Posted on 12/07/2003 6:41:53 AM PST by knighthawk
A U.S. newspaper says dozens of rockets armed with radioactive warheads are missing from a separatist region in the former Soviet republic of Moldova. The Washington Post in its Sunday edition cites unnamed U.S. and Moldovan officials, as well as weapons experts as saying 38 of the so-called "dirty bombs" have disappeared from military arsenals, and that they likely are for sale on the black market.
Weapons experts say the former Soviet Union used the rockets, a type known as Alazan, for weather experiments. They were stored in military arsenals in Moldova and in that country's Transdniester region. The predominantly Russian-speaking industrial enclave, notorious as a haven for black-market weapons dealers, is now a self-declared republic.
According to the Post, the slender rockets were left behind when the Red Army returned to Russia after the Soviet Union collapsed. Later they were modified to carry radioactive material, creating the world's first surface-to-surface "dirty bombs."
The newspaper says military records in Moldova show the rockets have been missing for years. A former Moldovan official is quoted as saying the weapons were last traced to a military airfield in Transdniester on the eastern border with Ukraine.
The short-range (13 kilometers) Alazan is considered notoriously inaccurate, but experts say terrorists could use it to disperse radioactive material over a large area.
The Washington Post says experts on the international arms trade say Moldova's Transdniester region is a notorious weapons stockpile. New, old and used weapons from Transdniester have been found in war zones from the former Soviet Union to central Africa.
Sounds like a good place for a combined operation before we go into Syria and Iran.
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