Atomic Al Qaeda

The raison d'ętre for this research emerges from several precepts outlined in the 2006 US National Security Strategy. In this guiding document, President Bush cited al Qaeda, nuclear proliferation, and the world's stockpiles of unprotected nuclear material as independent threats to national security. This research will address all three separately and then link them to demonstrate a collective threat to national security: a nuclear al Qaeda. Terrorism today is at a crossroads. We are past the norm of ragtag groups conducting sporadic, isolated terrorist activities. Instead, we find ourselves facing globally organized, highly developed groups with substantial resources hell-bent on achieving extreme goals. Al Qaeda demonstrated the propensity for mass casualty assaults on 9/11; its logical culmination means we must now face the specter of nuclear terrorism. Al Qaeda's actions on that fateful Tuesday are congruent with the general trends characteristic of today's more sinister terrorist groups with primarily religious aims; groups who propagate an extremist ideology and espouse views which justify catastrophic terrorism. This paper will show al Qaeda has all the pieces of the required "trinity" for a nuclear jihad: motivation, financial and technical resources, and nuclear (radiological) material.