World faces ‘race against time’ to prevent nuclear terror

THE world faces a “race against time” to prevent nuclear terror, the United Nation’s nuclear watchdog chief said yesterday, citing an extensive illicit market in nuclear and radioactive materials after the September 11 attacks.

More than 24 companies or individuals were engaged in the sale of nuclear materials and more than 60 incidents of trafficking in nuclear or other radioactive material are expected this year, said Mohamed ElBaradei, who heads the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

“The threat of nuclear terrorism is real and current,” he told reporters at a Sydney conference on nuclear proliferation and terror. “We need to do all we can to work on the new phenomena called nuclear terrorism, which was sprang on us after 9/11 when we realized terrorists had become more sophisticated and had shown an interest in nuclear and radioactive material,” El Baradei said.

Undeclared nuclear programs discovered in Iran, Libya, Iraq and North Korea proved the existence of an extensive illicit market for the supply of nuclear items, he said.

There were 60 trafficking incidents last year, bringing the total in the past decade to 630, and the annual tally was expected to rise this year, El Baradei said.

“We have a race against time because this was something we were not prepared for.”

Much of the nuclear hardware in question had dual uses outside of nuclear weapons so trying to control exports of technology was not enough to control proliferation, he said.

“Clearly, it is time to change our assumptions regarding the inaccessibility of nuclear technology. The technical barriers to mastering the essential steps of uranium enrichment, and to designing weapons, have eroded over time,” ElBaradei said. He urged the international community to adopt measures to control sensitive parts of the nuclear fuel cycle, which he listed as enriched uranium and the reprocessing of plutonium.