CIAO DATE: 11/01
Nuclear Terrorism: How Real is the Threat?
A. Schmid
International Atomic Energy Agency
Abstract
Terrorism
Prevention Branch
Office for
Drug Control and Crime Prevention
Vienna International Center, Vienna Austria
1. The paper will be based on Open Source materials and focus mainly on non-state
actors such as terrorist, criminal, guerrilla and other, including religious,
groups.
2. It will discuss the trafficking of highly enriched nuclear materials and less radioactive materials in the post-Cold war period, focusing on the smuggling from the former Soviet Union and from former Warsaw Pact countries.
3. The capabilities of terrorist and other groups in acquiring, handling and delivering nuclearand radiological materials will be addressed.
4. The intentions of various groups to use such weapons are explored and the goals they might pursue will be analysed.
5. Forecasts about the future will be made, based on the incident database of the TerrorismPrevention Branch and other databases and on scenarios which are currently discussed.
Read
full text here (PDF, 672k)