Col. Stanislav Lunev
Tuesday, Nov. 20, 2001

After a number of incidents involving the practical use of anthrax as a bioweapon against Americans, there is no longer any question of this possibility, yet even some officials who have had to evacuate their offices are expressing doubts that terrorists have weapons of mass destruction in their arsenal.

Unfortunately, they are dead wrong. There is a long record of terrorists' attempts to obtain and use these weapons, a danger that has been overlooked by Western intelligence agencies.

Aum Shinri Kyo and Terrorism

For four days in 1993, the Aum Shinri Kyo cult sprayed Tokyo with anthrax spores from a high-rise building. Residents began complaining of a foul smell descending on the neighborhood. Small birds died, plants wilted and pets got sick. Fortunately, experts say, members of the cult improperly incubated the anthrax spores, or thousands could have been killed.

The same cult in 1994 killed seven people in a sarin nerve gas attack on the city of Matsumoto. In 1995, Aum's sarin attack on the Tokyo subway killed 12 and injured 5,500. Then, as today, Western intelligence agencies missed the danger.

Originating in Japan, the Aum cult had a deeply Russian flavor to it. Although the cult had 10,000 members in Japan, it had three times that number – fully 30,000 – in Russia.

During the 1992 visit of Aum's chief, Asahara, to Russia he met with Russia's vice president and the speaker of the Parliament, He rented out the Kremlin's Palace of Congress, where his followers, dressed in tinsel-covered leotards, pranced around through clouds of dry ice in a musical he had written.

Asahara also met with Oleg Lobov, then chairman of the powerful Kremlin Security Council, who supported Aum in Russia and, according to some press reports, sold the cult the production design for the manufacture of sarin nerve gas for $100,000.

In 1993, Lobov, a close associate of former Russian President Boris Yeltsin, provided hospitality for several leaders of the cult, who brought with them a shopping list including MiG-29 fighters, T-72 tanks, and nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.

In 1994, Aum's members, including one who would later shoot a Tokyo police officer in the back, got weapons training from the Alpha Force Team of the Federal Security Service (FSB – formerly the KGB) and were allowed to attend lectures in Russian scientific institutions where they studied the practical use of weapons of mass destruction.

As is already well known, in modern Russia practically everything is for sale, but what we don't know is what items from Aum's shopping list were actually delivered to this terrorist organization, especially weapons of mass destruction. Then as now, Western intelligence agencies missed the danger.

Russian Aid to Terrorists

A few years ago, Israel's Mossad (military intelligence agency) reported that Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda organization had a chance to obtain from Russia several tactical nuclear weapons, such as nuclear artillery shells, warheads for tactical missiles, torpedoes, etc., via unidentified former Soviet republics.

Some Western intelligence experts did not believe that terrorists had enough resources and technologies to actually explode these devices. These experts missed the point that terrorist groups exist only with the help of rogue nations, which have more than enough resources to help terrorists resolve technological problems.

Also, terrorists could use weapons-grade radioactive materials for making crude bombs capable of contaminating large areas and killing hundreds of thousands. Then as today, Western intelligence agencies missed the danger.

Recently, the Russian newspaper Izvestiya reported that Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda organization has bought several suitcase nuclear devices (Russian equivalent to the U.S.-designed SADM, or Special Atomic Demolition Munitions) which originated in the former USSR.

Terrorists have been unable to use these devices only because they are protected by Soviet secret codes that require a special radio signal from Moscow's military authorities to set them off.

According to Izvestiya, Osama bin Laden's organization has already spent a lot of money recruiting former Soviet technicians and scientists, as well as former officials from the special services, many of whom could help terrorists break the secret Soviet codes.

Russian officials, as usual, deny the existence of suitcase nuclear devices, as well as the possibility that some nuclear weapons and materials could have disappeared from Russia.

However, there were numerous reports in the Western press about disclosure and arrests of people connected to Russia's criminal underworld who tried to sell nuclear materials and components for the production of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons to anyone who would pay their price.

While the facts about these cases became public, we have no idea of the number of successful secret sales.

It doesn't matter who actually provided the terrorists with weapons of mass destruction – whether it was corrupt Moscow government officials or Russian criminal syndicates.

What matters now is a strategy for fighting international terrorism based on the real possibility that terrorists have not only conventional weapons and anthrax in their arsenals, but also other weapons of mass destruction as well.

Hopefully, this time Western intelligence agencies will not miss the danger.

Editor's Note: NewsMax has just released the new audiotape set "CIA Files: Defector Reveals Russia's Secret War Plans." You can hear for yourself exactly what Col. Stanislav Lunev, the highest-ranking officer ever to defect from Russia, told the CIA. For more info, CLICK HERE.

Read Col. Lunev's amazing story in Through the Eyes of the Enemy.

Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:
Al-Qaeda
Russia
War on Terrorism