Posted on 06/01/2002 12:47:34 AM PDT by kattracks
European investigators are looking for a German national suspected of trying to buy radioactive material in Lithuania, which they fear may have been sold to terrorists wanting to make an unsophisticated "dirty" nuclear bomb.Six Lithuanian nationals were arrested in the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius, in a raid on Thursday, during which a large amount of the radioac tive metal, caesium-137, was confiscated.
US officials have warned that terrorists might try to obtain some of the radioactive material that has become available on the black market since the break-up of the Soviet Union. This could be detonated with conventional explosives as a "dirty bomb" which would spew out radioactive particles.
The caesium-137 was obtained by the Lithuanian suspects, unemployed men in their 30s, from another unspecified country in the former Soviet Union. They took the metal, weighing a kilogram, to the Lithuanian Institute of Physics in Vilnius, to have its value and content verified. A sale to a German national, believed to have connections with organised crime, was then arranged.
But shortly after the visit to the institute, the police became aware of the plot, and arrested the six Lithuanians, who were known to them as traders in illegal metal. The German national fled.
Investigators think he wanted to sell the metal, valued at $125,000 (£90,000), on the western black market. They doubt that the kilogram of metal is pure caesium-137; that much radioactive material would need to be kept in protective casing.
"There are now close contacts between German and Lithuanian organised criminals," a Vilnius police spokeswoman said. 'This is the first time we have found such metals on sale here. This sort of metal is sold on the black market mostly for weapons, and we presume it came from Russia or Belarus.'
International atomic security experts are very concerned about the consequences a "dirty bomb" and about the availability of such radioactive metals. "This is the same metal that Chechen rebels left in Izmailovo park in Moscow in 1996 to prove they could detonate a dirty bomb if they wanted to," said Melissa Fleming, spokeswoman for the International Atomic Energy Authority. The Moscow device was a deadly mixture of caesium-137, one of the by-products of nuclear fission, strapped to sticks of dynamite.
Security analysts have calculated that if a similar device were detonated in Manhattan during rush hour, 2,000 people would die, and many thousands more contaminated. A top-ranking al-Qaida leader, in US custody, Abu-Zubaydah, told investigators that Bin Laden was seeking material to make a dirty bomb, or radioactive dispersal device as it is often known. The CIA have also warned of the threat.
The incident marks the latest in a long line of incidents in which the security of military installations in the former Soviet Union has been called into question, and restricted materials have been found in the wrong hands.
In the past eight years, there are reported to have been 175 instances in which radioactive materials suitable for a dirty bomb have been smuggled out of the former Soviet Union. Bin Laden operatives reportedly also tried to buy enriched uranium in South Africa in 1993.
But black market activity has not been limited to dirty bomb materials. In July last year, police in Paris, arrested three men and confiscated several grams of highly enriched uranium, a key component in a nuclear bomb.
"MOSTLY"....How often are the black market sales going on and how much material gets moved? I know it isn't a pretty picture, but this off-hand remark scares me.
I would hope that the AG, the FBI and INS Directors, the Homeland Defense advisor, the Transportation Sec. are taking seminars from some of our apparently skilled allies.
I lived for a time in Germany (US Army - lived off post, on the local economy). A fellow soldier's wife was robbed in her home, by some Germans, doing a "confidence" scam. The perps were arrested within hours. Our little circle of friends were all VERY impressed by the quick action.
One part of me is only one major terror incident away from requiring that ALL musli wear red crescents. I'd wager the German police know who they are, where they live, where they meet. Partial sarcasm.
My detractors will argue that the German efficiency derives from their evil past ability to identify a group, in order to eventually murder THEM. That is clearly a past and very evil legacy.
The difference in a scheme to identify a group, today, would be to prevent them from murdering US!! A simple, pre-emptive survival instinct. Fault that?
Geez, can't a hypothetical bombing ever take place anywhere besides Manhattan? I'd like to keep my hometown.
I can't give you a quantitative answer, but I've been reading occasional reports like this for a couple of years at least. Most of the stories appear in foriegn papers and are totally ignored in the American press.
September 20001 Three more held in UK; Arrests Trio Questioned At High-security Police Station
French police arrested three men in possession of what investigators believe is uranium-235, a material used in the construction of atomic weapons. The uranium is reported to have been supplied by members of the Russian mafia.Raymond Loeb, Serge Salfati and Yves Ekwella were in possession of air tickets to Kazakhstan at the time of their arrest.
September 2001 Israel Finds Radiological Backpack Bomb
Israeli security last month {September} arrested a man linked to suspected terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden armed with a radiological backpack bomb, as he attempted to enter Israel from the Palestinian Territories via a border checkpoint at Ramallah, according to U.S. government officials.A U.S. government expert said that the weapon captured by Israel was a backpack device that CIA officials learned about through Russian intelligence agents in place in 1995. Regarding the arrest, a U.S. government official said: "There was only one individual involved. He was from Pakistan."
Undercover Police Detain Turks Smuggling Uranium
The Anatolia Agency said it was not clear if the 3.52 pounds of uranium was enriched for use in weapons or reactors. Undercover agents arrested the two in Istanbul after they showed up in an ambulance to make the sale. The uranium was wrapped in newspaper and the men demanded $750,000. Anatolia said the uranium was originally smuggled from one of the former Soviet republics
Fault that! Heck, I've been advocating that since 9/11. We know who is attacking us. Why are we still letting them into our country, and why are there still so many here on visas? I can name 8-10 countries off the top of my head with which we need *no* visitor exchange except under the highest scrutiny.
LOL. That's where all the hypothetical asteroids hit also.
As a nuclear worker, this case has always both fastinated and terrified me. Reports that I had read indicated that the 4 people that died of overexposure actually rubbed the CS-137 powder on their skin, so they could literally "Glow in the Dark". Brazil, what a country.
Would it interest you to know that the "Bin Laden Medical Matrix" that I am tracing is big time into ownership of a "medical "superstructure?
Some of the biggest medical names and institutions in the world are tied up in relationships with Bin Laden funders and minions.
That is why I laugh and cry at the same time when I read and hear about the war on terrorism and the freezing of it's assets!
I moved from that apartment to another (housing was real tight!)one year later.
I was in that apartment for only a couple of days when a big German policemen knocked on my door and asked if I was Herr McDonald and do I have my passport handy. He checked everything and very nicely informed me that I should have registered at the local police station when I moved.
Of course, I did not know this as we don't have to do this in the good ole USA but I went the next day to the police station, where again they were very nice and stamped some new papers and I had to pay a small fine for the infraction.
The point being, I was an Auslander in their country and they knew who I was and where I was!
And remember, I was a businessman, an Ami sponsored by one of the biggest companies in Hamburg. IOW, I was not some kind of terrorist. Germany & Europe was under seige in those days from the Bad Meiner group, amonst others.
I called the offices of my Congresscritters yesterday and asked just that. Of course, I got no good reply, but maybe if we ALL did it they'd start getting a clue?
What kind of person, no matter HOW desperate, would SELL OUT HUMANITY for a few bucks? It boggles the imagination. I imagine even the left wing would have a hard time blaming "a high unemployment rate" for participating in the murder of hundreda (at least) of people...just for a few bucks.
Even if these guys have no concience whatsover...no scruples about aiding in the murder of their neighbors...what good will it do them to be rich, if they're dying of radiation-induced leukemia?
Got a link?
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