Do terrorists have
U.S. cruise missiles?

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Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld today raised the possibility that terrorists associated with Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida have access to cruise missiles capable of hitting the U.S. or Europe.

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Cruise missiles are complex weapons designed for low-flying strikes passing through tree branches and capable of sneaking past most American advance warning and detection devices. Their computers can also be pre-programmed for their targets with maps or guided by satellite.

Rumsfeld suggested that terrorists possess cruise missiles capable of hitting big cities in the West.

An additional danger comes from their warheads, which can be either conventional – no more than 130 kilos – or non-conventional, meaning small but capable of mass destruction like a neutron bomb. Some cruise missiles are also capable of delivering multiple warheads.

Military sources point out that the only countries with cruise missiles are the United States, France, Israel and China. Russia possesses a low-grade type, while Britain and Germany have acquired American products.

If bin Laden has cruise or ballistic missiles, he either stole them or bought them for exorbitant sums. Military experts say they could be hidden either in Afghanistan or in one of the Central Asian former Soviet republics.

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It is also possible, they say, that, when the United States attacked bin Laden's Afghanistan bases in August 1998 – in reprisal for the East African embassy atrocities – al-Qaida gathered the unexploded missiles. In that raid, 70 missiles were reportedly fired, some cruise missiles, and only 30 exploded.

To fire them at a European city, the terrorists could do without satellite-guidance; the targets are large enough and close enough for them to shoot blind.

The U.S. defense secretary did not specify which type of missile he meant, but military sources believe his stark warning in Brussels may have been influenced by the fresh information he received during his Caspian tour and Afghanistan. At the U.S. base in Bagram, he must have been told of the evidence U.S. intelligence officers turned up, possibly in Kandahar, attesting to bin Laden's nuclear, chemical and biological capabilities and the missiles that were in his possession.

Last week, a very senior Israeli officer spoke of a terrorist attack on Israel from overseas, a broad hint at missiles.

Signs are mounting meanwhile that the United States is moving ahead with preparations for war against Iraq. Former Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, speaking in Herzliya today, urged the Israeli government to hurry up and prepare to protect the population against a mass attack from Iraq in retaliation for an American offensive, which he believed was coming soon.

Meanwhile, Rumsfeld, addressing a private NATO defense ministers meeting in Brussels straight from Kabul, spoke graphically of the continuing terror threat.

"As we look at the devastation they unleashed on the U.S., contemplate the destruction they could wreak in New York or London or Paris or Berlin with nuclear, chemical or biological weapons," he told his 19 colleagues. "The world remains a dangerous place. … Western democracies must be ready to defend themselves, and each other, if we are to secure our freedom in the tumultuous decades ahead."

He noted that Afghanistan is not the only country where terrorists operate and al-Qaida is not the only terrorist network, repeating President Bush's statement that countries which harbor terrorists "will be held to account."

"It should be of particular concern to all of us that the list of countries which today support global terrorism overlaps significantly with the list of countries that have weaponized chemical and biological agents and which are seeking nuclear, chemical and biological weapons – and the means to deliver them."

Rumsfeld told fellow ministers that now is the time – while Sept. 11 is still fresh in the minds of people everywhere – to increase defense spending.

The text of the Rumsfeld address was circulated to reporters in Brussels, just as U.S. Homeland Security Office spokesman Gordon Johndroe announced in Washington: "The alert remains in effect because the threat still remains."

This meant that the high terror alert declared in the United States on Dec. 3 remained in effect, in view of continuing intelligence that more attacks are being planned by al-Qaida and sympathetic terrrorist groups.