Terror outfit Al Qaeda [Images] is paying nuclear scientists from Russia [Images] and Pakistan to maintain its existing nuclear arsenal and assemble additional weapons, claims a forthcoming book by former Federal Bureau of Investigation consultant.
    
Quoting documents purportedly seized in Afghanistan, the author, Paul Williams, said the terror group also plans to assemble its own nuclear weapons with fissile material it purchased in the black market over a period of 10 years.

In the book "The Al Qaeda Connection: International Terrorism, Organied Crime and the Coming Apocalypse", he contends that Al Qaeda has already planted in the US, nuclear weapons it obtained from the Soviet Union.

"It has obtained 40 of them from the Soviet Union and these include suitcase nukes, nuclear mines, artillery shells and even some missile warheads," he said.

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In addition to capability to detonate its own nuclear weapons also smuggled through criminal gangs across the Mexican broder and already planted in the US, Williams' book said there was evidence to suggest that Al Qaeda was paying former Russian special forces Spetznaz to assist them in locating nuclear weapons formerly concealed inside the US by the Soviet Union during the Cold War.

At least half the nuclear weapons in the Al Qaeda arsenal were obtained for cash from the Chechen terrorist allies, said a summary of the book published on the Internet by WorldNetDaily.
    
There is virtually no doubt among intelligence analysts that Al Qaeda has obtained fully assembled nuclear weapons, Williams said.

The only question is how many.

Estimates range between a dozen and 70. An undetermined number of these weapons, including nuclear suitcase bombs, mines and crude tactical nuclear weapons, have already been smuggled into the US--at least some across the US-Mexico border.

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The future plan, according to captured Al Qaeda agents and documents suggests the attacks will take place simultaneously in major cities throughout the country, including New York, Boston, Washington, Las Vegas [Images], Miami [Images], Chicago and Los Angeles, it claimed.
    
The book says Osama bin Laden's goal is to kill at least 4 million Americans, including 2 million children.

Only then, the 'crimes committed by America on the Arab and Muslim world would be avenged,' the book quotes bin Laden as saying.