[Poohbah]

Any nuke has to be delivered rather quickly. That means airfreighting it to the target--or very close to the target.

Moving it by surface transport only just cuts the margin between an earth-shattering KABOOM! and a fizzle yield too close. Murphy works against us AND the terrorists on an equal-opportunity basis.

[Quix]

Not arguing with your science or technology assertions, Poohbah.

I just contend that AlQaeda IS capable of servicing the nukes sufficiently to get the job done. How many? That's a whole 'nother issue. But I could imagine 3--maybe 5 IF they had a LOT of early help setting things up long beforehand. I can't imagine 20 container nukes roaming around, all being sufficiently serviced. I think your assertions would cut into that more than even AlQaeda could manage.