The article - first of a three-part series, quotes former CIA agent and now author Michael Scheuer as saying that in May 2003 an unidentified Saudi cleric authorized bin Laden to use a nuclear bomb against the United States.

For bin Laden, the religious ruling was a milestone in a long quest for an atomic weapon. For U.S. officials and others, it was a frightening reminder of what many consider the ultimate mass-casualty threat posed by modern terrorists, says the article.

Even a small nuclear weapon, according to the article, detonated in a major American city could have devastating consequences, potentially rivaling the atomic destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

But senior U.S. officials The Post interviewed for the article said they considered the danger more distant than immediate.

U.S. officials and nuclear experts told the newspaper that neither al-Qaida nor any other terrorist group appears to have the capability to overcome the enormous technical and logistical obstacles involved in making a nuclear bomb.

I would say that from the perspective of terrorism, the overwhelming bulk of the evidence we have is that their efforts are focused on biological and chemical weapons, John R. Bolton, undersecretary of State for arms control and international security, told The Post.

But other experts, such as Daniel Benjamin, a former National Security Council staff member and senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, warned that groups like al-Qaida do have highly motivated and intelligent people willing to overcome the difficulties involved.

Experts interviewed by The Post named two countries from where terrorists may want to acquire a nuclear weapon or materials for making one: Russia and Pakistan.

Al-Qaida would probably seek to buy a nuclear device from Russian gangsters, rather than build its own, said the article although it also acknowledged that the nature and scope of nuclear caches are among the most tightly held national security secrets in Russia and Pakistan.

Besides, the article points out, it would be very difficult for terrorists to figure out on their own how to work a Russian or Pakistani bomb.

Newer Russian weapons, according to the article, are equipped with heat- and time-sensitive locking systems that are extremely difficult to break without help from insiders.

You don't get it off the shelf, enter a code and have it go off, says Charles D. Ferguson, science and technology fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Older Russian nuclear weapons, however, have simpler protection mechanism and could be easier to obtain on the black market, experts say. But even the simplest device has some security features that would have to be defeated before it could be used, the article says.

The Post also points out that most of the ready-made bombs that could be stolen are made with plutonium, which emits a very high level of radiation.

That's why experts told the newspaper that terrorists would prefer to obtain highly enriched uranium rather than a ready-made bomb and then use it for making a gun-type device used in the atomic bomb dropped over Hiroshima.

But not all the experts who spoke to The Post were convinced that terrorists could actually make a bomb even if they were to somehow acquire uranium.

They say that terrorists would need at least 50 kilograms of bomb-grade uranium even for making a bomb smaller than the one dropped over Hiroshima.

According to the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. nuclear watchdog, in the past 10 years, there have been 10 known incidents of HEU theft, and the stolen goods total less than eight kilograms.

Even this material could not be easily combined because of varying levels of enrichment, says the report.

Besides, the thieves failed to find a buyer and were all arrested while trying to sell their goods. None of them was connected to al-Qaida.

Although such enormous difficulties make it unlikely for al-Qaida to make a nuclear bomb, the Congressional Research Service recently warned that terrorists could obtain HEU from the more than 130 research reactors worldwide. Greatest concern as potential sources of weapons or fissile material are widely thought to be Russia and Pakistan, the congressional report said.

The Post says that the terror group that came close to making a nuclear bomb was the Japanese Aum Shinrikyo, which launched a clandestine plan in 1993 to mine and enrich uranium for making a nuclear bomb.

The group, according to the article, had all the means to achieve its target: money, expertise, a remote haven in which to work and, most important, a private uranium mine. Yet it failed.

The Post concludes that al-Qaida has been on the run since December 2001, when the United States defeated the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, and is not in a position to undertake such an ambitious plan.

But even a depleted group could do it if they got the right breaks, warns Benjamin.

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