Second, interesting from Switzerland: Nuclear security in spotlight Oct 23, 2001
Nuclear security in spotlight
By RFE/RL
23-10-2001
isn.ethz.ch
For years, officials in the US and elsewhere have been warning that terrorist groups may some day acquire weapons capable of great devastation - biological, chemical, or nuclear. In 1998, former CIA Director John Deutch warned that "catastrophic terrorism has moved from far-fetched horror to a contingency that could happen next month."
After the devastating airline hijack attacks on New York and Washington, followed by a spate of anthrax-infected letters, the availability of nuclear material on the black market has come under renewed scrutiny.
A US federal indictment charges that al-Qaida tried to buy bomb-making components as early as 1993. Others believe Al-Qaida has attempted to buy ready-made nuclear warheads on the black market.
According to arms control expert Fritz Steinhausler, European security authorities are now investigating alleged attempts by Russian organized criminal groups to sell radioactive materials to al-Qaida earlier this year.
Steinhausler, a researcher at the Stanford University Center for International Security and Cooperation, said the first serious attempt by Al-Qaida to acquire nuclear materials took place in 1993. Bin Laden’s negotiator was a Sudanese man, Jamel Ahmed al-Fadl, who now lives in the US under the federal witness protection program.
"The result of multiple clandestine meetings with middlemen between al-Fadl, representative of al-Qaida, resulted in a meeting with a former Sudanese military officer who offered fissile material supposedly contained in a container 60 to 90 centimeters long with multiple writings on it, among them, reportedly, the words 'South Africa,'" Steinhausler said.
Steinhausler said al-Fadl received US$10,000 for his intermediary role, but it is not clear whether the uranium purchase ever occurred.
Former Soviet Union
In 1994, Czech police arrested three men carrying almost 3kg of highly enriched uranium, which was allegedly smuggled out of the former Soviet Union.
Steinhausler said this nuclear heist is believed to have been organized by a web of mafia groups operating in the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Belarus, Ukraine, and Germany and may also have been tied to bin Laden.
By far the most ambitious plan, Steinhausler said, was a planned exchange with Chechen separatists of drugs and money for nuclear warheads.
Members of al-Qaida reportedly approached the rebels in the breakaway Russian republic in 1998. Al-Qaida offered the rebels US$30 million and two tons of drugs. In return, al-Qaida would receive 20 nuclear warheads the Chechen rebels had captured from Russian military installations.
According to Steinhausler, the deal was never consummated, as Russia's Federal Security Bureau (FSB), foiled the plan. But others are not so sure.
A report published earlier this year in Geostrategy-Direct - edited by "Washington Times" reporters Bill Gertz and Robert Morton - claimed that bin's Laden's possession of nuclear devices is no longer in doubt.
The report says Russian intelligence sources believe bin Laden has a handful of tactical nuclear weapons received from Chechen rebels who raided Russian nuclear installations.
As late as 1991, more than 50’000 nuclear devices were scattered over 500 sites in the former Soviet republics and in Eastern Europe.
Most analysts say Russia has made great strides toward consolidating most of them and removing nuclear weapons from unstable parts of the country, such as the north Caucasus, but fears persist.
Economic collapse has meant little funding to maintain and protect nuclear facilities. Employees at Russian nuclear installations are often poorly paid.
Engineering bombs difficult
Pavel Felgenhauer, an independent Moscow-based defense analyst, scoffs at reports that al-Qaida have tried to acquire nuclear materials in Russia: "All investigations for the last 10 years and all reports of possible loose Russian nukes turned out to be unsubstantiated. There are many [such stories]."
Felgenhauer said if al-Qaida does, indeed, possess nuclear materials, they most likely came from Pakistan, the only country that recognizes Afghanistan's ruling Taliban, which has been sheltering bin Laden.
David Kyd, a spokesman for the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN-affiliated nuclear watchdog group, pointed out that even if Al-Qaida did acquire nuclear material, building a bomb would be extremely difficult. "Could you build one? Well, that's a very challenging and expensive and time-consuming proposition.
"You need 8kg of plutonium or 25kg of highly enriched uranium. That's a large quantity, not easy to come by."
He said terrorists are more likely to opt for chemical or biological weapons: "I think I would be more tempted by quicker, simpler, cheaper, safer options, like chemical or biological. Chemicals, for instance, are easy to come by - and substances that are banal [harmless], when combined, can have a devastating effect - psychologically and also for public health.
"So I'm not sure if nuclear or radiological weapons - that is, things that are radioactive but not fissile, like plutonium and highly enriched uranium - I'm not sure they're on the top of a terrorist's list."
As of September 1999, the International Atomic Energy Agency has recorded more than 150 reports of illegal trafficking of nuclear material.
Agency spokesman David Kyd said: "Since 1999, there have been over 150 cases - confirmed cases - of seizures of radioactive materials on the black market. Of those - and that's somewhat reassuring, but not totally - six have involved nuclear weapon-grade material. In other words, highly enriched uranium or plutonium."
Of the six serious cases, five occurred in the former Soviet bloc, including Kyrgyzstan, Georgia, Latvia, and along the Bulgarian-Romanian border, Kyd said.
In April 2000, Georgian police seized several hundred reactor-fuel pellets containing a total of 920 grams of enriched uranium.
Special links:
Center for International Security and Cooperation
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