NYPost

BIN LADEN'S NUKE THREAT LOOKING LIKE BOGUS QUOTE

By DAN KADISON

November 11, 2001 -- Experts cast doubt yesterday on a Pakistani newspaper interview in which Osama bin Laden allegedly claimed he had chemical and nuclear weapons ready to use against the United States.

The English-language paper, Dawn, omitted any reference to the terror leader's possession of the deadly devices in its Urdu language version, CNN reported yesterday.

"This conflict between the English version and the Urdu version does call into question the veracity of the alleged statements that he acquired these things definitively," said CNN terrorism analyst Peter Bergen.

The terror mastermind was quoted Friday as saying "that if America used chemical or nuclear weapons against us, then we may retort with chemical and nuclear weapons."

"We have the weapons as a deterrent," he supposedly said.

The White House yesterday shrugged off bin Laden's statements that he's acquired weapons of mass destruction, but acknowledged he has tried to get them in the past.

"We will do everything we can to prevent his acquiring these weapons or the materials for these weapons," National Security Council spokesman Sean McCormack said.

An unconfirmed report in The Frontier Post, a Pakistani newspaper, claimed yesterday that bin Laden's terrorist group al Qaeda may have smuggled two "briefcase nuclear weapons" into the United States.

According to the report, one was obtained by al Qaeda from a Central Asian source.

Supposedly inside the Russian-made briefcase was 41/2 pounds of plutonium and uranium, which can be detonated by a timed charge or cell-phone call.

The story also claims al Qaeda has 70 Russian capsules - containing an unnamed biological agent that "melts the human body to the bone."

Russian President Vladimir Putin yesterday said no weapon of mass destruction that may have made its way to a terrorist organization came from his country.

With Post Wire Services

-- Anonymous, November 11, 2001