By Arun Kumar
Washington, Jan 26 (IANS) Al Qaeda has not abandoned its goal of attacking the United States with a chemical, biological or even nuclear weapon, according to a new report by a former senior CIA official.

The report by Rolf Mowatt-Larssen released Monday by Harvard University’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs portrays Al Qaeda’s leaders as determined and patient, willing to wait for years to acquire the kinds of weapons that could inflict widespread casualties.

He argues that Al Qaeda has been far more sophisticated in its pursuit of weapons of mass destruction than is commonly believed, pursuing parallel paths to acquiring weapons and forging alliances with groups that can offer resources and expertise.

“If Osama bin Laden and his lieutenants had been interested in . . . small-scale attacks, there is little doubt they could have done so now,” he writes.

Mowatt-Larssen, a 23-year CIA veteran, led the agency’s internal task force on Al Qaeda and weapons of mass destruction after the Sep. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and later was named director of intelligence and counter-intelligence for the energy department.

His report warns that Osama bin Laden’s threat to wage WMD attacks against the West is not “empty rhetoric” but a top strategic goal for an organization that seeks the economic ruin of the United States and its allies to hasten the overthrow of pro-Western governments in the Islamic world.

He cites patterns in Al Qaeda’s 15-year pursuit of weapons of mass destruction that reflect a deliberateness and sophistication in assembling the needed expertise and equipment.

He describes how Al Qaeda’s No. 2 leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri hired two scientists - a Pakistani microbiologist sympathetic to Al Qaeda and a Malaysian army captain trained in the United States - to work separately on efforts to build a biological weapons lab and acquire deadly strains of anthrax bacteria.

Al Qaeda achieved both goals before September 2001 but apparently had not successfully weaponized the anthrax spores when the US-led invasion of Afghanistan forced the scientists to flee, Mowatt-Larssen said.

“This was far from run-of-the-mill terrorism,” he told the Washington Post. “The programme was highly compartmentalised, at the highest level of the organization. It was methodical and it was professional.”