Page | 1 CBRNE-TERRORISM NEWSLETTER – February 2016 www.cbrne-terrorism-newsletter.com Page | 2 CBRNE-TERRORISM NEWSLETTER – February 2016 ISIS Wants a Dirty Bomb, a Weapon of Mass Disruption Source:https://www.inverse.com/article/13180-isis-wants-a-dirty-bomb-a-weapon-of-mass-disruption Mar 22 – ISIS, which has claimed responsibility not, in fact, charged with his dirty for the attack in Brussels today, and associated bomb designs, because he was radicals have been increasingly active in unable to progress beyond Belgium during the months leading up to this planning to whirl buckets of latest act of terror. In November, a man living uranium over his head to near Brussels and linked to the Islamic State separate the U-235 isotope for group was arrested; according to an his nuclear device. investigation by the nonprofit Center of Public The fissile materials at the Integrity, officials found evidence he was center of a nuke — like enriched surveilling a Belgian nuclear facility with uranium — are both prohibitively the goal of creating a dirty bomb. difficult to create and obtain. If you are unfamiliar with the family tree of Daily life, that said, is far from explosives, a dirty bomb is meant to radioisotope-free. There are thousands of disseminate chaos and mayhem. However, it known radioactive materials, wrote Center for will not result in the high body counts popularly Technology and National Security Policy associated with radioactive weaponry. What researchers Peter D. Zimmerman and Cheryl makes a dirty bomb “dirty” is the dispersal of Loeb in a 2004 report. But “only a few stand radioactive material. The explosion itself is out as being highly suitable for radiological conventional — likely result of a bomb a terror. These are cobalt-60 (60Co), containing nitrogen compounds, like dynamite strontium-90 (90Sr) (and its short-lived or TNT — rather than a result of nuclear daughter, yttrium-90), cesium-137 (137Cs), activity. To make a dirty bomb is to simply wrap iridium-192 (192Ir), radium-226 (226Ra), radioactive waste or material around a high plutonium-238 (238Pu), americium-241 explosive. (241Am), and californium-252 (252Cf).” But if it sounds “simple” on paper, it’s much Limited as they are, such radioactive sources harder to do in practice. No terrorist group or can be found in research institutions, hospitals, single operator has ever set one off, two industry, or construction. Cancer treatments decades of murderous aspirations to the use iodine-131 and cobalt-60, smoke alarms contrary. “Constructing a dirty bomb is more use americium-241. But amassing enough difficult than most imagine,” as journalist Jason material without tripping federal failsafes is Burke wrote at Foreign Policy in 2009 when tough. So is handling it. People who encounter discussing al Qaeda’s dirty bomb plans: unusual concentrations of nuclear material — “Although the International Atomic Energy woodcutters in Georgia, scavengers pawing Agency warns that more than 100 countries through an abandoned chemo clinic in Brazil — have inadequate control of radioactive have given themselves severe radiation material, only a small percentage of that poisoning. material is lethal enough to cause serious Ultimately, were a dirty bomb to be detonated, harm. It also requires considerable technical biosecurity and environmental health experts sophistication to build a device that can believe most of the loss of life would come from effectively disperse radioactive material. Some the blast itself. Exposure to radiation, one have also voiced the fear that militants might report estimates, would increase the lifetime obtain a ‘prepackaged’ working nuclear likelihood of cancer on par with “smoking five warhead from Pakistan. However, that would packages of cigarettes.” If you didn’t inhale any only be a plausible scenario if an Islamic particles and carefully scrubbed yourself clean, regime came to power, or if high-ranking the risk would be even lower. The majority of elements of the Pakistani military developed the devastation would be psychological and greater sympathy for the Islamists than economic — the site of the explosion, and the currently exists.” incorporeal specter of radiation in the public Consider José Padilla, the paunchy mind, would remain a lasting reminder radicalized American perhaps most frequently of a terrorist attack. associated with a dirty bomb plot. Padilla was www.cbrne-terrorism-newsletter.com Page | 3 CBRNE-TERRORISM NEWSLETTER – February 2016 The Nuclear Regulatory Commission, in fact, mass destruction. Instead, the NRC says, doesn’t even consider dirty bombs weapons of consider them weapons of mass disruption. EDITOR’S COMMENT: A short article but well written – especially the last sentence! Even “experts” continue to use the word “destruction”; but when comes to terrorism all CBRNE improvised devices of dissemination are “weapons of mass disruption”. Weaponized CBRNE agents are causing destruction but this means war between states – not terrorism. Of course disruption caused will have enormous implications as well but not as much as Hiroshima or Halabja. ISIS obtaining nuclear weapons “obviously a concern”: British defense secretary Source: http://www.homelandsecuritynewswire.com/dr20160324-isis-obtaining-nuclear-weapons- obviously-a-concern-british-defense-secretary Mar 24 – British defense secretary Michael Home Secretary Theresa May has outlined the Fallon said the prospect of ISIS or another steps the government was taking to bolster terror group with the “technical know-how” security at home in the wake of the Brussels obtaining nuclear weapons is “obviously attacks. She said the U.K. Border Force had a concern.” increased the number of officers at ports in Fallon said it was important to ensure that Belgium and France and introduced terror groups could not “get their hands on “enhanced searches” of inbound nuclear weapons” and said the United Kingdom tourist vehicles. was doing its part by maintaining strict export She confirmed that a £34 million investment controls on the necessary technology. to increase the capacity of armed police units able to respond to a Paris-style attack in the United Kingdom would also see forces outside London benefit, following concerns about cuts to capacity in Greater Manchester and Merseyside. May said that the United Kingdom must also “do more to counter the poisonous and repugnant narrative peddled by Daesh [ISIS] and expose it for what it is — a perversion of Islam, built on fear and lies.” Responding to questions after a speech on the May criticized comments made by Donald U.K.’s Trident nuclear weapons system, Fallon Trump, who claimed on Wednesday that said: “It is obviously a concern that we will see Muslims were “absolutely not reporting” non-state actors with the finance and perhaps suspected terrorists and needed to “open up some of the technical know-how seeking to get to society.” hold of nuclear weapons. May said Trump was “just plain wrong” in “That is why we maintain very strict export his assessment. control criteria for the technologies involved “People in Muslim communities around the and why we need to be on our guard.” United Kingdom are as concerned as The Sun reports that world leaders are set to everybody else in the U.K. about both the meet in Washington, D.C. later this month for attacks that have taken place and about the discussions about how to prevent nuclear perversion of Islam underlying the ideology that terrorism. It is the fourth such summit has led to violence,” she said. since 2010. Neil Basu, deputy assistant commissioner of In its Strategic Defense and Security Review the U.K. Counter Terrorism Policing Network, 2015, the U.K. government said the risk of also condemned Trump’s comments, warning terrorists obtaining nuclear, chemical, or that they risked “playing into the biological weapons may increase in the terrorists hands and making people coming years. feel hate.” www.cbrne-terrorism-newsletter.com Page | 4 CBRNE-TERRORISM NEWSLETTER – February 2016 The Threat of Nuclear War US Army’s Depleted Uranium Licencing Saga Highlights Post-Conflict Contradictions By International Coalition to Ban Uranium Weapons, March 26 2016 It has taken a decade but the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has finally granted the US Army a licence to possess and manage DU weapon residues at 15 US installations. However the domestic regulatory framework imposed by the NRC stands in stark contrast to the absence of obligations governing the management of contamination caused by US military actions in Iraq and elsewhere. The U.S. Nuclear Deterrent Triad. Can the U.S. Afford to Modernize it? By Brian Kalman, Edwin Watson, and South Front, March 24 2016 Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, who served as an Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy in the Reagan administration, shares his view that there is a real likelihood of a nuclear war breaking out. Below are the main points covered in this radio programme. What Path for the UN Security Council to Resolve the Conflict on the Korean Peninsula? By Ronda Hauben, March 21 2016 The Armistice Agreement that ended the fighting of the Korean War was signed on July 27, 1953. While the Armistice Agreement provided for a cease fire, it did not end the Korean War. Japan: Nuclear Security Risks’ Exposed by Secret Plutonium Shipment: NGOs By Pan Orient News, March 20 2016 Tokyo- (PanOrient News) A coalition of five non-governmental organizations warned today that a shipment of weapons-grade plutonium scheduled to depart the port of the Japanese Tokai nuclear station in Ibaraki prefecture this coming weekend highlights the failure, but also the proliferation risks, of the current Japanese nuclear policy. The US Just Admitted that 14 Airmen in Charge of 150 Nuclear Missiles — Are Cocaine and Molly Addicts By Andrew Emett, March 20 2016 Tasked with guarding 150 nuclear missiles at F.E. Warren Air Force Base in Wyoming, fourteen airmen are under investigation for allegedly using cocaine.