US Terror Expert: “They’ve got the will.”

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As if we haven’t already covered enough nuclear harbingers today, here’s some scary pragmatism dispensed in Jakarta by Cofer Black, described here as “State Department Coordinator for Counterterrorism with the rank of Ambassador at Large:” U.S. Terror Expert Warns of Dirty Bomb.

Speaking at the U.S. ambassador’s residence in Jakarta on Saturday, Black said he and other U.S. officials are “killing ourselves” to make sure terrorists don’t get a so-called “dirty bomb” or other unconventional weapons, but the threat remains.

“We know beyond a shadow of a doubt that a number of these groups, if they had it, would use it,” said Black, who accompanied U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft to an Asia Pacific anti-terror summit on the Indonesian island of Bali last week.

“They’ve got the will. A lot of these guys seek the expertise, and there’s a reasonable amount of that out there, but what you’re really looking for is the coming together of all the factors: the will, the expertise and the materials,” he said.

Authorities fear terrorists could create a dirty bomb, which would use conventional explosives to disperse a plume of radioactive dust over a city. Unlike a nuclear weapon, a dirty bomb would not ignite an atomic chain reaction and would not require highly enriched uranium or plutonium, which are hard to obtain. The materials could be a lower-grade isotope, like those used in medicine or research.

Black’s comments follow recent revelations that the father of Pakistan’s nuclear program, Abdul Qadeer Khan, sold equipment related to centrifuges, used to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons, to Iran, Libya and North Korea.

Experts say the same black market that enabled those countries to obtain nuclear weapons technology might also have supplied bomb components or plans to terrorists.

“If al-Qaida were to put together a radiological device, they’re going to use it,” Black said. “We know that they have the determination, they’ve killed large numbers before, their objective is to kill more, they’re doing everything they can to acquire this type of weapon and we are working to try to prevent it.”

He said that anti-terror officials use the initials CBRN to rank the threats’ order of probability: “chemical, bacteriological, radiological and nuclear — chemical the most likely and nuclear the least.”

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Last updated: 2023-04-04 11:11 am PDT
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