Al-Qaeda's Nuclear Bomb website....

Nothing like a University-online for terrorists.

AN Al-Qaeda website containing detailed instructions in Arabic on how to make nuclear, “dirty” and biological bombs has attracted more than 57,000 hits and hundreds of readers’ inquiries. Terrorism experts are warning that the site could be boosting the organisation’s appeal to would-be assassins in Britain and abroad.

The manual, posted on October 6 on a forum titled Al-Firdaws, or Paradise, contains 80 pages of instructions and pictures of kitchen bomb-making techniques. It is divided into nine lessons under the overall heading The Nuclear Bomb of Jihad and the Way to Enrich Uranium, and is dedicated as a “gift to the commander of the jihad fighters, Sheikh Osama Bin Laden, for the purpose of jihad for the sake of Allah”.

As well as describing how to make a nuclear bomb from enriched uranium — impossible for the layman — the manual explains how to make simple bombs that can blow up anything from electrical generators to petrol stations.

The site encourages its readers to look for materials such as radium, which it says is an “effective alternative to uranium and available on the market”. It is unclear who the author is or where he is based: he describes himself simply as “Layth al-Islam”, or the “Lion of Islam”, belonging to a group called “the Black Flags”.

“Fight them so that Allah will punish them at your hands and will put them to shame and will give you victory over them,” he writes, quoting the Koran. “Perhaps nuclear weapons represent a technology of the 1940s. However, the Crusaders, the allies of the Satan, Allah’s curse be upon them, insist on depriving the jihad fighters of the right to have these weapons.”

The site’s appeal is evident from the enthusiasm of its correspondents. One of the most recent, Mariyam al-Jihadiyya, writes: “God bless you for this precious topic . . . fight them, through your hands God tortures them . . . and heal the hearts of the faithful people.” Beneath she includes a couple of pictures for her hero. “I love you, Osama,” she writes.