The Upcoming ISIS Dirty Bomb (Daniel 8:4)

The dirty bomb

Discussion in ‘World Affairs‘ started by thesolar65, Yesterday at 6:36 PM.

For India, the threat of nuclear terrorism is real. There is growing concern that extremists are attempting to breach institutions that have radiological materials.

As the lights in the hall dimmed and the film started playing on the large overhead screen at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center, the 50 heads of state, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who had assembled for the fourth Nuclear Security Summit in Washington DC on April 1, watched with rapt attention. Just before that, US President Barack Obama had shooed the media out of the hall and informed the leaders that the film simulated a possible nuclear attack by terrorists and its aftermath. It was similar to a war-gaming session where leaders were expected to react to a developing nuclear terror attack.

A collective gasp went up at the scenes of terrorists flying a crop duster, spraying deadly radioactive material extracted from radiological equipment found in medical institutions over a densely populated area, causing horrific sickness and death among the citizens. The film ended with the grim message of how the world will have to combat terrorists intent on causing mass casualties by afflicting population centres with radiation sickness, as the film depicted.

The ingredients of a radiological dispersal device, or dirty bomb as it is called, are the same isotopes that make cancer treatment and blood transfusion possible. When these are packaged along with explosives and detonated in a city centre, those in the immediate vicinity will be killed by the blast. But the radioactive fallout will cause fatal radiation sickness to thousands in an area of 3 sq km-the size of Connaught Place in New Delhi-leaving behind a smouldering radiological ruin. Worse, the area would have to be cordoned off for years till disaster management forces, wearing protective gear, scrub the area clean of contamination. It is a nuclear Armageddon that the world can ill afford-the psychological, political and economic aftershocks could be felt for years after such an attack.

A senior Indian official, who was present in the hall, told India Today that, after the movie ended, Modi, who was among the first to offer comment, told the gathering, “The only way to reduce the scope of terrorists using such weapons of mass destruction is greater international cooperation and action including information sharing, intelligence exchange and developing human resources on a mass scale to tackle the threat.” Leader after leader who spoke after the Indian prime minister agreed that only their collective action could stem what Obama described as “one of the greatest threats” the world had ever faced-of terrorists using nuclear devices to cause havoc. The attacks in Mumbai, Paris and, more recently, in Brussels and Lahore, are clear indications that terrorists are looking for far bigger and more dramatic strikes which imbued the summit its sense of urgency.

Just how serious the danger of a nuclear attack by terrorists is comes from information collated by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which maintains an Incident and Trafficking Data Base (ITDB) of nuclear and radioactive materials. As of December 31, 2014 (the latest figures available), the ITDB reported a total of 2,734 confirmed incidents of either unauthorised possession and related criminal activities, including theft of sensitive nuclear material and radioactive sources across the world since 1993. As the IAEA observed, “Incidents reported to the ITDB show that problems persist with regard to illicit trafficking in nuclear and other radioactive material, and with thefts, losses and other unauthorised activities and events.”

For India, the threat of nuclear terrorism is frighteningly real. It has a vast nuclear complex encompassing the full spectrum of capabilities -making nuclear weapons (it now possesses around 120 nukes), 22 reactors that generate power including some that produce weapons-grade nuclear materials, large amounts of radioactive nuclear waste (spent fuel) stored in special containment areas, and over 7,000 institutions that use radiological devices, particularly hospitals, for both diagnosis (X-rays) and treatment (cancer). While a majority of the nuclear complexes are safeguarded and agencies tasked with monitoring the movement of nuclear material in the country regarded as thorough, there are growing concerns that terrorists are employing increasingly sophisticated means to penetrate these institutions and facilities.

There are three mains ways terrorists could stage nuclear attacks in India and the rest of the world:

1. Detonate a nuclear bomb-either a weapon stolen from a state’s arsenal or an improvised nuclear device made from weapons-grade nuclear material that they smuggled out
2. Sabotage a major nuclear facility and cause it to release large amounts of harmful radiation
3. Detonate a dirty bomb or radiological dispersal device in a city centre

How vulnerable are Indian nukes?

In India, it is extremely difficult for terrorists to either steal a nuclear weapon or carry significant amounts of weapons-grade nuclear material from the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) complexes and use it to build a bomb. India’s nuclear weapons reportedly lie dispersed in several sites across the country and are preserved in reinforced concrete vaults that can survive a nuclear attack from an enemy country or bunker-busting missiles. These sites are heavily guarded and accessible to only a chosen few.

Given India’s no-first-use doctrine (which means it will use its nuclear weapons only if another country employs atomic bombs to attack it), the vast arsenal remains recessed in guarded silos. Only if the threat of war escalates are these removed and mated with missiles. India has a strong command-and-control system that goes right up to the prime minister (who has the codes to give the order) and the Nuclear Command Authority, which controls all movements of nuclear weapons. It is a tightly closed loop, which operates behind an extra-thick curtain of secrecy, and has remained impenetrable not just to other wings of government but also any terrorists who plan to lay their hands on them.

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US President Barack Obama with PM Narendra Modi at the 2016 Nuclear Security Summit

This is true of all major complexes across the country responsible for making weapons-grade nuclear material and building bombs. The two key agencies that do this are the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC), which makes the nuclear core, and the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), which makes the explosives required for the detonation of bombs as well as the missiles used to deliver them. Complexes of these behemoths are protected by the “defence in depth” system, which has rings of fences, barriers and security-which makes them almost impenetrable. Still, as the recent terror attack on the Pathankot airbase has shown, India’s critical defence facilities remain vulnerable and call for even more stringent security.

Are India’s nuclear power plants well protected?

While stealing a bomb is almost impossible, the threat that terrorists might actually make one, especially a dirty bomb, by collecting weapons-grade nuclear material or harmful radioactive substances used or stored in India’s nuclear complexes is not insignificant. Just as in all such facilities across the world, the danger comes from an “insider threat”-the large number of personnel employed in nuclear institutions with authorised access to facilities, materials and sensitive information.
The global summit last week advocated, with good reason, that all participating countries beef up their personnel monitoring. In Belgium, whose capital Brussels was subjected to horrific terrorist attacks last month, there was a major sabotage at its Doel-4 nuclear power reactor in August 2014. One of the personnel is thought to have tampered with a critical cooling valve, which caused the turbine to overheat and destroy itself. Though it was in the non-nuclear area of the plant, it cost over $200 million and had to be shut down for several months. Belgian authorities have not caught the saboteur, but investigations revealed that an outside contractor cleared for inspecting plants had left to fight for the ISIS two years earlier. Though not a suspect in the Doel-4 incident, it is matter of concern that there was a potential jihadist who had access to vital areas of the plant.

The fears were compounded when it was discovered that some of the ISIS operatives involved in the recent Brussels attack had in their possession hours of surveillance video taken in November 2015 of the home of a senior official in a Belgian nuclear research centre that had substantial quantities of Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU), which could be used to make nuclear explosives. Investigators suspect that they planned to kidnap the official or his family in an effort to gain access to the facility and its sensitive uranium. This is being regarded as the first confirmation of ISIS’s nuclear intent. It is well known that its forerunner Al-Qaeda was after nuclear explosives and even appointed a “nuclear CEO” to obtain them but failed to do so.

Indian nuclear establishments already have a robust Personnel Reliability Programme (PRP) for all employees working in their facilities. There are measures to vet and verify all those being inducted, including family and criminal history, apart from screening them for serious medical conditions. Periodic reviews are done to study employee behavioural patterns and the company they keep. But a report last year by Dr Rajeshwari Pillai Rajagopalan, Senior Fellow of the Observer Research Foundation, found that protocols for hiring of contractors and short-term labourers were erratic even though restricted to the outer periphery of the nuclear complex.