Tag Archives: Dirty Bomb

Exclusive: Indonesian militants planned ‘dirty bomb’ attack – sources

Exclusive: Indonesian militants planned 'dirty bomb' attack - sources

By Tom Allard and Agustinus Beo Da Costa

JAKARTA (Reuters) – Indonesian militants planned to detonate a radioactive dirty bomb, security sources said, highlighting the rising ambitions of extremists to wreak destruction in the world’s largest Muslim-majority nation.

But experts cast doubt on their expertise, equipment and chances of success.

The plot was foiled when police raided homes and arrested five suspects in Bandung, West Java, last week, the sources with direct knowledge of the plot said. After the raids, police spoke of a plan to explode a “chemical” bomb but provided no other details.

The plot comes as Indonesia grapples with an influx of militants deported from other countries and the fallout from the Islamic State-led siege in the southern Philippines city of Marawi that regional leaders and analysts worry has energized militants across Southeast Asia

The three counter-terrorism sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the militants had hoped to transform low-grade radioactive Thorium 232 (Th-232) into deadly Uranium 233 (U-233).

The highly radioactive uranium would be combined with the powerful home-made explosive triacetone triperoxide (TATP) to create a “nuclear bomb”, according to an instruction manual used by the militants and reviewed by Reuters.

In fact, the device would be, at best, a radiological dispersal device or dirty bomb that could spray radioactive material when the conventional bomb exploded.

A spokesman for Indonesia’s national police, Inspector General Setyo Wasisto, declined to confirm or deny the plot to construct the device, but said it would have been more potent than the two bombs made from TATP that killed three police in Indonesia’s capital Jakarta in May.

“If this bomb was finished, it would have had a more destructive impact than the bomb made from ‘Mother of Satan’,” he said, using the nickname for TATP.

“It could burn anything and make it hard for people to breathe.”

Thorium-232 can be transformed into Uranium-233 but requires the Thorium to absorb a neutron, a process that needs powerful irradiation, generally from a nuclear reactor, according to three analysts contacted by Reuters and the website of the World Nuclear Association, which represents reactor vendors and nuclear engineers, among other industry stakeholders.

The militants’ manual advised an X-Ray machine or microwave be used instead.

“X rays would not have enough punch to overcome the binding energy of the Thorium atoms,” said Peter Hayes, an expert in radiological devices from the Nautilus Institute, in an email.

“And, no, you can’t cook Th-232 to make U-233 in a microwave and, if you could, you would have a painful and rapid death from the radioactive nature of the co-present U-232 produced alongside U-233.”

One senior Indonesian counter-terrorism source said the Bandung-based cell had bought a large amount of a household item and had begun to extract the Thorium. Reuters has chosen not to name the item.

“They needed three weeks. It was still only one week (into the process when police raided),” the source said.

“A MUSLIM’S DUTY”

Indonesia has suffered a series of mostly small attacks by extremists over the past 18 months, although police have disrupted many more.

Indonesian terrorism analyst Rakyan Adibrata fears militants have been inspired by the events in Marawi, where IS fighters continue to occupy part of the city despite a three-month offensive by Philippines force to re-take it.

“They don’t have the ability to occupy a city like has happened in Marawi, but they want to do something big that pleases their bosses in Islamic State,” said Adibrata.

A radiological bombing could fit the bill, although Adibrata said that it was highly unlikely that the Bandung cell had either “the equipment or the knowledge” to succeed.

Most of Indonesia’s recent attacks have involved members of Jamaah Ansharut Daulah (JAD), a pro-IS alliance of Indonesian militants. Many have been directed from Syria by an Indonesian national and JAD leader Bahrun Naim, according to police.

Naim is identified as the author on the front page of the 47-page Indonesian-language bomb instruction manual – named “Nuclear for Dummy” (sic) – and posted on a blog that has since been taken down.

“Mastering weaponry is essentially every Muslim’s duty,” it says.

“This paper, we hope, also can motivate the Muslim mujahideen to learn nuclear science easily and apply it.”

Last week, police said the militants had been working off Naim’s manual, but did not disclose its contents.

According to police, the suspected Bandung plotters were members of JAD and were considering targets like the presidential palace in Jakarta and police headquarters in Bandung and the capital.

Two of the five suspects are Indonesian migrant workers deported from Singapore and Hong Kong this year for posting radical Islamist material on social media.

They spent a month or less in a deradicalization shelter before joining up with the other militants, sources told Reuters.

About 177 Indonesian militants have been deported from other countries this year, according to Adibrata, citing the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

(Reporting by Tom Allard and Agustinus Beo Da Costa Additional reporting by Stefanno Reinard; Editing by Ed Davies and Nick Macfie)

Poor U.S.-Russia relations increase risk of dirty bomb

By Toby Sterling

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) – Tension between Russia and the West may be distracting them from cooperating to prevent an accidental nuclear confrontation or a dirty bomb attack by militants, nuclear policy experts said on Tuesday.

Former U.S. Secretary of Defense William Perry said he regretted the current lack of communication between the United States and Russia, which went into a deep freeze after Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea.

“We are about to recreate the conditions that nearly brought us to the brink of nuclear war” during the Cold War, Perry said.

Anatoly Adamishin, a former Russian Deputy Foreign Minister, argued that the U.S. has focused on a policy of “strangling Russia” and hoping for the departure of Russian President Vladimir Putin, which has the effect of putting Russia at the forefront of a list of U.S. enemies.

“The U.S. simply has to rethink its own policy: what should be in focus is nuclear reductions,” he said. “Russia and the U.S. are not inherent enemies.”

They made their comments at a conference organised by the the Luxembourg Forum on Preventing Nuclear Catastrophe.

The forum’s head, Moshe Kantor, said the threat of a ‘dirty bomb’ attack on a European city was at its highest level since the end of the Cold War.

Security experts have raised concerns since the attacks in Paris and Brussels by Islamist militants that poorly guarded European nuclear facilities pose a risk.

Kantor cited chemical weapons attacks carried out by Islamic State in Iraq, their stated desire to carry out more attacks in Europe, and evidence militants linked to the attacks in Paris had also been studying a Belgian nuclear power plant.

“This, combined with poor levels of security at a host of nuclear research centres in the former Soviet Union mean the threat of a possible ‘dirty-bomb’ attack on a Western capital is high,” Kantor said.

He urged the United States and Russia, both nuclear powers, to cooperate on using their technological resources to monitor the illegal transportation of radioactive materials.

Gorbachev, appearing by satellite link, said he was alarmed by the increasing readiness of many nations to use military force to resolve conflict rather than negotiation.

“I note that these have not solved the problems, but they have served to undermine international law and weaken international relations,” he said.

Five Georgian citizens suspected of selling uranium

TBILISI (Reuters) – The security service in the former Soviet republic of Georgia said on Thursday it had detained five Georgian citizens who were trying to sell $3 million worth of radioactive uranium.

Security service officers did not say whether the group had a buyer for the uranium, nor where the group had acquired it.

World leaders have been concerned about the security of Soviet nuclear weapons since the Soviet Union’s demise in 1991. Concern has also grown that radical groups are seeking material with which to make a ‘dirty bomb’.

“The detainees were planning to sell nuclear material with total weights of 1 kilogram and 665 grams, which contained two radioactive isotopes – Uranium-238 and a small amount, 0.23 percent, of Uranium-235,” security service investigator Savle Motiashvili told a briefing.

Motiashvili added that given the gamma ray emission, direct and long-term exposure to the substances was dangerous for life and health.

A Tbilisi city court put the group into pre-trial custody. They face five to 10 years in prison if found guilty.

Georgia’s security service has foiled several attempts to sell uranium or other radioactive materials.

Earlier this month, they detained six Georgian and Armenian citizens who were trying to sell $200 million worth of the uranium-238 isotope.

In 2006, a resident of Russia’s North Ossetia region was arrested for trying to sell weapons-grade uranium for $1 million to agents he thought were radical Islamists. He was sentenced to 8 1/2 years in prison.

(Reporting by Margarita Antidze; Editing by Vladimir Soldatkin and Toby Chopra)

Missing radioactive material found dumped in south Iraq

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Radioactive material that went missing in Iraq has been found dumped near a petrol station in the southern town of Zubair, officials said on Sunday, ending speculation it could be acquired by Islamic State and used as a weapon.

The officials told Reuters the material, stored in a protective case the size of a laptop computer, was undamaged and there were no concerns about radiation.

Reuters reported last week that Iraq had been searching for the material since it was stolen in November from a storage facility belonging to U.S. oilfield services company Weatherford near the southern city of Basra.

It was not immediately clear how the device, owned by Swiss inspections group SGS, ended up in Zubair, around 9 miles southwest of Basra.

“A passer-by found the radioactive device dumped in Zubair and immediately informed security forces which went with a special radiation prevention team and retrieved the device,” the chief of the security panel within Basra provincial council, Jabbar al-Saidi, told Reuters.

“After initial checking I can confirm the device is intact 100 percent and there is absolutely no concern of radiation.”

A security official close to the investigation said it had been established soon after the material was stolen that it was being kept in Zubair and controls had been tightened to prevent it being taken out of the town.

“After failing to take it out of the town, the perpetrators decided to dump it,” the security official said. “I assure you it is only a matter of time before we arrest those who stole the radioactive device.”

The material, which uses gamma rays to test flaws in materials used for oil and gas pipelines in a process called industrial gamma radiography, is owned by Istanbul-based SGS Turkey, according to the document and officials.

The material is classed as a Category 2 radioactive source by the IAEA, meaning that if not managed properly it could cause permanent injury to a person in close proximity to it for minutes or hours, and could be fatal to someone exposed for a period of hours to days.

SGS and Weatherford have both denied responsibility for the disappearance of the material last year.

(Additional reporting by Aref Mohammed in Basra; Writing by Isabel Coles; editing by Susan Thomas and Digby Lidstone)

Radioactive material stolen in Iraq raises security fears

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Iraq is searching for “highly dangerous” radioactive material whose theft last year has raised fears among Iraqi officials that it could be used as a weapon if acquired by Islamic State.

Baghdad reported the stolen material to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in November but has not requested assistance to recover it, the U.N. nuclear watchdog said on Wednesday.

The material, stored in a protective case the size of a laptop computer, went missing from a storage facility near the southern city of Basra belonging to U.S. oilfield services company Weatherford <WFT.N>, an environment ministry document seen by Reuters showed and security, environmental and provincial officials confirmed.

A spokesman for Iraq’s environment ministry said he could not discuss the issue, citing national security concerns.

Weatherford said in a statement that it was not responsible or liable for the theft. “We do not own, operate or control sources or the bunker where the sources are stored,” it said.

The material, which uses gamma rays to test flaws in materials used for oil and gas pipelines in a process called industrial gamma radiography, is owned by Istanbul-based SGS Turkey, according to the document and officials.

An SGS official in Iraq declined to comment and referred Reuters to its Turkish headquarters, which did not respond to phone calls and emails.

The U.S. State Department said it was aware of the reports but has seen no sign that Islamic State or other militant groups have acquired it.

The environment ministry document, dated Nov. 30 and addressed to the ministry’s Centre for Prevention of Radiation, describes “the theft of a highly dangerous radioactive source of Ir-192 with highly radioactive activity belonging to SGS from a depot belonging to Weatherford in the Rafidhia area of Basra province”.

A senior environment ministry official based in Basra, who declined to be named as he is not authorized to speak publicly, told Reuters the device contained up to 10 grams (0.35 ounces) of Ir-192 “capsules”, a radioactive isotope of iridium also used to treat cancer.

The IAEA said the material is classed as a Category 2 radioactive source, meaning that if not managed properly it could cause permanent injury to a person in close proximity to it for minutes or hours, and could be fatal to someone exposed for a period of hours to days.

How harmful exposure can be is determined by a number of factors such as the material’s strength and age, which Reuters could not immediately determine. The ministry document said the material posed a risk of bodily and environmental harm as well as a national security threat.

DIRTY BOMB FEAR

Large quantities of Ir-192 have gone missing before in the United States, Britain and other countries, stoking fears among security officials that it could be used to make a dirty bomb.

A dirty bomb combines nuclear material with conventional explosives to contaminate an area with radiation, in contrast to a nuclear weapon, which uses nuclear fission to trigger a vastly more powerful blast.

“We are afraid the radioactive element will fall into the hands of Daesh,” said a senior security official with knowledge of the theft, using an Arabic acronym for Islamic State.

“They could simply attach it to explosives to make a dirty bomb,” said the official, who works at the interior ministry and spoke on condition of anonymity as he is also not authorized to speak publicly.

There was no indication the material had come into the possession of Islamic State, which seized territory in Iraq and Syria in 2014 but does not control areas near Basra.

A State Department spokesman declined to comment on whether the missing material might be suitable for use in a dirty bomb.

The security official, based in Baghdad, told Reuters there were no immediate suspects for the theft. But the official said the initial inquiry suggested the perpetrators had specific knowledge of the material and the facility. “No broken locks, no smashed doors and no evidence of forced entry,” he said.

An operations manager for Iraqi security firm Taiz, which was contracted to protect the facility, declined to comment, citing instructions from Iraqi security authorities.

A spokesman for Basra operations command, responsible for security in Basra province, said army, police and intelligence forces were working “day and night” to locate the material.

The army and police have responsibility for security in the country’s south, where Iranian-backed Shi’ite Muslim militias and criminal gangs also operate.

POLLUTION RISK

Iraqi forces are battling Islamic State in the country’s north and west, backed by a U.S.-led coalition. The Sunni Muslim militant group has been accused of using chemical weapons on more than one occasion over the past few years.

The closest area fully controlled by Islamic State is more than 300 miles north of Basra in the western province of Anbar. Islamic State controls no territory in the predominantly Shi’ite southern provinces but has claimed bomb attacks there, including one that killed 10 people in October in the district where the Weatherford facility is located.

Besides the risk of a dirty bomb, the radioactive material could cause harm simply by being left exposed in a public place for several days, said David Albright, a physicist and president of the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security.

“If they left it in some crowded place, that would be more of the risk, if they kept it together but without shielding,” he said. “Certainly it’s not insignificant. You could cause some panic with this. They would want to get this back.”

The senior environmental official said authorities were worried that whoever stole the material would mishandle it, leading to radioactive pollution of “catastrophic proportions”.

A second senior environment ministry official, also based in Basra, said counter-radiation teams had begun inspecting oil sites, scrapyards and border crossings to locate the device after an emergency task force raised the alarm on Nov. 13.

Two Basra provincial government officials said they were directed on Nov. 25 to coordinate with local hospitals. “We instructed hospitals in Basra to be alert to any burn cases caused by radioactivity and inform security forces immediately,” said one.

(Additional reporting by Humeyra Pamuk in Istanbul, Jonathan S. Landay and Arshad Mohammed in Washington; Writing by Stephen Kalin; Editing by Pravin Char/Mark Heinrich)

FBI Sting Uncovers Russian Smugglers of Nuclear Material

An FBI sting was caught on video in Moldova as Russian linked smugglers attempted to sell nuclear and radioactive materials to undercover agents posing as ISIS operatives.

A Moldovan minister said that the FBI helped Moldovan authorities three times in the last five years to stop potential smuggling of nuclear and radioactive material.
According to an investigation by The Associated Press [AP], one case that was uncovered was an attempt to sell bomb-grade uranium to a real buyer from the Middle East, the first known case of its kind.

A list compiled by the Terrorism Research Initiative details more than 360 smuggling and security “incidents” in the Black Sea region from 1990 to 2011 — by far the most stemming from Russia. This list also goes on to say that from 1993 to 2013, 664 incidents of theft or loss of nuclear or radiological materials were reported. It says it doesn’t know how many times these materials were subsequently sold.

Moldovan police and judicial authorities shared investigative case files with the AP in an effort to spotlight how dangerous the black market has become. They say a breakdown in cooperation between Russia and the West means that it is much harder to know whether smugglers are finding ways to move parts of Russia’s vast store of radioactive materials.