Nuclear Terrorism

A nuclear terrorist attack is an incident in which a terrorist organization uses a nuclear device to cause mass murder and devastation. Nuclear terrorism also includes the use, or threat of use, of fissionable radioactive materials in an attack, for example, an assault on a nuclear power plant for the purpose of causing extensive and/or irreversible environmental damage. In this case, the terrorist organization need not develop, acquire or gain control of a nuclear bomb in order to cause extensive damage. It need only use conventional weapons against one of the many nuclear reactors in the world in order to seriously damage the reactor, thus releasing radioactive matter into the atmosphere. Such an attack can endanger large population centers.

Nuclear weapons can give terrorist organizations considerable advantages, since they can inflict large numbers of casualties and command worldwide media attention. Moreover, because it is hard to assess a terrorist organization’s threats to use nuclear weapons. Western countries are particularly susceptible to terrorist blackmail under threat of a nuclear strike. Decision makers have no way of knowing how likely the terrorists are to carry out their threat.

A terrorist organization may attempt to obtain fissionable material or nuclear weapons in a number of ways:

It may purchase fissionable material on the Eastern European black market. The disintegration of the Soviet Union, the economic crisis that has gripped most of the FSU, the demoralization of the Russian army, and the deterioration of governmental control of radioactive material and nuclear bombs in some of these countries have encouraged Black-market commerce in radioactive material.

It may purchase or obtain radioactive materials from other countries, particularly a those that support terrorism. Several “revolutionary” states such as Iran, Iraq, and Libya are known to be actively and regularly assisting various terrorist organizations. These same states have considerable resources and have made massive investments toward the acquisition of nuclear capability, and are striving to develop or purchase nuclear weapons.

It is rather unlikely that a terrorist organization would itself construct a nuclear bomb, for this requires special resources and training that terrorist organizations do not possess at the present time. However it is worth bearing in mind that such an organization may try to construct a simpler radioactive device, either by using its own scientists or by hiring scientists on the black market (many unemployed nuclear scientists are available on the world market, having been discharged in the FSU, and are willing to sell their professional expertise and experience to the highest bidder).

Terrorists may even seize a nuclear stockpile, one of the many stockpiles of various nuclear devices and other hazardous substances around the world.

Thus, terrorist organizations have various options for obtaining nuclear capability or a nuclear device. It is important to remember that terrorist organizations usually lack moral scruples and do not fear a nuclear response or damage to their international interests as a result of using nuclear weapons (a fear that has deterred sovereign states from using weapons of this kind in war and peacetime). All these factors make terrorist organizations more dangerous in nuclear terms than sovereign states.