Nuclear Scientist Admits Plotting Al Qaeda Attacks
October 12, 2009 by national
Filed under World Report
The UK’s Daily Mail reports that nuclear scientist, Dr Adlene Hicheur, who admitted pinpointing targets for Al Qaeda was yesterday charged with ‘criminal activities related to a terrorist group’. It’s reports of this nature that remind us why so many experts have said, it’s not a question of “if” terrorists get their hands on nuclear weapons, but rather, “when”.
During a brief court appearance at the Palais de Justice in Paris, anti-terrorist judge Christophe Teissier heard how the French authorities had been working with MI5 and the CIA to track Hicheur’s movements around the world.
There were growing fears he was planning a nuclear attack.
He has admitted planning at least one attack with terrorists from Algeria.
The confession in a high-security jail near Paris came before his brother Zitouni, 25, was released without charge after three days of questioning.
U.S. monitors picked up the internet exchange between Hicheur and his North African contacts.
A British security source said: ‘It appears that Al Qaeda are now recruiting extremely intelligent people who have both the knowledge and the resources to potentially create a nuclear bomb or identify nuclear targets.
Homeland Security Council Urges Nuclear Attack Response Planning
The recently released Planning Guidance for Response to a Nuclear Detonation, developed by the White House Homeland Security Council, stresses that it’s “incumbent upon all levels of government” to prepare “through focused nuclear attack response planning.” Mayors, governors, emergency managers and first responders will be the first to deal with the consequences, and according to that same guidance, “local and state community preparedness to respond to a nuclear detonation could result in life-saving on the order of tens of thousands of lives.”
Ready or Not?, a yearly analysis of preparedness for health emergencies that’s released by the nonprofit Trust for America’s Health, found that “surge capacity remains the largest threat to the nation’s ability to respond to a major catastrophe.” Local, and specifically, regional abilities to care for the wounded will be vital just after a nuclear terrorist attack. Unfortunately many communities haven’t gotten the point.
Two assumptions prevail at the local level: 1.) Any nuclear explosion will completely destroy a major city; and 2.) The military is the only organization capable of responding.
These ideas are fueled by Cold War-era memories in which the threat of nuclear war with the Soviet Union meant thousands of bombs would fall on U.S. cities. However, scenarios involving a nuclear terrorist attack, though horrible beyond comprehension, are not in the same league.
Undoubtedly the federal government would eventually take charge of response efforts and military aid would be required. Yet as overwhelming as it would be for local and state resources, they would be all that’s available in the first hours and days following an explosion.
So what should local officials do?
Read Full Article By Arnold Bogis
North Korea Threatens to Wipe U.S. Off The Globe
North Korea threatened Wednesday to wipe the United States off the map as Washington and its allies watched for signs the regime will launch a series of missiles in the coming days.
Off China’s coast, a U.S. destroyer was tailing a North Korean ship suspected of transporting illicit weapons to Myanmar in what could be the first test of U.N. sanctions passed to punish the nation for an underground nuclear test last month.
The Kang Nam left the North Korean port of Nampo a week ago with the USS John S. McCain close behind. The ship, accused of transporting banned goods in the past, is believed bound for Myanmar, according to South Korean and U.S. officials.
The new U.N. Security Council resolution requires member states to seek permission to inspect suspicious cargo. North Korea has said it would consider interception a declaration of war and on Wednesday accused the U.S. of seeking to provoke another Korean War.
“If the U.S. imperialists start another war, the army and people of Korea will … wipe out the aggressors on the globe once and for all,” the official Korean Central News Agency said.
The warning came on the eve of the 59th anniversary of the start of the three-year Korean War, which ended in a truce in 1953, not a peace treaty, leaving the peninsula in state of war.
Nuclear Terror Attack Number One Threat – ElBaradei
October 2, 2008 by national
Filed under Homeland Security News
The likelihood that terrorists will detonate a nuclear weapon poses the greatest risk to world security, surpassing proliferation threats from Iran and North Korea, United Nations atomic chief Mohamed ElBaradei said.
“There is a lot of interest on the part of extremist groups to obtain nuclear material,” ElBaradei, director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said at a scientific forum today in Vienna during the annual conference of the 145 nations in the IAEA. “It’s the No. 1 security threat right now.”
The IAEA, established in 1956 under the slogan “Atoms for Peace,” said it’s becoming easier for groups and countries to access nuclear secrets because detailed bomb-making plans have been circulated electronically. Nuclear-armed terrorists are more dangerous than governments with atomic weapons because they don’t have the same decision-making restraints, according to ElBaradei.
“The rules of deterrence don’t apply to them,” said the Egyptian diplomat, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2005. “If they get it, they will use it.”
The IAEA has recorded 18 attempts to sell bomb-grade uranium and plutonium to black-market intermediaries since 1993. During the same period, the agency has tracked more than 1,300 incidents involving less-potent nuclear material that may be used to spread radioactive contamination.
“There is a possibility that the seized material was only a sample of larger quantities available,” IAEA officials who maintain the agency’s Illicit Trafficking Database said Sept. 26 in a statement. “These materials continue to pose potential security risks.”
Radiological Attack
A radiological attack on Washington could inflict economic damage of as much as $107 billion.
Detecting Nuclear Terrorism
August 26, 2008 by national
Filed under Homeland Security News
The visible security presence for the Democratic convention is pervasive. But undercover agents are also working to contain a potentially greater threat: nuclear terrorism. Bob Orr reports.
