Posted on 11/28/2007 7:48:32 PM PST by blam
Slovak police seize 'enriched uranium' in raid
Last Updated: 2:57am GMT 29/11/2007
Police have seized 2.2 lbs of radioactive material and arrested two people in Slovakia and one in Hungary, underlining fears in the West that terrorist groups are seeking to build a nuclear device.
The Slovak news agency SITA and its counterpart in the Czech Republic, CTK, citing unconfirmed reports, said that the material was enriched uranium, an integral part of a nuclear bomb.
Martin Korch, a Slovak police spokesman, would not confirm the exact nature of the material but said that it was worth $1 million (£483,000).
He said that the joint Slovak-Hungarian police raid took place along their common frontier, near Ukraine.
"Three people have been taken into custody, two in Slovakia one in Hungary," he said.
Uranium enrichment can yield either fuel for nuclear power stations or be used for nuclear warheads.
In Washington the arrests will be seen as a vindication of years of work with police in former Iron Curtain states, where a combination of a supply of nuclear materials and poor law enforcement have made US officials concerned that al-Qa'eda or other terrorist groups could acquire materials for a "dirty" nuclear bomb or something even more powerful.
A spokesman for the FBI said: "The director has expressed his concern that al-Qa'eda is planning future attacks and we know they have actively sought weapons of mass destruction materials to attack the US."
News of the seizure came as the New Scientist published details of a secret report by Swedish and Russian experts. They are said to have exposed "gaping holes" in arrangements to stop theft of plutonium and highly-enriched uranium from sites in northwest Russia.
Specialists at the Swedish Nuclear Power Inspectorate (SKI) and Atombesopastnost, a subsidiary of Russia's Federal Atomic Energy Agency (Rosatom), found a large number of the 35 sites on the Kola peninsula to have "insufficient" security measures, it said. "The illicit trafficking problem is for real," the magazine quoted the report as saying.
The investigation was completed earlier this year and was presented in summarised form last week at an International Atomic Energy Agency conference on nuclear smuggling in Edinburgh.
A member of the Swedish investigative team confirmed the existence of the report but refused to give any immediate details about it.
The Kola peninsula, which borders Norway and Finland, is thought to hold the highest volumes of radioactive waste in the world.
The International Atomic Energy Agency watchdog has recorded 1,250 cases of smuggling and other crimes related to the handling of radioactive material since 1995.
Nuclear material is often smuggled from the former Soviet Union.
Police in Slovakia's former federation partner, the Czech Republic, found 6 lbs of high-enriched uranium in Prague in 1995, intended for illegal sale.
Ping.
Bump!
Let’s not forget there are other things than US presidential politics going on in the world today.
With lots and lots of spare neutrons...
Ping.
were the perps Muslims? Since it’s not mentioned...they are.
“Holly Shiite! If assembled properly that could yield about a .5 kt explosion.”
And it’s a lot easier to hide than 500 tons of dynamite.
Another reason to have embassies in every nation we can.
Yes, if placed in a barrel with 500 tons of TNT.
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