major shipping line, if it's just secured within a lead-lined box which contains the radiation.

The thread I mentioned can be found here:

www.abovetopsecret.com...

The devices that the book mentions are "gun" style devices, much like "Little Boy" that was dropped on Hiroshima. A gun style nuke uses two chunks of weapons grade uranium 235. It fires one chunk out of a cannon style gun into the other. The impact causes a nuclear rection, and thus the detonation.

Suitcase nukes, while a definite threat, wouldn't be sufficient to produce the kind of damage that Bin Laden has been promising his followers, which is something to the tune of "at least 4 million dead, 2 million of which being children." A suitcase nuke is more along the lines of a tactical nuke, powerful enough to destroy a medium sized facility, or severely cripple a large facility.

More information can be found here: Suitcase Nukes (and yes, I know this links to -------------------------, but the link is strictly factual, and there are NO graphic photographs).

In order to achieve the kind of damage that Bin Laden is talking about, he would have to hit 3-4 major cities, each with a 20 kiloton nuclear device (about the same size as the nukes dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Since it would be a ground level blast, and not an airbourne blast as it was in 1945, the damage would not be as extensive, as almost half of the blast force would be directed into the ground. That said, it's still nothing to scoff at. That kind of strike, in 3-4 major cities, would have a death toll of at least 4 million, and more likely around 6-8 million.

These gun style nukes are even more dangerous, because they can be quickly and easilly disassembled and reassembled, meaning that multiple shipments can be made with compenents, and later assembled on site - this means it's much easier to smuggle in the components. The uranium itself is probably the only thing that might get questioned, and it can be packed to avoid the radiation sensors that the Coast Guard uses. Additionally, once assembled, these devices can simply be left to wait for proper detonation time. Much like simple bullets for your everyday gun, these devices can be left to sit for years without worry of their functionality, completely without maintenance.

Us Americans can thump our chests all we want, but we're just as vulnerable as everyone else out there. No amount of chest thumping is going to change the vulnerability we have, which is due, simply, to lack of manpower. The above referenced thread states that roughly 50%-70% of all incoming shipping vessels go unchecked by the Port Authority and Coast Guard.

The odds are not in our favor.

[edit on 28-12-2005 by obsidian468]

Just testing something, as this thread seems to have disappeared from my "subscribed threads" list.

Hopefully, it'll show up now....

It always makes me chuckle, this idea that only muslims would smuggle a nuclear device, or devices, into the US. Why nobody else?

Surely it would be safer for more "Western" looking individuals to do so?
Middle Eastern-looking people are obviously scrutinised more closely in the current paranoia so it would be unlikely they'd risk smuggling a device themselves.

Perhaps it's just as possible that a third party, possibly agents of another foreign power, might also smuggle in a device to deliberately set-up and point the finger at an innocent country.

These kinds of stories are obvious floaters, the typical "balloon," that any shadow government uses prior to its own Hegalian Reichstag+Nero Burning Rome, etc. tricks. The problem is that even though people know this, there are usually enough dumbed down ignorant morons, well paid of course to spout the usual hot air while fake surveys tell us what to believe. Go along to get along is the name of the game. But one should be deeply aware of the real danger of such stories, even though it is highly unlikely that the alleged perpetrators are in any way connected other than by the usual paid stooges. There are of course copy cats to the shadow government story dumbed down enough to arrive independently now and then, but are such people not almost always universally detected in advance specifically?

[edit on 31-12-2005 by SkipShipman]

Obsidian, I thought that was a promising thread, too!

If I may quote myself from the same thread:


"What really frightens me, and I've posted this elsewhere, is the possibility of a terrorist nuke being delivered to a US port city, not hidden in an overlooked cargo container, but sealed in a water-tight container welded to the keel of a container ship.

If just shipped in a container, a (nuclear) device has at least a chance of being detected, small though that chance might be. Secreted into a city like a deadly limpet mine, a nuke would likely escape even a thorough ship-board search; the ship's hull, bilge, fuel, and the the sea itself would serve to block any errant radiation leakage from land and airborne detectors."

Given the improbaility of any sub-surface inspection/detection procedure being routinely carried out at even a major port, and given the fact that even a very large device (even the Soviet 50 megaton Tsar Bomba would be but a pimple on the keel of a modern container ship!) would likely thus escape detection, Yes, a nuke could be smuggled into the US, or anywhere else with a deep enough port.












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