Posted on 03/26/2016 12:34:44 AM PDT by HWGruene
Sebastien Berg, a spokesman for Belgium’s federal agency, told the Times that their fears lie on several fronts, including “exploding a bomb inside the plant” or “flying something into the plant from the outside.” That could potentially stop the cooling process of used fuel and shut down the plant, Berg said.
According to the New York Times, Belgium has already had its issues with security at its plants. The nuclear agency’s computer network was hacked this year and was shut down briefly. Three years ago, two people were able to jump a fence surrounding a reactor in Mol, break into a lab and steal equipment. And in 2012, two nuclear employees defected from Belgium to join jihadists in Syria and eventually pledged their allegiance to ISIS.
One of the former employees died fighting in Syria, but Pieter Van Oestaeyen, a researcher who tracks terror networks in Belgium, told the New York Times the other man was convicted on terror charges in Belgium in 2014 and had been released last year.
Another incident reportedly occurred in 2014 when another unknown individual turned a valve on a reactor and drained 65,000 liters of oil used to lubricate turbines. The damage was so extensive it shut down the reactor for five months. Authorities are investigating possible links between that incident and terror groups.
“This was a deliberate act to take down the nuclear reactor, and a very good way to do it,” Berg told the Times.
The incidents are now being seen in a different way after the attacks in Brussels Monday and the anti-terror raids across Paris and Brussels in the last few days after the bombings.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
The investigation into Monday’s suicide bombings at a Brussels airport and a Metro station is reportedly prompting fears that the Islamic State is looking to obtain nuclear material and increasing concerns about security at Belgium’s nuclear faciilities.
Belgium’s nuclear agency said Friday it withdrew the entry badges of some staff and denied access to other people recently amid concerns that the next terror attack could take place at one of the facilities. Employees were sent home hours after the attacks in Brussels.
The New York Times reported that surveillance footage of a top official at a separate site was found last year in the apartment of a terror suspect linked to the extremists who carried out the atrocities in Paris in November.
Note, this just came out this morning here in Europe, but a security guy at the Charleroi nuke plant was killed outside the fence while on his nightly security walk, Thursday night. His badge was taken. Gun was used to kill the guy....no other info.
The Belgium government has a tendency to shut down all information and hold everything from the public, but this will be out in full force by tonight. I think it’ll scare the heck out of most people, and it’ll go through neighbors very quickly.
On the other side of this discussion....it would require a fair amount of manpower to get across the secure area and into a control area where they might jeopardize the plant. More than a three or four man operation, if you ask me.
Thx, I was just reading about his murder in the Mirror. I had that, not if, when feeling.
I think, even if were a failed attempt on a nuke facility in Belgium...it’d probably be the moment when the Islam-friendly crowd left would kinda step away and just admit things are screwed up.
It’d turn neighboring countries hostile, and double-up the right-wing enthusiasm now brewing.
Think over the past ten odd years the stories that pop up in the news about foreign students or foreign tourists caught trespassing or photographing critical sites in the US- dams, bridges, power generating facilities, nuclear sites.
And always, the stories read as if they are some confused rubes who are never detained, or arrested.
when I read this article, I immediately thought of Tennessee. We need to be more vigilant.
http://www.timesofisrael.com/tennessee-shooter-worked-briefly-at-nuclear-plant/
Let me check the main gate guard post duty roster.
0600 - 1200 Mohammed Hydaiet
1200 - 1800 Mohammed Hussein
1800 - 0000 Saddam Mohammed
0000 - 0600 Mohammed Aziz
No problem, we got it covered.
Surely, Belgium has no Muslims working at the nuclear plant?
German bicycle clubs toured England in the 1930’s, taking lots of photographs everywhere they went. And yes, Japanese diplomats in Hawaii took cameras everywhere they went.
See post 3
I would be more concerned about weapons storage sites under NATO than a nuclear plant....
You are not that naïve.
Geeez. Lube oil for the turbine has nothing to due with any kind of reactor valve. Getting into the turbine hall is not the same as getting into the containment while the plant is operating. Operating a valve for the lube oil could have been done locally. It wouldn’t require access to the control room.
Stating a reactor valve was operated is bogus.
Correct. I was thinking recently to a nuclear missile silo where a couple-dozen American guards partied and got drunk. I think I’d rather have drunken American guards than Muzzies guarding our missiles.
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