Nuclear Terrorism: New Threat Posed by Briefcase Bombs

Gurmeet Kanwal

The age of terror has spawned a new threat – the awesome power of the brief case nuke. A few years ago, General Alexander Lebed of Russia had gone public with the startling admission that a number of Russia's atomic demolition munitions (ADMs), popularly known as brief case bombs, were missing. Since then fears have been often expressed that some of them may fall into the hands of terrorist organizations. After the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon, scenarios that were considered alarmist have now assumed nightmarish proportions.

Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda has threatened retaliation by all means for US attacks against the Taliban. The recent wave of anthrax bio-terrorism further reinforced the belief that nuclear terror is now a credible threat. Speculation that extremists in the Pakistan army may overthrow General

Musharraf and that Pakistan's nuclear weapons may fall into jehadi hands has also heightened tensions. With the defeated Taliban finding it expedient to cross over the Durand Line into Pakistani territory, these apprehensions now seem even more real. The Al Qaeda’s resistance movement in Iraq is growing more menacing by the day. Among the world’s foremost terrorist organizations, the Al Qaeda is the most determined and most likely to come into possession of nuclear warheads sooner or later. A future nexus between the Al Qaeda and the intransigent North Koreans cannot be ruled out as both share a pathological hatred for the Americans and can be expected to go to any length to cause moral and material damage to the American way of life and cause casualties to American soldiers.

Terrorists can acquire briefcase nukes by purchasing them on the black market, if General Lebed's disclosure is credible and such a market exists; by stealing them from a nuclear-armed nation's arsenal; or, by assembling them after acquiring the raw materials. These mini-nukes could have low (single digit) or even sub-kiloton yields. Even if a terrorist group manages to buy or steal a brief case nuke, it would find it extremely difficult to unlock modern safety devices like Permissive Action Links (PALs) and specially designed tamper-proof seals whose sole purpose is to prevent the accidental or unauthorized use of nuclear weapons.

Activating the weapon would require special technical skills and intimate knowledge of sophisticated electronic codes. Only a few nuclear scientists with experience in the assembly of ADMs could be expected to have the skills necessary for the purpose. Overcoming the hurdles of breaking electronic locks would be infinitely more difficult and, besides state-of-the-art supercomputers and personnel trained to operate them, would require a highly advanced intelligence gathering system. Neither Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda, nor any of the other large terrorist organizations supporting it, is likely to have acquired the ability to trigger a modern brief case nuke that it may have bought or stolen, especially if the Tritium triggers needed to ignite them have decayed.

However, it is possible that these terrorist organizations may have themselves developed and assembled a crude mini-nuke or may do so in the near future. The gun-type nuclear device, that uses high explosives (HE) to fire a sub-critical highly enriched uranium (HEU) projectile into another sub-critical uranium cylinder to form a solid HEU critical mass, may be the easiest to fabricate. Designs for such a nuclear bomb have been floating on the Internet ether for years. Still, such an effort would need hundreds of millions of dollars to procure the ingredients, the ingenuity of volunteer or mercenary nuclear scientists and oodles of luck. Though the development of a practically usable nuclear warhead presents a complex challenge, it would be irresponsible to assume that it cannot be done. Ever since the break up of the Soviet Union, there have been credible reports of many out of work nuclear scientists having gone missing. While some of them have doubtlessly been employed by North Korea and other states of concern, the erstwhile rogue nations, others may have had no compunction in loaning their skills to whoever asked if the right amount of money was on offer -- preferably in US dollars.

Also, Pakistani nuclear scientists with a jehadi inclination may have volunteered to work for Al Qaeda, as was reported soon after General Musharraf’s coup. The arrest of three Pakistani nuclear scientists and their subsequent handing over to US intelligence agencies for questioning in October 2001 had an ominous ring about it. Two of the three were senior scientists who had set up an NGO called Ummah Tameer-e-Nau (Reconstruction of the Muslim Ummah) in Afghanistan after retirement. This NGO, with its membership comprising mainly nuclear scientists and military officers, is known to have had close links with the Taliban and Al Qaeda. It is quite likely that these scientists were actively engaged in assembling rudimentary nuclear weapons for the Afghan terrorists with fissionable material smuggled from the former Soviet states. There have been reports that at least one Central Asian nuclear weapons expert works for Osama bin Laden. The covert involvement of the ISI is also a distinct possibility. Hence, a crude, untested, jehadi nuke may already have been developed by bin Laden's Al Qaeda.

The real danger of nuclear terrorism is that the terrorist organizations may assemble "dirty bombs" in which high explosives (RDX or TNT) are used to blow up and scatter uranium or other radioactive materials over a large area. Spent nuclear fuel rods that are stolen and radiation waste from cancer facilities in large hospitals and irradiation centers could be used as the “core” in such crude nukes. Though such dirty bombs will not cause horrendous casualties, if exploded in large Western cities, they will create a fear psychosis that will add to the paranoia that has already got a deep hold over ordinary people after the September 11 attacks.

Another likely consequence of the future possession of nuclear weapons by terrorist groups would be development by the US of low-yield mini-nukes that can be delivered with precision against deeply buried hard targets. Such targets could include the living shelters of terrorist leaders, including caves, and their storage facilities for weapons of mass destruction (WMD). The US may get around the basic premise of the Non-Proliferation Treaty that binds the five recognized nuclear weapons states not to attack non-nuclear states with nuclear weapons by claiming that the possession of nuclear warheads even by terrorist organizations being hosted by a state makes the state a nuclear-armed entity. However, the development of a new type of nuclear warhead would be a setback for diplomatic efforts aimed at reducing nuclear stockpiles and making them less usable as Russia and China would surely follow suit and, in the process, spur other nuclear-armed nations to also do the same.  

India’s major neighbors are both nuclear-armed. While the threat of state-sponsored nuclear terrorism against India can be said to be low because of the risk of disclosure and subsequent retaliation, intelligence assessments must take into account the high probability of crude nukes being used by jehadi terrorists. Such bombs may be assembled by the terrorists themselves or supplied to them by the perpetrators of the ongoing proxy war. Crude nukes can cause large-scale casualties if detonated on a carefully selected target in the largest metros with high population density. They can also generate a fear psychosis and media coverage that is detrimental to cohesive thinking and planning. In this aspect of national security, as in many others, a pro-active external and internal (counter) intelligence policy is necessary to nip the trouble in the bud. Intelligence gathering for such high priority threats has to be meticulously planned and methodically executed, leaving no stone unturned in the quest to discern the enemy’s plans before they can be launched. Extensive cooperation with international intelligence agencies and the skilful use of all HUMINT resources, hardware, software and media at the nation’s command would be necessary to overcome the menace of nuclear terrorism.

(Courtesy: SaharaTime, 17 January 2004. The author is Senior Fellow, Observer Research Foundation, New Delhi. This piece has been reproduced here with the permission of the author.)