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Spread of nuclear technology increasing risk of terrorist radioactive attack

Legitimate uses for such materials also “significantly increases the risk that they may be diverted and exploited by terrorist organisations”….

BRITAIN FACES NUCLEAR THREAT FROM al-QAEDA, GOVERNMENT REPORT WARNS, San Francisco Sentinel, By Duncan Gardham;The London Telegraph, 23 March 2010, Britain faces an increased threat of a nuclear attack by al-Qaeda terrorists following a rise in the trafficking of radiological material, a government report has warned.
Bomb makers who have been active in Afghanistan may already have the ability to produce a “dirty bomb” using knowledge acquired over the internet.It is feared that terrorists could transport an improvised nuclear device up the Thames and detonate it in the heart of London. Bristol, Liverpool Newcastle, Glasgow and Belfast are also thought to be vulnerable…..

Downing Street released an update to the National Security Strategy in which it stated that “the UK does face nuclear threats now” and added that there was “the possibility that nuclear weapons or nuclear material [could] fall into the hands of rogue states or terrorist groups”.

The International Atomic Energy Authority recorded 1,562 incidents where nuclear material was lost or stolen between 1993 and 2008, mostly in the former Soviet Union, and 65 per cent of the losses were never recovered.

Another report, on the Government’s “Contest” counter-terrorism strategy, said there was a danger that the increased expertise of insurgents in making bombs in Afghanistan had increased the threat from a radiological “dirty bomb”……

The report said security around stockpiles of decommissioned material was “variable and sometimes inadequate, leaving materials vulnerable to theft by insiders and criminal and terrorist organisations”.

Legitimate uses for such materials also “significantly increases the risk that they may be diverted and exploited by terrorist organisations”….

The Government has also introduced mobile radiation detection units to scan vehicles and passengers arriving at ports.

San Francisco Sentinel » Blog Archives » BRITAIN FACES NUCLEAR THREAT FROM al-QAEDA, GOVERNMENT REPORT WARNS

March 23, 2010 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | safety, UK | antinuclear, depleted, nuclear, nuclear renaissance, nuclear secrecy, nuclear spin, nuclear wastes, nuclear weapons, plutonium, radiation, radioactive, uranium