The risk of nuclear terrorism is high and growing

While the human and environmental consequences of a terrorist attack with nuclear or radiological materials are barely imaginable, the threat of nuclear terrorism is real. Several terrorist groups – including Al Qaeda, North Caucasian terrorists, and the so-called Islamic State (IS) – have demonstrated their nuclear ambitions as a means of communicating with and targeting their “enemies.” Al Qaeda generally targets “the West”; North Caucasian terrorists have chosen Russia as a less abstract enemy. As a more recent example, the perpetrators of the 2015 attacks in Paris gathered information about nuclear research facilities in Belgium and Germany. Generally, European countries that engage in international counterterrorism campaigns and operate nuclear power or research programs, such as France and Germany, present high-risk targets for potential nuclear terrorist attacks.

Assessing the Feasibility of Nuclear Terrorism

There is more than one way to cause terror with radioactivity. Nuclear terrorism can take at least four forms: detonation of an intact nuclear weapon, an improvised nuclear device, a radiation-dispersal device or “dirty bomb”; or the release of radioactivity.

The first is relatively unlikely as terrorist groups face tremendous obstacles to obtaining a functioning nuclear weapon. Even with the possibility of so-called insider threats – terrorists receiving help from a sympathetic employee – trespassing into a relevant military facility to acquire an operational nuclear weapon is extremely difficult. Stealing components to construct a functioning nuclear weapon is also improbable as that requires professional expertise and equipment. Therefore, and because civilian facilities and their staff present easier targets, the other three categories are more feasible forms of nuclear terrorism.

Creating the second option, an improvised nuclear device, requires fissile material. To obtain it, perpetrators would need to either break into protected facilities – such as nuclear power plants and related facilities that handle, store, or transport nuclear fuel – or acquire it through other criminal means such as black-market networks. While fabricating a device that employs fissile material to cause a nuclear explosion is technically sophisticated, it is feasible.

The term “dirty bomb” in the third option refers to a device whose primary purpose is to spread dangerous levels of radiation. Combining conventional explosives with radioactive material, dirty bombs are relatively unsophisticated when compared to those used for targeted nuclear explosions. Consequently, there is a broader range of potential sources for the radiological materials used in them: Some medical and research facilities handle materials with lower levels of radioactivity; nuclear power generation creates materials of intermediate and high levels of radioactivity. If a dirty bomb used high-level radioactive waste, for example, it could disperse high levels of radiation. Perpetrators could acquire such radiological materials through physical breach and theft, insider support, or black-market networks.