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Sources used in mobile cesium irradiators
in the former Soviet Union |
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The IAEA and officials in governments of the former Soviet Union conduct
searches for powerful radioactive cesium-137 sources left behind after the
collapse of the Soviet Union. The sources were part of Gamma Kolos, a project in
which Soviet scientists used trucks to transport these sources in the
countryside and irradiated seeds with the sources to examine radiation effects
on agriculture. Few records were kept on the project, so the number of sources
and their exact locations remain unknown. Six devices were found in Georgia, and
four more in Moldova.
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Arrest of a Thai man who possessed cesium |
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In June, Thai police arrest a public school teacher in Bangkok after he attempts to sell a container filled with cesium-137 for $240,000. After some initial press misreporting that 66 pounds of radioactive cesium were seized, the confiscated material reportedly amounts to less than one ounce (66 pounds with the lead-lined shielding), and is believed to be of Russian origin. The suspect says that the material was smuggled through Laos and that two large caches of material remain in Laos. Laotian officials check the allegation but deny the presence of the radioactive material caches. Thai and U.S. authorities do not believe the schoolteacher had ties to terrorist organizations, but was only pursuing financial gain.
- In July, a van containing 30 pounds of depleted uranium is stolen outside a British radioactive waste processing firm. The van was left unlocked with the keys in the ignition. (Depleted uranium would not make an effective ingredient for an RDD.)
- In September, Gu Tianming, a Chinese nuclear medicine expert, is given a suspended death sentence after being convicted of placing radioactive iridium-192 pellets in a colleagues office. Gu worked at a Chinese hospital and used forged official papers to buy the iridium-192. He then placed the pellets in his colleagues ceiling as a form of revenge. Soon after, the poisoned colleague began complaining of memory loss, fatigue, loss of appetite, headaches, vomiting, and bleeding gums. Before the radioactive pellets were uncovered, another 74 hospital staff members were found to have similar symptoms.
- Nigeria reports that oil well-logging radioactive sources have been stolen.
The sources eventually end up in a scrap yard in Germany.
- In August, British authorities arrest an alleged terrorist cell that was
apparently plotting to create dirty bombs from the radioactive sources inside
smoke detectors. (It would require millions of smoke detectors to collect enough
radioactive material for a potent RDD.) These alleged terrorists reportedly also
have manuals about radioactive materials and RDDs and may have been involved in
a larger plot to attack financial centers in New York City and Washington, DC.
In October 2006, Dhiren Barot, a leader of this terrorist cell, plead guilty to
planning attacks against the financial centers.
- In January, an anonymous caller in Mexico claims to law enforcement officials
in California that six alleged terrorists are trying to sneak into the United
States and that some sort of nuclear material will follow them through New York
and up into Boston. This information prompts concerns of a possible dirty bomb
attack in Boston. The group of six alleged terrorists was thought to include
four Chinese nationals, whose photographs were circulated to authorities. This
incident turned out to be a hoax.
- In December, it is reported that the FBI and the Department of Energy have
been conducting thousands of searches for radioactive materials over the past
three years throughout the United States, including many privately owned
locations. The Justice Department characterized the searches as passive
operations in publicly accessible areas to detect the presence of radiological
materials, in a manner that protects U.S. constitutional rights. Reports that
several of the searches were done near mosques and homes and businesses owned by
Muslims stirred outrage among many Muslims who believed that they were being unfairly
targeted.
- In December, Russian authorities report that they found documents in
Chechnya on producing RDDs.
- In July, soon after the terrorist bombings in Mumbai, India, the U.S. Embassy in New Delhi warned about possible terrorist attacks against Indian government facilities as well as nuclear facilities. In August, two armed men were reportedly seen inside the outer security perimeter of the Kakrapar nuclear power plant in India. But they did not breach the inner security zone.
- In September, the leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Hamza al-Muhajir also known as Abu Ayyub al-Masri called on nuclear scientists and explosive experts to apply their expertise to make biological and dirty radioactive weapons to support the field of jihad against American bases.
- In November, Alexander Litvinenko, a former Russian spy, was poisoned with radioactive polonium-210. The poisoning appears to have taken place in London although traces of the polonium also showed up in Germany. While all the motives of the perpetrators remain uncertain, they apparently were not trying to terrorize the public in Britain or other places. Some experts have pointed out that the high-level of expertise shown by the perpetrators demonstrates that elements of the underworld are climbing the learning curve in making effective malicious use of radioactive materials.
- In January, an Australian home-grown terrorist group allegedly planned to attack the Lucas Heights nuclear reactor with rocket launchers from an Australian armory. The attackers were thwarted before they could carry out their alleged plans.
- In March, FARC rebels in Columbia allegedly wanted to sell uranium for about $1 million a pound. Because the market price for natural uranium usually ranges from $30 to $120 a pound, there was speculation that the FARC had acquired weapons-grade uranium suitable for making nuclear weapons. A document on a computer that reportedly belonged to the FARC claimed that the FARC had 50 kilograms of uraniumthat would be enough to make an improvised nuclear weapon if that uranium were weapons-grade. Later that month, Columbian authorities seized about 50 kilograms of depleted uranium, which cannot be used to make a nuclear weapon and would not even be particularly useful for a radiological weapon because depleted uranium is weakly radioactive.
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