Factgirl's official verdict: No. After reviewing the movement and assets of the cult (the most interesting being Patrick Bellamy's False Prophet: The Aum Cult of Terror at http://crimelibrary.com/terrorists/aum/main.htm) and doing a little research into Nuclear Science and Geology:
1. There are no former uranium mines in Western Australia.
2. Uranium is hard to mine but harder to concentrate. For every 25,000 tons of Uranium ore that is mined from the earth, only 50 tons of Uranium metal can be refined from that, and 99.3% of that metal is U-238 which is too stable to be used as an active agent in an atomic detonation. To make matters even more complicated, no ordinary chemical extraction can separate the two isotopes since both U-235 (the bomb kind) and U-238 possess precisely identical chemical characteristics. The only two concentrators in the entire nation are both owned by Anaconda Uranium Corporation a Company with home offices in Canada.
3. At the time of 1992-1993 the cult was still doing its big membership drive and concentrating on its efforts to sell electrical helmets (to stimulate your spiritual thoughts, $70,000 a piece or rent for $7,000 a month) to work up to its big doomsday event. They hadn't the resources or the personnel to build an atomic bomb. The plans for the bomb are available on this here internet, but as the site's disclaimer wisely indicates: (and I paraphrase) if you don't blow yourself up along with your neighborhood, you will die of radiation poisoning.
Later that day...
I am not a chemist or physicist and I promise you if I ever accidently become one I will eat my kids - much respect to Rook for the true facts regarding separation of U235 from U238! My info was as much research as my teeny wrinkly brain could comprehend and node within a reasonable time frame (in this case about 18.2 minutes).The site I quoted, http://serendipity.magnet.ch/more/atomic.html stated: The only methods that can effectively separate U-235 from U-238 are mechanical methods. I don't know how to separate Uranium using any method.
Good show also to Mattbw who noded this piece in the first place - this is the kind of story I love love love. Strange but true sounding stories where either the proof is in front of you or your bullshit meter goes off and you dig into some cool research. I learned stuff I didn't know. thanks