nuclear-news

(CNN) — Militants in Iraq have taken hold of nuclear materials at university science facilities near the northern city of Mosul, the Iraqi government has said in a letter to the United Nations.

But two U.S. officials told CNN on Wednesday that the small amounts of uranium aren’t enriched or weapons-grade, prompting only minimal concern.

The letter from Iraq’s U.N. ambassador about the uranium compounds asks for help “to stave off the threat of their use by terrorists in Iraq or abroad” as the country struggles with a deadly insurgency.

In the letter, obtained Wednesday by CNN, Iraqi Ambassador Mohamed Ali Alhakim said that “terrorist groups have seized control” of nearly 40 kilograms (90 pounds) of uranium compounds at science departments at the University of Mosul after the sites “came out of control of the state.”

The Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, an al Qaeda splinter group, has led Sunni insurgents who have taken over large areas of northern and western Iraq in an offensive that began last month. The terrorist group has also made major gains in Syria in its quest to establish an Islamic state spanning both countries.

In his letter, dated Tuesday, Alhakim said the nuclear materials were used in “very limited quantities” for scientific study and research. But he warned that despite the small amounts, the materials could be used by terrorists in Iraq or smuggled out of the country.

“Such materials can be used in manufacturing weapons of mass destruction,” Alhakim wrote in the letter, which was first reported by Reuters.

Iraq witnessed another violent day Wednesday as the country’s security and political crises deepened.

More than 50 unidentified bodies were found in the predominantly Shiite town of Alexandria on Wednesday, Iraqi security officials said.

The bodies of two children were among the dozens found in different parts of the town.

Details about the circumstances of the deaths were not immediately available, and officials did not say when the people may have been killed.

Not far from Alexandria, at least five people were killed and 17 wounded by three car bombs that exploded in front of a courthouse in the town of Hilla, security and medical officials said.

Hilla is about 92 kilometers (57 miles) south of Baghdad and is the first sizable town south of the capital.

2006 – http://www.iraqwatch.org/government/Iraq/IAEC%20reports/iaec1982-1983.htm

THE NUCLEAR MEDICINE CENTRE, MOSUL

The initiative help and enthusiasm of the Iraqi Atomic Energy Commission for the medical uses of radiation centres could not be better shown than the building of the Mosul centre. The whole project was established by the Iraqi AEC and it is now a centre for the Teaching Hospital of the Medical College of Mosul University.

The centre has facilities for all in – vitro and in – vivo use of open sources of radioisotopes.

A cobalt 60 teletherapy unit for external radiotherapy is also within the campus of the Hospital. This cobalt unit was a gift from the International Atomic Energy Agency and it has been replaced recently by a new one.

The Mosul Nuclear Medicine Centre was built on fairly wide ground with the possibility of future addition and extension in mind.

This centre now serves the northern area of Iraq and renders facilities for the medical uses of radioisotopes in clinical diagnosis and medical research.

Most of the diagnostic applications of nuclear medicine well as therapy of the thyroid disease are done at the centre. These include:

Static and dynamic scan of the brain.

Thyroid scanning and other in-vivo thyroid studies.*

Lung liver and spleen scintigraphy.

Renography and kidney scanning.

Bone scanning.

All in – vitro radioimmunoassay of hormones (There are two specialists in nuclear medicine and four practitioners with good experience in nuclear medicine apart from supporting physicists chemists technicians nursing and administrative staff).

Since the opening of the centre in 1971, the number of patients has increased and now it totals over five thousands new patients a year.

* Incidentally Mosul and the surrounding area are amongst the well known regions infested with endemic goitre.