The writings of Osama bin Laden, much in the news the last couple of days, amount to a single notebook of "10 or so pages" in his handwriting, a senior U.S. intelligence official says.

Rather than a "journal" or a "diary," the official described it as an "outline" or a "white paper" on al-Qaida's plans. "It set up an agenda for subsequent discussion and correspondence," he added, some of it with his subordinates and some with affiliated groups. In fact, there is other written and digital material that relates to the 10-page notebook.

The singular impression of analysts, said the official: "He was down in the weeds ... a micromanager."

The U.S. does not yet know if the material was written in one or more sittings, and the official declined to say how recently it was written.

Exploitation of the full cache of material is still under way. At the beginning of the process, 10 days ago, the official said the CIA estimated exploitation would take "a few weeks total if we go around the clock" The explotiation is in fact going 24 hours a day, with updates every morning and a number of regular intelligence reports — "dozens" on some days — distributed throughout the day.

As for additional videos, the official said a lot of them were what we have seen already: unreleased propaganda, outtakes, and news reports that had been recorded. Bin Laden's own messages were recorded at the compound, and it appears that some production and post-production work were done elsewhere by al Shahab, the al-Qaida media arm.

When asked if the material seized is helping the U.S. identify locations of other al-Qaida leaders, the official declined to comment.

By Robert Windrem
NBC News investigative producer for special projects

More than decade ago, a Washington writer penned a novel based on Moammar Gadhafi’s willingness to use chemical weapons.  Called “Circle William,” the novel was based on a supposed plot by Gadhafi to use chemical weapons against the Israeli Knesset in Jerusalem and a ship christening ceremony in Norfolk, Va. Predictably, the plot failed because of the heroic efforts of two brothers.

While there is no evidence that Libya would go after U.S. or Israeli targets — or even has the capability to do so — one of the book’s main premises is very real: Gadhafi has vast reserves of chemical weapons.

Libya has a "significant" stockpile of chemical weapons, developed during the 1980s, according to U.S. officials, but the U.S. also believes there is no evidence that he is prepared to use them against his own people. With the destruction of 3,500 aerial bombs in 2004, Gadhafi may not have the delivery systems needed.

"We have no indication he is planning to use them against his population ... but he doesn't always make rational decisions," said one official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

U.S. officials do say the Libyan government recently updated security measures at the country’s chemical weapons storage and destruction facilities.

U.S. officials tell NBC News the facilities are on an air base near the town of Sebha, 250 miles south of Tripoli. The Libyans have been using a chemical neutralization process to destroy the weapons and are nearing completion of an incineration facility at Sebha.

Indeed, Libya has one of the world’s largest remaining stockpiles of chemical weapons.

Of the 23 tons of mustard gas declared by the Libyans in 2004, only about 9.5 tons remain, according to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, or OPCW, which has responsibility for overseeing the destruction of such weapons under the Chemical Weapons Convention.

The destruction began in 2010 and was supposed to be concluded by May,  but the situation  in Libya clouds that timetable, say officials.

By comparison, as of last month the U.S. had more than 4,700 tons of chemical weapons agents still awaiting destruction, specifically mustard and blister agents as well as the nerve agents VX and sarin.  The Russian stockpile is even larger, at more than 20,000 tons.

The Libyans declared their country had produced only mustard gas.

“And the declaration on precursor chemicals (those used to make chemical warfare agents) was also only for mustard gas,” said Michael Luhan, a OPCW spokesman.

Some in U.S. intelligence, however, were never convinced that the Libyans limited their chemical weapons production to mustard gas.

“I don't know of anyone at the (Central Intelligence) Agency who was fully comfortable with the Libyans telling us everything we wanted to know,” said a former senior intelligence official.  “The going assumption was they were lying whenever possible, and we were rarely proven wrong.”

Moreover, he said,  U.S. intelligence believed that the Libyans had not been completely truthful on the quantity as well as the quality of the weapons. “We believed they were saving something for a rainy day.”

However, a current U.S. intelligence official said that while there was concern about nerve agents “because of the discovery of precursor chemicals,”  it was only research and development.

“No one believed they were successful,” said the official. “Never a capability.  Never actual stocks, just precursors. OPCW was concerned that Libya did not declare an R&D effort, but they didn’t.”  

In addition to the stockpile, one inactivated chemical weapons production facility at Rabta, 60 miles south of Tripoli, was declared and has now been converted to a pharmaceutical plant, ironically, its original cover.

“The conversion is irreversible,” said Luhan.

By Garrett Haake and Robert Windrem
NBC News

Khalid Ali-M Aldawsari, the Saudi student arrested Thursday on charges that he planned to build bombs for terror attacks inside the United States, was granted a U.S. student visa after qualifying for a generous scholarship sponsored by Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah, according to the indictment against him. (Read the FBI affidavit supporting an arrest warrant. The affidavit describes the evidence against Aldawsari.)

Aldawsari was one of more than 10,000 Saudi students granted student visas in 2008, an NBC News analysis of the visa program shows.

Indeed, the number of Saudi students approved for entry into the United States has jumped more than fourfold since 15 young Saudis helped carry out the attacks on the United States on Sept. 11, 2001. At the same time, visas granted to other Middle East nations dropped often precipitously or remained at the same level.

The analysis shows that 26,744 Saudi students received US F-1 and F-2 visas in 2010, up from 6,836 in 2001. The numbers have steadily increased as the Kingdom has provided financing for students, believing the students' exposure to the U.S. and its education system would help US-Saudi relations.

While overall non-immigrant visas from Saudi has dropped during the period from 2001 to 2010, the education visas have skyrocketed, in large part, say U.S.officials, because of the King Abdullah Scholarship program which sponsored Aldawsari.

Aldawsari is the only recipient of the scholarship known to have been accused of terrorism.

The King Abdullah Program annually sponsors thousands of Saudi students. It generously "provides the means to best world universities to pursue studies that lead to degrees (bachelors, masters and doctorate) and medical fellowships."

Administered through the Ministry of Higher Education, it is one of the most generous programs anywhere. According to the program's website, King Abdullah Scholarships provide financial support for scholarship recipients. Among the privileges it offers are the following:

• Monthly stipend
• Full tuition and fees paid directly to the educational institution
• Cost of attending conferences, symposia and workshops
• Expenses for scientific trips
• Allowances for books and clothes
• Financial support for spouse and dependents
• Medical insurance

Aldawsari referred to the program as the "Traitor of the Two Holy Places Scholarship," a play on the Saudi king's most revered title, "Protector of the Two Holy Places." The FBI says he chose the program because, unlike other Saudi scholarships, it would allow him to go directly to the U.S. without having to first study in college-level programs in Saudi Arabia.

A review of State Department records show that Saudi students got far more visas than others from the region. Students from the United Arab Emirates, for example, received a total of 1,233 student visas in 2010, compared with 1,246 in 2001. Yemeni students received 279 visas in 2010, compared with 376.

Pakistani students had the most precipitous drop, declining from 3,880 in 2001 to 1,093 visas in 2010, a drop of 72 percent. Pakistani officials complain that the drop has dramatically hurt U.S.-Pakistani relations, because those seeking visas are the children of the most affluent and pro-U.S. Pakistanis.

Garrett Haake is an associate producer for NBC Nightly News. Robert Windrem is investigative producer for special projects for NBC News.

By Robert Windrem
NBC News investigative producer for special projects

Moammar Gadhafi’s regime controls $32 billion in liquid assets around the world, including hundreds of millions of dollars invested in U.S. banks, according to a confidential cable written by the U.S. ambassador to Libya last year. The leaked diplomatic message was distributed through WikiLeaks.

The same cable reported that Libya had been approached by two men accused of running huge Ponzi schemes, Bernard Madoff and Allen Stanford, but had resisted offers from them to invest Libyan funds with them. Madoff is serving time in a U.S. prison; Stanford has not been convicted of a crime and is awaiting trial.

The cable is entitled "Technology of Tourism: Head of Libyan Investment Authority Discusses Opportunities for US Business in Libya," and was written Jan. 28, 2010, by Ambassador Gene A. Cretz, after a meeting with Mohamed Layas, the head of the LIA, Libya’s sovereign wealth fund. Sovereign wealth funds are the vehicles used by Middle East and other governments to invest oil wealth. The LIA, according to U.S. intelligence, is controlled by Gadhafi's regime.

"Layas asserted that the LIA has USD 32 billion in liquidity, and noted that several American banks are each managing USD 300-500 million of the LIA's funds," according to the cable.

Cretz also quotes Layas as saying, "We have USD 32 billion in liquidity,  mostly in bank deposits that will give us good long-term returns." Layas explained that beyond the hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. banks, not further identified, Layas said the LIA has extensive investments in the United Kingdom.

Cretz wrote that Layas "said that the LIA has an office in London and preferred doing business there rather than in the United States, due to the ‘ease of doing business’ in the UK and relatively 'uncomplicated tax system.' He noted that the LIA's primary investments are in London, in banking and residential and commercial real estate."

The LIA’s best-publicized investment was in a Canadian oil company, Verenex. Libya paid $316 million for the company in 2009.

However, the Libyan claimed he had avoided being involved in two Ponzi schemes, those run by Madoff and Stanford. Layas denied press reports that LIA had invested $100 million with Stanford, but admitted being approached by both Stanford and Madoff.

"Stanford had approached the LIA in the middle of his crisis, offering a 7-8% share in his investment scheme, but Layas had refused," Cretz wrote. "Layas also mentioned having been previously approached by Bernard Madoff about an investment opportunity, 'but we did not accept’." 

Read the cable here.

Other diplomatic cables on Libya are described in this New York Times article, "WikiLeaks cables detail Qaddafi family's exploits."

By Robert Windrem
NBC News investigative producer for special projects

U.S. officials, while declining to point to a single country that could follow Tunisia and Egypt into regime change, say they believe there are three countries whose protests could, under some circumstances, reach that same level of intensity.

The officials cited Yemen, Bahrain and Iran (not necessarily in that order) as being in a separate category from the rest of the Middle East nations. There may be protests and demonstrations in the other countries, but the protests are less widespread or more likely to be put down by brutal state security forces, U.S. officials said.

Here's a country-by-country assessment drawn from the accounts of U.S. officials:

Yemen: plenty of kindling
Yemen has been facing daily protests, and the nation is fraught with all sorts of issues: deep poverty and unemployment, a strong belief that the society is inherently corrupt, an active al-Qaida presence, and an unpopular ruler, who's been in power almost as long as Presidents Ben Ali and Mubarak in Tunisa and Egypt. Overlaying that is a water crisis unlike any other in the world. There has been a strong security presence in Sanaa, the capital, but things could get out of hand.

Iran: Look to March 21
The level of Iran's demonstrations surprised demonstration organizers, say U.S. officials. While some reports put the number of demonstrators at a half-million, officials dismissed that number as exaggerated, but said the real number, "tens of thousands, maybe a hundred thousand," was larger than organizers expected. In fact, the vote in the Iranian Majlis (parliament) to prosecute Green Movement leaders Mir Hossein Mousavi, Mahdi Karroubi and former reformist President Mohammad Khatami was a function of the regime's anxiety rather than a realistic piece of legislation. While the protests, the largest since December 2009, are reflective of the Green Movement's strength, U.S. officials say they are uncertain that the protests can be sustained. Next time to look for widespread demonstrations: March 21, the Iranian New Year, known as Nowruz.

Bahrain: confidence in the streets
Bahrain is the most interesting to many U.S. analysts. Although there have long been demonstrations by the Shiite majority against the ruling Sunni royal family, this week's demonstrations show a great degree of confidence, fueled in part by the successes on Tunisia and Egypt. The demonstrators are demanding a new constitution that would lessen the power of the king, who now rules absolutely. There are reports that Iran is financing the protests in its role as Guardian of the Shiite faith, but U.S. officials have expressed suspicion about those reports.

Libya, Syria, Algeria, Saudi Arabia
As for the rest, U.S. officials say they believe that Libya, Syria and Algeria will continue to have demonstrations, but face brutal repression, which the populace well knows.

The Saudi regime, the officials say, does not have anywhere near the animosity found elsewhere, in large part because of the nation's wealth.

By Robert Windrem
NBC News investigative producer for special projects

If Egypt’s President Hosni Mubarak is forced into exile, he is likely to have access to billions in assets. But if Egypt’s successor government tries to recover any of it, it will have a hard time, if history is any judge.

Estimates circulated inside the U.S. government, developed by various agencies, put  Mubarak’s wealth at between $2 billion and $3 billion.  How much of that total is outside of Egypt, and in what form, is uncertain. How much is recoverable is an even smaller fraction.

AP reported that some in Egypt believed Mubarak controlled $70 billion in assets, but U.S. officials dismissed that number as wildly exaggerated. They noted that Bill Gates, the richest man on the Forbes 400 list, is worth $53 billion.

Nick Peck, Head of Complex Investigations of Nardello & Co., worked in a similar position with Kroll Associates when that company was hired by Kuwait to track Saddam Hussein’s wealth. He’s also familiar as well with Kroll’s attempts to track, and recover, the wealth looted from the Philippines by the Marcos family.

“The initial numbers are often very overblown,” says Peck. “Often suspect in terms of how much the official has.”

Officials say historically most of the assets controlled by dictators remains within their home countries. Peck pointed to a stash of millions of dollars in cash and gold bars found hidden underground in Iraq following the war.

“Always concerned about their own security, they like to keep an amount liquid in their own country,” says Peck. “But if he’s planning long term, for a future outside the country, a dictator will think, ‘Let me stuff some in Swiss bank or a Panamanian nominee account.’”

Indeed, finding the hard currency or the gold bars at home is nowhere near as difficult as tracking paper and real assets overseas. Peck points out that the Marcos family invested heavily in midtown Manhattan real estate, while Saddam held tens of millions of dollars in public stock in European companies. The Shah of Iran used a family foundation to acquire a Fifth Avenue office building.

Proving ownership, says Peck, is difficult.

“If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s likely a duck, but that often doesn’t meet the legal threshold to seize that asset,” he notes. “It’s a tough battle to prove it. There are nominee accounts," accounts in another person's name, "but no bank savings book. What you’ll almost never find is a deposed leader’s name linked to accounts.”

Peck says he also heard reports while investigating Saddam that certain events would trigger asset transfers from financial institutions in western locales to more obscure institutions.

There are other common denominators, says Peck. Often times, a trusted family member and/or confidante is located overseas near the assets. Saddam’s half-brother, Barzan al-Tikriti, controlled Saddam’s overseas assets from an office in Geneva. (Barzan, like his half-brother, was hanged by the Iraqi government for crimes against humanity unrelated to his investments.)

“What people have to understand is there are no shortcuts," Peck said. "It's time consuming and requires some degree of luck in getting the right sources to successfully identify the stolen assets."

In another country in transition, Tunisia's provisional cabinet on Thursday adopted a battery of "practical mechanisms" to enable it to recover assets of figures of the ousted regime, the country’s official news agency said.

Once recovered, "the smuggled and plundered funds and assets" will be used for the development of mainly poorer areas in the country, it said.

REUTERS/Loay Abu Haykel

Omar Suleiman, Egyptian intelligence chief and vice president

By Robert Windrem
NBC News investigative producer
for special projects

Increasingly, the U.S. is placing its trust in Omar Suleiman’s ability to serve as an intermediary between Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and those calling for democracy in the Arab world’s most populous nation.

But while Suleiman, the longtime intelligence chief and new Egyptian vice president, has long been a favorite of U.S. and Israeli officials, his animosity toward some in the Egyptian resistance may make it difficult to serve as a go-between.

According to reports out of the White House, the U.S. sees Suleiman as the best short-term solution, one in which there is both real change and political stability, a difficult job with virtually all sides calling for Mubarak to step down.

Typical of the effusive praise U.S. officials have lavished on Suleiman over the years is this excerpt from former CIA Director George Tenet, in his 2007 memoir, “At the Center of the Storm.”

“Omar Suleiman has been head of the Egyptian intelligence service for many years. A general as well as an intelligence chief, Umar is tall and regal looking, a very powerful man, very deliberate in his speech. He’s also tough and engaging. In a world filled with shadows, he is straight up and down,” Tenet stated as he wrote about the Middle East peace process.

“Umar has also done as much behind the scenes as anyone else I can think of to try to bring peace between the Palestinians and the Israelis,” he added. 

“That was true when the United States was still engaged in the process. It’s even more so now that we are long gone from it. When nobody was trying to go see Hamas, when nobody was talking to the Palestinians, when nobody was talking to the Israelis, when nobody was pushing forward with innovative ideas to try to get people talking to each other, Umar was on the ground taking risks,” he continued.

At many of the meetings Tenet had with Suleiman, his then chief of staff, John Brennan, was present.  Brennan, who learned Arabic in Cairo, is now President Obama’s highly trusted counterterrorism adviser and plays an increasingly larger role in National Security Council discussions on Egypt.

More recently, Suleiman was credited by U.S. and Israeli officials with keeping arms out of Gaza.  Suleiman also often carried messages from Israel and the U.S. to Hamas.

The week before the revolt began in Cairo, in fact, Suleiman was quoted as warning Hamas that unless it released an Israeli soldier it would face serious consequences. 

The Jerusalem Post reported on Jan. 29 that Suleiman warned Hamas that he expected “a massive operation” against Hamas in Gaza unless IDF soldier Gilad Schalit, held in Gaza for almost two years, is released.

While the U.S. and Israel trust him, there are indications that at least one party in the Egyptian opposition does not.

Mark Hosenball of Reuters reported this weekend that U.S. diplomatic documents published by WikiLeaks show that Suleiman has long sought to demonize the opposition Muslim Brotherhood in his contacts with skeptical U.S. officials.

According to a February 2006 diplomatic cable, Suleiman accused the Muslim Brotherhood of spawning “11 different Islamist extremist organizations,  most notably the Egyptian Islamic Jihad and the Gama'a Islamiya (Islamic Group).″ 

The same month, in another cable, he is quoted as describing as “unfortunate” the Muslim Brotherhood’s success in recent parliamentary elections and suggesting Egypt needs new measures to restrain them.

Suleiman met this week with two representatives of the Muslim Brotherhood as part of a larger meeting with protest leaders and prominent Egyptians.

After Suleiman described the meeting as a productive negotiation, other participants denounced his account as a ploy to taint them as collaborators.

While U.S. officials quoted in the WikiLeaks cables admit the Muslim Brotherhood has among its membership “extremists both we and the Egyptian government oppose, Egyptian authorities have a long history of threatening us with the MB bogeyman.″

Who is Omar Suleiman? There's more in the video below from msnbc TV:
 

By Robert Windrem
NBC News investigative producer for special projects

NBC News has obtained more than a dozen documents from the United States, Russia and Israel that shed some light on several Egyptian weapons of mass destruction programs, including its nuclear potential and details of a joint North Korean-Egyptian missile development agreement.

The documents, stretching back two decades, reveal an Egyptian commitment to research and development of WMDs, the acronym for weapons of mass destruction that thrust itself into the common lexicon during the Iraq war. They also reveal that Cairo is interested in nuclear and radiological weapons, though the extent of that interest is far from clear.

The U.S. has long known about but tolerated because of Egypt’s central role in both the Middle East peace talks and counterterrorism. To quote one congressional expert on arms proliferation, "If they were any other Arab state, we would be all over them every day on these issues."

Related story: Concerns grow over Egypt's WMD research

At the same time, U.S., Israeli and Russian officials have expressed concerns that the Egyptian weapons programs — particularly its missile expertise – has the potential to destabilize the relative peace that has reigned in the Middle East for several decades. Despite these concerns, the officials say, Egypt has continued to work on many of these programs.

Egyptians have defended its development of WMDs as a necessary counterbalance to Israel's weapons capabilities, which are daunting even to the first Arab state to sign a peace treaty with the Jewish state. With an estimated 200 nuclear warheads — bigger than Great Britain’s arsenal — and 100 medium-range missiles, Israel is in a world of diminishing nuclear programs, a regional superpower — at least.

Here is a breakdown on the Egyptian programs, drawn from the U.S., Russian and Israeli documents, all of which were either publicly disseminated or declassified under the Freedom of Information Act: 

Nuclear proliferation
The most revealing document in the trove is a Jan. 28, 1993, report by the Foreign Intelligence Service, the KGB's successor organization. The report, titled “Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction,” was issued at a time of extraordinary public openness in Russia and has not been updated since.

The report stated that while Egypt had "no special program of military-applied research in the nuclear sphere" at the time, it had made significant advances on nuclear technology.

Among other things, it said Egypt had:

• Built a research reactor at Inshas, north of Cairo, built with help from Argentina.
• Contracted with Russia to supply a MGD-20 cyclotron accelerator, which would be helpful in exploring uranium enrichment technologies.
• Begun construction of a facility at its Inshas research center that “in its design features and engineering protection could in the future be used to obtain weapons-grade plutonium from the uranium irradiated in the research reactors."

In addition, NBC News obtained a U.S. Customs Service account of a debriefing of an Egyptian-American spy, Abdel Kadr Helmy. Helmy, who was jailed in the 1980s for trying to obtain various missile technologies  including Pershing-II guidance packages – said in the interviews that Egypt had an active nuclear weapons development program that included sending uranium to Pakistan for enrichment to bomb-grade levels. He also said that an Egyptian Brigadier General, Ahmad Nashet, ran both the civilian nuclear establishment in Cairo as well as the nascent bomb program.

Helmy subsequently disavowed the claim, and Egypt has steadfastly denied interest in nuclear weapons.

Chemical weapons
The Egyptians are also interested in chemical weapons. Specifically, the FIS document notes: "Techniques of the production of nerve-paralyzing and blister-producing toxic agents have been assimilated."

Furthermore, the FIS said, "There is information to the effect that Egypt is displaying interest in purchases overseas of warheads intended for filling with liquid chemical warfare agents. The stockpiles of toxic substances available at this time are insufficient for broad-based operations, but the industrial potential would permit the development of the additional production in a relatively short time." It may be that the warheads the Russians discussed were ultimately bound for Iraq. 

Biological weapons
Similarly, the Egyptians have a biological weapons program, according to statements from the FIS, the CIA and the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency dating back to the 1990s.

"At the start of the 1970s," the FIS report stated, "President Sadat confirmed this, announcing the presence in Egypt of a stockpile of biological agents stored in refrigerating plants. Toxins of varying nature are being studied and techniques for their production and refinement are being developed at the present time in a (unnamed) national research center."

In response to a question during a congressional hearing on WMD proliferation on Feb. 24, 1993, CIA Director R. James Woolsey confirmed that Egypt is counted as a nation with biological weapons capability.

And in three annual reports to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee since 1995, the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency has used the same language to assess the Egyptian program: "The United States believes that Egypt had developed biological agents by 1972. There is no evidence to indicate that Egypt has eliminated this capability and it remains likely that the Egyptian capability to conduct biological warfare continues to exist."

What is intriguing about these reports is that, unlike a similar report in 1994, they did not include this sentence: "The United States however has not, however, obtained recent information on this program" — the implication being that the U.S. did receive information about the program starting in 1995, though it’s not clear what that information was.

Missiles
The area where Egypt excels is in missile development.

The FIS report noted: "By 1990, Egypt's missile forces were armed with a regiment each of Soviet Scud-B (with a range of 300 kilometers) and Frog 7 (70 km) transporter-erector-launchers and also a certain quantity of Sakr 80 and Sakr 365 Egyptian-Iraqi-North Korean short-range missiles. It is technically possible to fit the Scud and Frog warheads with chemical weapons.”

The report also noted that China had reached an agreement with Egypt to assist in modernizing a manufacturing plant to build “new modifications of the Scud B-class missiles and three domestic types of Egyptian surface-to-surface missiles."

A 1992 Israeli Defense Forces memorandum on Mideast missile programs provided this appraisal of the Egyptian program aimed at acquiring and supporting ground-to-ground missiles, or GGM in weapons-speak:

"During the 1950s, and aided by German Nazi scientists, a concerted effort was made to build factories which would manufacture missiles,” it said. “This effort continued over the years; at present the Egyptian army diverts resources to this endeavor.”

The memo said that the Egyptian program was focused on the Scud, and that North Korea was its main ally. In the early 1980s, it said, North Korea bought tens of Russian-made medium-range Scud-B missiles from the Egyptians and, in exchange, helped the Egyptians set up the infrastructure for missile production and assembly. The Egyptian factories are said to have begin active production in 1993.

An even bigger concern among foreign intelligence services is the medium-range Condor II missile program, a joint project of Egypt, Argentina and Iraq.

In congressional testimony on April 18, 1991, U.S. Customs Service agent Daniel Burns stated that Abdelkader Helmy, the Egyptian-American rocket scientist who had pleaded guilty to helping Egypt obtain equipment and material for the Condor-II missile discussed with him several projects, including an “Egyptian effort to develop a nuclear warhead, including the Cobalt-60 effort and the purchase of uranium from France."

Helmy’s statement is of particular concern as Cobalt-60, a radioactive isotope that could be used in a radiological or "dirty" bomb, which disperses radioactive material on detonation.

As stated above, Helmy later disavowed the statement and returned to Egypt. Egypt has denied any interest in nuclear weapons.