Greece Beefs Up Its Border Security Amid Fears Of Dirty Bomb

The US is to install radiation detectors at seven sites across Greece after Athens turned to Washington for help defending this summer's Olympics against the threat of a potential dirty bomb. The prospect of a radiological attack during the world's premier sporting event dominated talks in Washington yesterday between the Greek public order minister, Giorgos Floridis, and the heads of the CIA and the FBI.

The detectors, to be installed by the US national nuclear security administration, will be set up at border crossings in an attempt to detect trafficked nuclear material. Greece has one of the longest - and most porous - frontiers in Europe.

Mr Floridis flew into the US capital to discuss a security drill in Greece in March. The 20-day operation, which will also involve US troops, will follow another drill next month and focus on potential nuclear, biological and chemical attacks.

Codenamed "Blue Odyssey", the operation will bring together officials from the police, coastguard, fire department, intelligence agencies, civil defence forces, chemists, and experts from the national centre for contagious diseases.

Both exercises are aimed at putting the final touches to the biggest security blueprint the Olympics has ever seen.

Nearly 80% of Greeks have told pollsters they fear a terrorist attack is "inevitable" during the games in which a record 201 countries will take part, attracting 2 million spectators.

The Greek government has announced it will deploy an extra 10,000 troops in addition to the 40,000 security personnel and police it has assigned to protect the event - three times the number at the last summer Olympics in Sydney.

The country has earmarked more than $750m (£412m) for security - more than any other host country. In another unusual step, seven countries - Britain, Australia, the US, France, Germany, Spain and Israel - are providing Greece with security information and intelligence.

Greek undercover agents are also monitoring mosques and other Muslim gathering points for "terrorist sleeper cells".

But the measures have done little to diminish fears after November's double suicide bombings in neighbouring Turkey. Those attacks - which left 62 dead and more than 700 injured - deepened concern that Islamist fundamentalists might be eyeing Greece, counter-terrorism officials have conceded.

After the bombings, Scotland Yard's anti-terrorism chief, David Veness, warned that it was impossible to rule out an al-Qaida attack in Europe. He told Greek officials that they should encourage citizens to act as the eyes and ears of the security operation.

The legacy of seven years of brutal military rule has made Greeks more reluctant than many other Europeans to act as informants.

Plates Containing Plutonium Found in Greek Park

30 January 2001

Greek Finance Ministry agents investigating a cigarette smuggling ring uncovered three buried metal plates containing "about a tenth of an ounce of plutonium and americium," Greek officials announced on 30 January 2001.

The agents, who unearthed the plates in a park near the city of Thessaloniki, were acting on a tip received by telephone. The Fraud Agency of the Greek Finance Ministry said it is investigating possible links between the plates and a cigarette smuggling ring from neighboring Bulgaria. (Albanians?)

Leonidas Kamarinopoulos, the head of the fraud agency, said that "plutonium is usually sold for terrorist purposes," adding that "plutonium is dangerous even in this quantity." It would require several kilograms of plutonium to construct a nuclear explosive device, however. After their seizure, the plates were transported to the Greek Atomic Energy Agency for analysis. The seizure has also been reported to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which will try and trace the origin of the material. A subsequent AP report said that the plates contained 3g of plutonium, and noted that an analysis of their "atomic signature" could give investigators clues as to the origin of the material and how it was smuggled into Greece.[1] The discovery of the material has left authorities wondering whether they had "stumbled across part of a wider nuclear trafficking ring."[1] The article cited David Kyd, a spokesman for the IAEA, as saying that before the analysis of the plates was completed, it would be difficult to identify the source of the material.[1] Kyd said that "there are pathways in an arc stretching from the Baltic states through Eastern Europe and Russia and into Turkey."[1]

Greek officials have suggested that the material came from Bulgaria, but have not offered any evidence to support this claim.[1] [It should be noted that in May 1999, a large number of metal plates containing small amounts of plutonium and amercium were reported stolen from a warehouse outside Sofia, Bulgaria. For details of this case, see abstract 19990630.]

On 5 February 2001, the Bulgarian Committee on the Use of Atomic Energy for Peaceful Purposes issued a statement saying that similar discs containing plutonium and americium are used as static electricity neutralizers in some industries in Bulgaria.[2] The committee noted, however, that the tiny amount of plutonium in the discs is "in a chemical compound unfit for extraction of pure plutonium," and that the packaging of the plates "prevents any radioactive contamination of people and the environment by the plutonium."[2] The plates emit a small amount of alpha radiation which "has a very short path in the air which rules out any irradiation even of people working in direct contact with the plates," according to the statement.[2] The statement did not confirm, however, that the plates found in Greece had come from Bulgaria.[2]

A 13 February 2001 report in the Greek newspaper Thessaloniki Angelioforos cited Professor Mikhail Domis Andonopoulos of the Greek Institute of Nuclear Technology and Radiation Protection as saying that an examination of the discs had determined that they were manufactured in Russia.[3] Andonopoulos said "...they were stolen from the storehouse of a Russian company and imported into our country to be sold," although he noted that the discs are "often used to counteract static electricity" in various industrial processes.[3] Andonopoulos also noted that no further information has come to light regarding those who were hoping to sell the material.[3]

[1] Brian Murphy, "Plutonium 'Signature' Could Reveal Possible Smuggling Links," AP, 31 January 2001; in Lexis- Nexis Academic Universe, http://web.lexis-nexis.com.

[2] BTA (Sofia), 5 February 2001; in "Bulgarian Committee Denies Static Electricity 'Neutralizers' Radioactive," FBIS Document EUP20010205000145.

[3] Thessaloniki Angelioforos, 13 February 2001; in "Scientists Conclude Thessaloniki Plutonium Tablets Came From Russia," FBIS Document GMP20010214000001.

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