Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON -- Officials at U.S. embassies around the globe in recent years reported a number of possible attempts to smuggle nuclear and radioactive materials, newly leaked diplomatic cables show (see GSN, Feb. 8).

However, it is unclear if the schemes detailed in documents recently made public by the transparency organization WikiLeaks represent a new trend in the number of alleged incidents worldwide, experts say. In some cases, the reported plot most likely was an elaborate hoax.

Al-Qaeda and other extremist groups operating in the Middle East, Africa and Europe have expressed interest in acquiring materials needed for a nuclear weapon or a radiological "dirty bomb," which would use conventional explosives to disperse radioactive materials.

The new WikiLeaks documents, which date between 2007 and 2009, disclose roughly a dozen instances in which U.S. diplomats were approached with information involving nuclear or other sensitive materials.

"I'm glad to see that each incident's been treated with seriousness and there are attempts to investigate and find out something," said Elena Sokova, assistant director of the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies.

"There's a mix of different phenomenon going on. The question is, is the phenomenon actually increasing or is our ability to observe the phenomenon increasing," said Harvard University nuclear proliferation expert Matthew Bunn, who produces an annual assessment titled "Securing the Bomb."

"And I think to a significant degree at least part of the story is the latter" because more countries now report to the International Atomic Energy Agency's Illicit Trafficking Database and radiological and nuclear detection equipment has become more widespread, he added.

From January 1993 to December 2009, the database recorded a total of 1,773 incidents involving the illegal movement of nuclear or radioactive materials. Of those, 351 concerned unauthorized possession or criminal activities.

From July 2009 to June 2010, 222 incidents were reported, a database fact sheet shows. Those reports encompassed 21 cases of possession or criminal activities, 61 of theft or loss and 140 of other unauthorized activities.

There were also five incidents during that period that involved highly enriched uranium or plutonium; one was related to illegal possession while the other four were linked to other unauthorized activities.

Cases of possible smuggling of sensitive materials were reported to U.S. embassies spread around Africa, Asia and Europe.

For example, the U.S. Embassy in Uganda was approached in February 2008 by a local merchant who claimed that a Congolese associate had asked for help locating a buyer for highly enriched uranium liquid after a sale to a potential Pakistani customer in Kenya had fallen through.

An alert sent back to Washington said the material could be transported across the Congolese border within days.

"Random Congolese gold merchants don't know about highly enriched uranium cases and if they did it isn't going to be liquid," according to Bunn. "The probability of this being true is very close to zero."

He noted that highly enriched uranium comes in liquid form only after it has been dissolved with acid, as might be done in a reprocessing facility,

"In the list of incidents that people are following in the community, this isn't one of them," Bunn told Global Security Newswire yesterday in a telephone interview.

Another cable from the diplomatic office in Moscow says Russian customs officers reported three incidents during summer 2009 in which highly radioactive cobalt 60 was detected in passenger trains traveling from Kazakhstan to Russia. A number of passengers were exposed to the radiation and authorities seized 500 grams of the substance, though it is not clear in the dispatch whether that was the estimated amount per seizure or the total amount seized during the multiple incidents.

"The fact that there were three incidents just at one border, that is a little troubling," Sokova said. While the material could not be used in a nuclear device, it could be incorporated into a dirty bomb, she added.

Sokova also expressed concern about another incident that took place in September 2009 in which two employees at the Rossing Uranium Mine in Namibia reportedly smuggled nearly half a ton of uranium concentrate powder, commonly referred to "yellowcake," out of the facility in plastic carrier bags.

The plot was initiated by local law enforcement in an amateur sting intended to find out how easily uranium could be stolen, according to a cable from the U.S. Embassy in Namibia. The police caught the thieves when they attempted to sell 24 bags containing about 370 pounds of the stolen substance. The remaining 550 pounds were not intercepted and were likely sold to other smugglers.

While the material in question is a "long way" from being viable for an atomic device, the episode highlights the "insider threat" posed by employees at nuclear facilities around the globe since the pair in Namibia knew how to exploit weaknesses in the plant's security procedures and physical protection, Sokova told GSN on Monday.

She also noted what was left out of the latest group of cables. She cited a string of incidents in Georgia involving trafficking of highly enriched uranium.

Last November, Georgian officials said that two Armenian nationals had pleaded guilty to attempting to sell in Tbilisi two-thirds of an ounce of weapon-grade uranium (see GSN, Nov. 22, 2010). The case was the third time trafficked nuclear materials had been discovered in that country, a former Soviet republic that neighbors Russia, according to reports at the time.

Both Sokova and Bunn agreed that the recent dispatches, posted online recently by the London Telegraph, are less alarming than made out to be in the newspaper. To date there is no physical evidence that terrorist groups possess the technical competence to build a nuclear bomb, they said.

However, the two experts expressed interest in learning more about the outcome of a June 2008 cable in which India's national security adviser was said to have informed U.S. officials that extremists had made a "manifest attempt to get fissile material" and possess the "technical competence to manufacture an explosive device beyond a mere dirty bomb."

"It would be interesting to find out if that's a new incident or whether he's referring to known incidents," Bunn said.

A U.S. State Department spokeswoman yesterday declined to comment on any WikiLeaks documents.

Still, the cables are a "continuing reminder that there is a real problem out there and that we need to take action rapidly as the leader agreed at [last year's] Nuclear Security Summit to secure all weapons usable nuclear material around the world and make sure that it cannot be stolen and fall into the hands of terrorists," Bunn told GSN.