91av

SECURITY is being stepped up in response to a dire warning from the UN
watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), about the escalating
risk of nuclear terrorism.

France has installed surface-to-air missiles around its nuclear reprocessing
complex at La Hague, while the US has set up 20-kilometre no-fly zones around 86
nuclear plants. British authorities are reluctant to talk about security
measures, but armed guards and concrete blocks have been installed at entrances,
and exclusion zones up to 600 metres high within a 3-kilometre radius of 12
nuclear power stations are now in place. On 27 October, two Tornado fighter jets
were scrambled to the area around the Sellafield nuclear complex in Cumbria (see
91av, 13 October, p 10) in response to a telephone threat.

But the terrorist threat has not prevented the UK Atomic Energy Authority
from preparing to ship fuel containing 500 kilograms of plutonium to Germany.
The plan has been condemned as 鈥渓unatic鈥� by anti-nuclear campaigners, who claim
that it only takes 5 kilograms of plutonium to make a bomb. The prospect of
terrorists acquiring such nuclear weapons is 鈥渢he most devastating scenario鈥�,
according to the IAEA. The agency said that it would be difficult but not
impossible for groups to steal plutonium for a bomb. Reports that Osama bin
Laden鈥檚 Al-Qaida terrorist network had attempted this were 鈥渁 cause of great
肠辞苍肠别谤苍鈥�.

The IAEA also warned that terrorists could cause mayhem with a 鈥渄irty
bomb鈥濃�攗sing conventional explosives to blow up one of the radiation
sources commonly used in medicine or industry.