An airburst is counterproductive to terrorist goals. A LOT less residual radiation is produced and you lack that all important psychological trauma (and photo op) produced by the stereotypical "mushroom cloud" effect. The mushroom cloud is the result of a ground burst (anything from street level to about 100 feet---ten stories) where the dirt is instantly irradiated and shot thousands of feet into the sky to slowly settle and DRIFT on the wind as radioactive particles. IIRC from my nbc school notes, you can sometimes measure the size of the blast and the range to the blast by measuring the angle from your location to the top of the cloud at a designated time period...something like that.
Two hundred feet to five hundred feet of altitude isn't enough for a good airburst to be really effective. You'd need something like 1500 to 2000 feet and timing of the blast would be critical. Something special in the way of triggers and detonators. An ICBM fired from a nationstate like Russia (the former USSR) or China (possible now thanks to Clinton) would have the lab facilities to construct such a device and test it until they got it right.
But I'm thinking that sort of thing is beyond our opponent until such a nationstate is willing to risk a nuclear retaliatory strike from an enraged USA for aligning themselves with terror. It could happen, especially in the aftermath of a massive strike, where the perception real or imagined, is that the USA is "on the ropes."
LONDON, June 8 (Reuters) - Unidentified gunmen shot dead an American in the Saudi capital of Riyadh on Tuesday. He worked for a U.S. contracting firm. Here is a short chronology of major attacks on Westerners in Saudi Arabia since 1995.
Nov 13, 1995 - Five Americans and two Indians killed and 60 people wounded in an explosion in a car park near a U.S.-run military training centre in Riyadh.
June 25, 1996 - Bomb in fuel truck kills 19 American soldiers and wounds nearly 400 people at U.S. military housing complex in eastern city of Khobar.
Nov 17, 2000 - British engineer Christopher Rodway, an employee at Riyadh military hospital, killed, and his wife Jane injured by car bomb in the capital.
Nov 22, 2000 - Two British men and a British woman employed by a Saudi firm 50 percent owned by U.S. aircraft giant Boeing, and one Irish woman, injured by car bomb in Riyadh.
Dec 15, 2000 - David Brown, a British employee of Coca Cola International, badly burned in Khobar by a bomb hidden in a package near the windscreen of his car.
March 15, 2001 - A Briton and an Egyptian injured by an explosive device placed in a bin near a bookstore in Riyadh.
May 2, 2001 - Parcel bomb blows up in the face of American doctor Gary Hatch at Saad Medical Centre in Khobar, seriously wounding him.
Oct 6, 2001 - Two foreigners including one American killed and four others wounded in Khobar.
June 20, 2002 - British banker Simon John Veness killed by car bomb in Riyadh.
Sept 29, 2002 - German man killed when what appears to be a bomb rips through his car in Riyadh.
Feb 20, 2003 - Briton working for defence contractor BAE Systems shot dead in Riyadh.
May 12, 2003 - Suicide bombers attack housing compounds in Riyadh, killing 35 people. At least 200 are wounded.
Nov 9, 2003 - Suspected al Qaeda suicide bombers blow up Riyadh residential compound housing foreigners and Saudis, killing 18.
May 1, 2004 - Gunmen kill five Westerners and two police in a shooting spree in the oil centre of Yanbu.
May 29, 2004 - Militants attack oil company and housing compounds in Khobar, then flee to the city's Oasis housing compound, taking dozens of hostages. Seven Saudi security police killed.
May 30, 2004 - Saudi commandos storm the Oasis compound and free 41 hostages. Twenty-two civilians are killed including an American, a Briton and an Italian. Three gunmen escape.
June 6, 2004 - Saudi gunmen kill Simon Cumbers, an Irish cameraman working for the BBC, and seriously wound his British colleague Frank Gardner as they film in an Islamist militant area of the Saudi capital Riyadh.
June 8 - An American, working for U.S. company Vinnell which helps train the Saudi National Guard, is shot dead in an eastern suburb of Riyadh.
Good info. Thanks.
Why would timing be critical? Consider a jihadi flying a Cessna 182 with a nuke inside. The plane has plenty of carrying capacity and it is too slow to make a getaway after laying down the weapon. It is a nuclear suicide bomber with the ability to fly to the optimum point in space and push a detonation switch.
Good points Soldier, I agree