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Atomic agency warns of nuclear terror
risk By Clive Cookson in London Published: October 31 2001 21:52 | Last Updated: October 31 2001 22:33 | |
The September 11 suicide attacks have shown that the world faces a serious risk of nuclear terrorism, the International Atomic Energy Agency warned on Wednesday. It said the threat was most likely to come from the explosion of a conventional "dirty bomb" that would spread radioactive materials. Making such a bomb could expose the terrorists to life-threatening radiation. "The willingness of terrorists to sacrifice their lives to achieve their evil aims makes the nuclear terrorism threat far more likely than it was before September 11," said Mohamed El Baradei, IAEA director general. "We have been alerted to the potential of terrorists targeting nuclear facilities or using radioactive sources to incite panic, contaminate property and even cause injury and death among civilian populations," he said. The IAEA will hold a special meeting of experts on nuclear terrorism on Friday at its headquarters in Vienna. It is preparing a series of anti-terrorist initiatives, including measures to track down and dispose of surplus radioactive sources. Although the most spectacular act of terrorism would be to set off a nuclear explosion, IAEA experts believe it is "highly unlikely" that al-Qaeda or any other terrorist network has the expertise or enough uranium or plutonium to make its own atomic bomb. Nor do they believe rumours that terrorists might have obtained "suitcase bombs" - capable of one-kiloton explosions - from the nuclear arsenal of the former Soviet Union. According to the IAEA, terrorists are much more likely to use a "dirty bomb" that spreads radioactive material through a conventional explosion. There are tens of thousands of highly radioactive sources around the world, generating radiation for industry, medicine and research. Often they are left virtually unprotected against theft. "A large source could be removed quite easily, especially if those involved have no regard for their own health," said Abel Gonzales, IAEA director of radiation and waste safety. "The effects of a dirty bomb would not be devastating in terms of human life but contamination in even small quantities could have major psychological and economic effects." An example of the danger was the accidental contamination of Goiânia in Brazil with a medical radiation source, caesium 137, that was stolen and broken up for scrap in 1987. Four people died, 14 received dangerous irradiation, 249 were contaminated and 110,000 required radiological monitoring. | |