A nuclear device is within terrorists' reach

Terrorists will need just $5.43 million to make a nuclear device and launch an attack, according to a new study.

In the current issue of reputed US-based journal Foreign Policy, researchers Peter Zimmerman and Jeffrey Lewis have claimed that terrorists can construct a nuclear device within the US, which could be a highly-enriched uranium bullet that they could fire through a gun. They claimed that once complete, the device is likely to be less than nine feet long and could be transported in a van or a small panel truck.

Zimmerman and Lewis recalled that eight years ago, aides to Osama bin Laden met a Sudanese military officer who offered to sell weapons-grade uranium for $1.5 million. He proffered up a three-foot long cylinder. The Al-Qaeda representatives agreed to the purchase. The cylinder turned out to be a dud.

But had it actually contained highly enriched uranium, and if Bin Laden's deputies had managed to use it to assemble, then transport and detonate a nuclear bomb, history will have looked very different, they wrote. September 11 will have been remembered as the day when hundreds of thousands of people were killed.

They wrote: "Osama Bin Laden's longstanding interest in developing nuclear weapons is deeply troubling. Al-Qaeda operatives have repeatedly tried to acquire nuclear materials. In August 2001, Bin Laden received two former Pakistani nuclear officials, asking them to help recruit other scientists with expertise in building nuclear weapons.

After the military effort to oust from Afghanistan, US forces found extensive documents, including crude bomb designs, at an Al-Qaeda safe house in Kabul, they added.