ATTEMPTS to smuggle radioactive materials have doubled over the past five
years, according to figures released this week by the UN鈥檚 International Atomic
Energy Agency. The revelations bolster fears that the threat of nuclear
terrorism is increasing.
The IAEA鈥檚 database on trafficking in nuclear materials has logged more than
550 incidents since 1993, it revealed at a conference in Stockholm. The rate of
incidents in 1999 and 2000 was twice that in 1996. In the first three months of
2001, there were 20 confirmed cases, including thefts in Germany, Romania, South
Africa and Mexico.
The majority of cases involved the movement of materials which could not be
made into bombs, such as contaminated scrap metal or radioactive sources. But 15
instances since 1993 involved plutonium or enriched uranium, which could be used
in bombs. No single consignment has so far contained enough for a bomb, but the
most worrying to the IAEA was the seizure of nearly a kilogram of enriched
uranium in April last year in the former Soviet republic of Georgia.
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The risk of nuclear terrorism is 鈥渢he worst of all nightmares鈥�, says Morten
Bremer Maerli of the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs in Oslo. The
cold war has left the world with 鈥渁 staggering legacy鈥� of 3 million kilograms of
fissile material, he says鈥攅nough for a quarter of a million bombs.
Maerli says two of the most notorious terrorist groups鈥擮sama bin
Laden鈥檚 Al-Qaida in Afghanistan and the Aum Shrinrikyo cult in Japan鈥攈ave
been trying to acquire a nuclear capability. Alex Schmid of the UN鈥檚 Terrorism
Prevention Branch suggests that there could be as many as 130 terrorist groups
that pose a nuclear threat. 鈥淰igorous efforts need to be made to keep the
nuclear genie in the bottle and out of the hands of terrorists,鈥� he says.