International Officials Conduct Al-Qaeda Nuclear Attack Simulation

By Joe Fiorill
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — After participating yesterday in an exercise involving a simulated nuclear attack by al-Qaeda in Brussels, European government and international organization leaders today called for a series of measures to prevent terrorists from acquiring weapons of mass destruction.

“The threat of catastrophic terrorism is not confined to the United States or Russia or the Middle East. The new terrorist movements seem willing to use unlimited violence and cause massive casualties. Europe is both a target and a base for such terrorists,” said European Union foreign policy head Javier Solana, a participant in the exercise.

The recommended steps include a “global cleanout” of highly enriched uranium at research sites (see GSN, April 15), the acceleration of efforts to consolidate and secure dangerous nuclear materials and stockpiled Russian nuclear weapons (see GSN, March 11), greater transparency and faster destruction of tactical nuclear weapons (see GSN, Oct. 23, 2003), more funds for chemical weapon destruction, better international cooperation on reducing the risk of biological terrorism, better export controls, a strengthening of the international nonproliferation regime, and better information-sharing among the world’s countries and international organizations.

NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer helped convene the tabletop exercise in Brussels, in which Solana, former top U.N. weapons inspector Rolf Ekeus and more than 50 other current and former officials discussed two phases of the attack scenario: In “move 1,” they were presented with simulated intelligence indicating al-Qaeda had acquired highly enriched uranium and was planning an attack in Europe; in “move 2,” they learned of the fictional, 10-kiloton nuclear explosion at NATO headquarters.

The exercise concluded with a simulated news report that al-Qaeda head Osama bin Laden claimed responsibility for the attack, said to have killed 40,000 people and injured 300,000, and an intelligence briefing indicating International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors had determined that a significant quantity of uranium was missing from a site in Belarus.

The exercise was unique in Europe in that it focused on prevention, not response, and in that a broad range of senior officials participated, said Michele Flournoy, a Center for Strategic and International Studies international security expert who helped prepare the event. Contacted today by telephone in Brussels, Flournoy said the prevention focus was natural, given the attack scenario.

“The main experience of both move 1 and move 2 is that there are very few options and no great options in the move-1 phase ― once the material is out, you’ve got to be very lucky to find it ― [and that in] the second move, there are just no good options,” Flournoy said.

“The only good option,” she said, “is prevention, and yet we aren’t doing enough.” Calls for transparency and destruction of tactical nuclear weapon stockpiles, in particular, have “a lot of resonance in Europe,” Flournoy said, because “the U.S. and Russia really haven’t touched their tactical stockpiles.”

“The most effective, least expensive way to prevent nuclear terrorism,” added former U.S. Senator Sam Nunn, who participated in the exercise, “is to lock down and secure weapons and fissile materials in every country and in every facility that has them. No terrorist can launch a nuclear attack without weapon-grade material: plutonium or highly enriched uranium.”

Flournoy said two major themes emerged from the discussions. In light of the March rail attack in Madrid, she said, “There was a much greater sense of seriousness and urgency in terms of considering the threat of nuclear terrorism in Europe and quite a good discussion of actions to take to prevent such a thing from happening.”

“Especially post-Madrid, people in Europe accept the notion or agree with the notion that al-Qaeda and other jihadist terrorists are targeting Europe as well as the United States and that their goals are such that creating mass casualties is seen as an important means. I think that there’s a broad understanding that if they were to acquire WMD, they would certainly use it,” Flournoy said (see GSN, April 30).

“The other big theme,” she said, “was that it could actually happen in Europe. There are materials that are vulnerable to diversion or theft in Europe. There are cells in Europe; Europe has become a base of operations for many of these groups. There are also targets in Europe that are highly symbolic or have high political value from an al-Qaeda or jihadist perspective.”

The Strengthening the Global Partnership project, which is led by the Nuclear Threat Initiative and the Center for Strategic and International Studies, sponsored the exercise.

[EDITOR’S NOTE: Sam Nunn is chief executive officer of the Nuclear Threat Initiative.  NTI is the sole sponsor of Global Security Newswire, which is published independently by National Journal Group.]

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