2001

• In October, the United States goes
  on high alert during a search for six men who allegedly had photos and information on a U.S. nuclear power plant. During the alert, private planes are banned from the immediate airspace over 86 nuclear sites, and the National Guard is deployed to protect power plants in six states. No attack takes place, and the threat level is lowered.
• In December, two people scavenging for lead in a lighthouse on Russia's northern coast are hospitalized after being exposed to the powerful radioactive strontium source used to power the lighthouse. Radiation levels are found to be elevated along the path where the scavengers carried the leaking lead container. Though Russia's Soviet-era nuclear lighthouses were originally designed to withstand earthquakes and even planes crashing into them, after years of neglect, these unguarded and uninspected structures are easily dismantled by thieves. In January 2003, the U.S. government announced a plan to aid Russia in safely replacing the energy sources of all of its nuclear lighthouses.
• In December, heat-emanating containers, each housing 40,000 curies of strontium, are found by woodcutters in Lilo, Georgia. Within hours the men become ill with nausea, vomiting, and dizziness, and later develop severe radiation burns on their backs. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), upon recovering the containers, finds that the amount of radiation of each is equivalent to the amount of radioactive strontium released immediately after the Chernobyl accident.

2002

• In May, the FBI arrests Jose Padilla, a U.S. citizen also known as Abdullah al-Mujahir, at Chicago's O'Hare airport. (The arrest is announced in June). Padilla is known to have ties to Al Qaeda and is suspected of researching dirty bombs with the intention of detonating one inside the United States. The FBI also suspects Padilla of having undergone training in Pakistan on the mechanics of dirty bomb construction. Padilla is labeled an "enemy combatant." For three-and-a-half years, he was held in a military brig. In January 2006, he was transferred to civilian, federal custody in Florida, where he plead absolutely not guilty in criminal court. He is awaiting trial. According to the U.S. government, Padilla wanted to make dirty bombs from uranium. But uranium is weakly radioactive and, thus, could not fuel a potent dirty bomb.
• In December, a criminal gang in Ecuador stole five radioactive sources from the Technint Company. The gang held these sources for ransom. After receiving the ransom money, however, the criminals returned only three of the sources. The other two remain missing.

2003

• In January, evidence uncovered in Herat, Afghanistan, leads British intelligence agents and weapons experts to conclude that Al Qaeda has succeeded in constructing a small dirty bomb, though the device has not been found. They believe the terrorist organization received radioactive sources used in medical devices from the Taliban regime.
  

  ---

  See a detailed description of the  radiological incident in Afghanistan  in the multimedia section.

  ---

• Abandoned radioactive equipment in Georgia.

  In May, Georgian police conducting a routine search of a taxi find two boxes of cesium-137 and strontium-90, and another box containing nerve gas concentrate. The materials appear to have been headed to Turkey for resale. The taxi driver is released after police determine that he was unaware of the cargo, but two other suspects, including a man living on the Turkish border, are arrested. This event is one in a series of recoveries of radioactive sources in Georgia.

This material is produced independently for NTI by the Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Monterey Institute of International Studies and does not necessarily reflect the opinions of and has not been independently verified by NTI or its directors, officers, employees, agents.
Copyright © 2004 by MIIS.