Los Angeles, Alta California - November 15, 2002 - (ACN) The Brazilian journalist Pepe Escobar, who writes for the Hong Kong based Asian Times, reported yesterday in an article titled "Apocalypse Now, or Alottanukes Soon," that "Seven nuclear heads have already been positioned in seven of America's major cities and they are ready to be detonated." Pepe Escobar is no slouch. On August 30, 2001, he predicted the World Trade Center terrorist attack in an article titled, "Get Osama! Now! Or else "--an article in which he reported for the Asian Times on a meeting between the Taliban and al-Qa'ida.

Today, the Asian Times, which primarily focuses on Asian business and finance, re- moved the article from their website and is now saying that the article was removed because they later determined it was a hoax. This is very strange!

Pepe Escobar's "Apocalypse Now, or Alottanukes Soon" reported on an interview conducted by the Qatar-based Al-Jazeera television station of Mohammed al-Usuquf, a top al-Qa'ida leader. According to Escobar, Al-Usuquf says that al-Qa'ida's Kuwaiti spokesman, Sulaiman Abu Ghaith, and Osama bin Laden himself, suggested that he grant the interview. Bin Laden, al-Usuquf says, is "alive and healthy, along with his commanders Mohammed Atef, Khalid Shaik Mohammed, and Mullah Omar".

Pepe Escobar's account of the Al-Jazeera interview is as follows:

Al-Usuquf starts by criticizing Washington's disrespect of the Kyoto Protocol on climatic change, the International Criminal Court and the Palestinian cause, as well as the "financial greed" engendering speculative gains over Third World countries. He also criticizes the manner in which America wastes wealth, like U.S.$80 billion a year on gambling. "They [have] lost the notion of spirituality and only live in sin."

For this reason, America must be destroyed, and al-Usuquf insists that "aircraft carriers, nuclear submarines and spy satellites will be worthless in the next war".

Al-Qa'ida, according to al-Usuquf, has 5,000 first-rank operatives and around 20,000 all over the world. Of all the prisoners in the U.S.A., only "20 or 30" are al-Qaeda, and all of them "second-rank". Confirming Asia Times Online information, he swears that there are no first-rank prisoners in Guantanamo in Cuba. Al-Usuquf says, "We have more than 500 first-rank and 800 second-rank [operatives] inside the U.S.A.." "First rank" are considered ones that have lived in the U.S.A. for more than 10 years, most of them married with children. "They have an idea about the plans, and they are just waiting for a call." "Second-rank" operatives arrived in the past five years and "have no idea about the plans". They are all willing to die.

Al-Usuquf insists that September 11 "was just the beginning. It was a way to call the world's attention to what's going to happen." He then details a plan to destroy the U.S.A. by "attacking the heart of what they [the Americans] consider the most important thing in the world: money".

"The American economy is an economy of false appearances," says al-Usuquf. "There's no real economic weight. American GNP is something around $10 trillion, but only 1 percent comes from agriculture, and only 24 percent from industry. So 75 percent of its GNP comes from services, and most of it is financial speculation. For someone who understands economics, and apparently America's Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill does not, or cannot, the U.S.A. as a whole behaves like an immense dot.com, and dollars are its stocks. The value of stocks from a given company is directly proportional to its profitability. When a company only provides services, but does not produce goods, the value of its stocks depends on its credibility. What I'm saying is if U.S. credibility is affected, its stocks--the U.S. dollar--will fall at tremendous speed, and the whole Ameri- can economy will collapse."

Al-Usuquf is absolutely positive, "because, in a smaller scale, this is exactly what big financial conglomerates do with Third World countries to collect profits in one month that no Swiss bank would guarantee in four to five years". Al-Usuquf says that al-Qa'ida could do the same by "provoking a deficit of $50 to 70 trillion, the equivalent to five to seven years of the GNP of the U.S.A." How? By "destroying America's seven largest cities and resort to some other measures," The means? "Atomic bombs." Al-Usuquf's most startling revelation is that the bombs "won't be launched, they are already there." "Seven nuclear heads were already positioned on American soil before September 11, and they are ready to be detonated. Before September 11, American security was a fiasco, and even later, if we needed, we could position the bombs there. They arrived through seaports, as normal cargo. A nuclear head is not bigger than a fridge, so it can easily be camouflaged as one. Thousands of containers arrive at a seaport every day, and even with very efficient security, it's impossible to check and examine each one of them."

Al-Usuquf says that the bombs were bought on the black market: five from the former USSR and two from Pakistan. The five Russian heads "are from T-3 missiles, also known as RD-107, and their power is around 100 kilotons each, that is, five times the power of the Hiroshima bomb. The Pakistani bombs are less powerful, something around 10 kilotons each."

Each of the Russian bombs would have cost around $200 million. Al-Qa'ida was able to raise the money "because we have many sponsors. Many countries sponsor us, and also some very rich people." And not all of these are Arab countries. "Some European countries as well are also interested in the fall of the U.S.A.." As to the "rich people", they are "people who are also tired of seeing the U.S.A. bleeding the rest of the world."

And Iraq's Saddam Hussein, says Al-Usuquf, is not one of these people, "but just a col- laborator, represented by Abdul Tawab Hawaish, his vice prime minister and responsible for Iraq's arms program".

Al-Usuquf says that the bombs cannot be detected by U.S. authorities. "Even if they are old, they were modernized and are very well hidden. Even if they were located, they have autodetonation mechanisms in case something or someone gets close. Even an electro- magnetic pulse is not capable of deactivating them." The bombs allegedly cannot be de- tected because "they are enveloped in thick layers of lead". They could be detonated "by various methods--cellphone call, radio frequency, seismic shock, or by their regres- sive clock."

Al-Usuquf details the whole plan. "First, one head would be detonated, which would cause the deaths of 800,000 to 1 million people and a chaos never seen before. During this chaos, two or three planes, which are now disassembled inside barns near empty roads in the U.S. countryside, would take off in suicide missions to pulverize another two or three big American cities with chemicals. Once the disease was identified, all seaports and airports would be quarantined. Land borders would also be closed. No plane, boat, or car would enter or leave the U.S.A.. This would be total chaos." The first target would be the city "that would offer the best conditions, for example bright sky and winds of eight or more miles an hour blowing towards the center of the country, so radioactive dust can contaminate the largest possible area."

This attack would not knock out the U.S.A., recognizes al-Usuquf, "But the process would be initiated. As with the World Trade Center, it would be just a question of time for the whole economic structure to be turned to dust. If the objectives are reached with one bomb and diseases, probably we will save the lives of other people, but it's risky, and probably six more bombs will be detonated, one a week, and more attacks with chemical weapons will be launched." According to estimates made by al-Usuquf "and Ayman al-Zawahiri", al-Qa'ida's number 2 leader, about 15 million people would die, victims of the bombs and the radiation. Among those contaminated by diseases, "25 percent will die, a figure around more than 5 million, plus many others due to the chaos and dis- order."

Al-Usuquf does not fear an American military response. "Even if five or 10 cities are chosen at random to be destroyed, it will still be a small price to pay. The problem is that the economic despair will be so great that even if it saves [money] by not using weapons, American liquidity will be near zero, and the U.S.A. will make more money selling a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier to Turkey or Italy for $5 billion, because they will urgently need to recapitalize. But it will be too late. Moreover, what will remain of an American soldier's morale to fight knowing that his whole family died and his country ceased to exist? To fight for what?"

The world economy would not collapse, says al-Usuquf, although "in the beginning, it will be very difficult. But without the U.S.A., the world will soon rise in a more just and fraternal manner. Nothing can stop the plan."

And whatever America does, "it's too late". When will the attack begin? "I can't tell."
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Today, it is becoming increasingly more difficult for La Voz de Aztlan to determine the truth concerning what is being reported by the mainstream media and the government. There is no doubt, however, that George W. Bush has lied to the American people and to the world on a broad range of issues. We can not say that the above report is true or a hoax. We will leave this up to our readers.