User:Mich112358/Nuclear Terrorism

Nuclear terrorism most often describes the detonation of a nuclear weapon possessed by a non-state actor against a civilian target. Such an attack has never occurred. Nuclear terrorism can also describe the threat of such an action, especially when that threat is designed to provoke a response.

Because terrorism is a controversial term (see definition of terrorism), nuclear terrorism is taken by some to mean any use of nuclear weapons against civilian targets. Others include the use or threat of nuclear weapons designed to provoke a change in policies, even if this threat is perpetrated by a state. Many include the use of nuclear weapons by a state for a non-military purpose.

Nuclear terrorism may also refer to any attack using radiological weapons or dispersing radiation (such as an attack on a nuclear power plant).

The weapon used in a nuclear terrorist attack may be a stolen nuclear warhead or an improvised nuclear device, and if such an attack succeeded, the results would be devastating.

Related incidents
There have been no incidents of successful nuclear terrorism, but there have been a number of incidents that have demonstrated the threat and possibility of such an attack.

Notable hoaxes:


 * 1) In October, 1971, the police in Orlando, Florida, received a note that threatened to detonate a hydrogen bomb which was backed up by a simple, but accurate, bomb design. The note was taken seriously and a ransom was paid, but a high school student was soon found to be responsible for the hoax.

Proposed attacks:


 * 1) Three hijackers took control of Southern Airlines flight BLANK in November, 1972 and had it fly over Oak Ridge, Tennessee (where there is a major nuclear installation) in an attempt to extract a $7 million ransom. The plane flew on to Cuba.


 * 1) A CIA agent codenamed Dragonfire reported in October, 2001 that Al Qaeda possessed a nuclear weapon and had smuggled it into New York City. No such weapon was ever discovered.

The threat of marginalized terrorist organizations using nuclear weapons (especially very small ones, such as suitcase nukes) has been a threat in American rhetoric and culture since at least the 1970s.

In June 2002, U.S. citizen Jose Padilla was arrested for allegedly planning a radiological attack on the city of Los Angeles; Padilla is currently (as of 2006) under military arrest as an "illegal combatant".

In August 2002, the United States launched a program to track and secure enriched uranium from 24 Soviet-style reactors in 16 countries, in order to reduce the risk of the materials falling into the hands of terrorists or "rogue states". The first such operation was Project Vinca, an operation in Serbia "to remove a quantity of highly enriched uranium, sufficient to produce 2-1/2 nuclear weapons from a research reactor near downtown Belgrade".

In order to reduce the danger of attacks using nuclear waste material, European Union Commissioner Loyola de Palacio suggested in November 2002 the creation of common standards in the European Union, especially in the new member states operating Soviet-era reactors, for subterranean nuclear waste disposal.

On August 9, 2005 Ayatollah Ali Khamenei issued a fatwa forbidding the production, stockpiling and use of nuclear weapons. The full text of the fatwa was released in an official statement at the meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna.