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Uzbekistani customs officers seized an Iranian-registered truck on the Kazakhstani-Uzbekistani border about 20km from Tashkent after discovering it contained 'ten 70x40x25cm lead containers with highly radioactive material,' Interfax reported on 2 April 2000.  According to Uzbek customs officials, the transport documents accompanying the truck said it was carrying 23.2 metric tons of scrap metal from the Kazakhstani firm Aral to a Pakistani firm, Akhmadzhan Khadzhi Er Makhammad. Kazakhstani customs had cleared the truck and issued a certificate saying it had passed radiation screening. The driver of the truck was an Iranian national, identified by another source as Ali Rakhman Nadzhab.[2] The lead containers were not listed on the truck's manifest. Specialists from the Uzbekistani Academy of Sciences Institute of Physics were called in to examine the cargo, and they determined that the level of gamma radiation emitted by the cargo was 5,000 milliroentgen/hour, 100 times over the acceptable level. Kazakhstani customs officials and diplomats were subsequently invited to visit the Uzbekistani border point where the truck had been seized, and presented with the information about its radioactive cargo. Uzbekistani customs then returned the truck to their Kazakhstani counterparts. Dr. Bekhzhad Yuldashev, Director of the Uzbekistani Academy of Sciences Institute of Physics, told Interfax on 3 April 2000 that the material in the truck, although 'unidentified' was not 'raw material for nuclear technology.' Yuldashev confirmed that the cargo had been emitting radiation at a level 100 times above acceptable norms. This report also noted that the truck had been seized on 30 March 2000.[1]

Kazakhstani customs officials admitted on 3 April that a radioactive cargo had been mistakenly allowed to cross over the border into Uzbekistan, and launched an investigation. However, that same day, sources in the 'Kazakhstani secret services' denied the reports that containers of highly radioactive material had been in the truck.  Instead, they said, the scrap metal itself was radioactive.[3] Other Kazakstani officials also quickly denied that the incident involved the attempted smuggling of highly radioactive materials. Talgat Kubelekov, the deputy head of the Kazakhstani Ministry of the Interior Directorate for South Kazakhstan Oblast, told Interfax-Kazakhstan on 3 April 2000 that his investigators suspected that the case involved contaminated scrap metal taken from uranium fields in the Suzak district of the oblast. Kubelekov added that the Aral company, which had sold the scrap metal, said it had acquired it from 'unknown private individuals.'[15] Yerlan Kozhagapanov, the head of the Main Customs Department of South Kazakhstan Oblast, told Interfax-Kazakhstan on 5 April that the reports about the truck being filled with radioactive cargo provided by the Uzbekistani authorities were 'not quite correct.' Kozhagapanov said he thought the Uzbekistani authorities had acted hastily in releasing information about the case, and argued that 'there were no containers with radioactive substances in the truck.' The Uzbekistani officials, he said, may have mistakenly taken 'the waste products of some technological production process' [such as uranium processing] for containers.[16] The New York Times reported on 4 April 2000 that US officials were aware of the case, but could not provide any specific information about the material involved. US State Department spokesman James Rubin did claim, however, that the seizure represented a successful example of US efforts to halt international smuggling, saying that the Uzbekistani customs officers involved had been trained and equipped by the US Customs Service and Department of Commerce. They used US-supplied radiation detectors to check the truck, uncovering its high level of radiation.[9]

On 7 April 2000, specialists at the Kazakhstani Institute of Nuclear Physics told the Center for Nonproliferation Studies that their analysis of the cargo in the truck did not uncover any lead containers. Instead, they said that some of the scrap in the load, which included some empty stainless steel boxes, was radioactive, although at a much lower level than cited in initial reports.  In particular, some pipe scraps in the cargo were coated with radioactive debris (probably uranium), which emitted 3.6 milliroentgen/hour.  The Kazakstani experts concluded that at least part of the cargo had likely been salvaged from a uranium mine.[4] Similar results of an analysis of the cargo were reported in Kazakhstanskaya pravda that day.[5]  On the same day, the Kazakhstani Embassy in Uzbekistan held a press conference at which Kazakhstani diplomats presented the results of this analysis, and claimed that the Uzbekistani authorities had misinformed journalists about the case.  The Kazakhstani Ambassador to Uzbekistan, Umurzak Uzbekov showed journalists copies of both the Uzbekistani and Kazakhstani dosimetric analyses of the cargo, neither of which cited the 5,000 milliroentgen/hour figure cited by Uzbekistani officials in initial press reports about the incident. The test results displayed at the press conference both reported maximum radiation levels of 3.2 milliroentgen/hour coming from the cargo. The results shown at the press conference indicated that 6 metric tons (or about 25 percent) of the cargo was radioactive, with most of the radioactivity coming from debris deposits on five or six pieces of pipe. Nothing was said about lead containers, and the implication was that the Uzbekistani authorities had been mistaken about them.[6]

The Moscow daily Nezavisimaya gazeta commented that after the press conference, two questions still needed to be answered in order to fully explain the case. First, how did the driver obtain a certificate saying that the cargo was not radioactive? Second, what happened to the ten lead containers that the Uzbek customs authorities said were in the truck, but were apparently not examined by the Kazakhstani and Uzbekistani radiation specialists?[6] Kazakhstani Foreign Minister Yerlan Idrisov told a 10 April 2000 press conference in Astana that it was 'unfortunate' that the Uzbek authorities had taken 'hasty actions' and circulated reports to the media 'without additional inspection and without clarifying the case.'  Idrisov said that the results of analysis by specialists had shown that 'there was nothing serious in this cargo.'  Idrisov argued that the case should not damage Kazakhstan's image as a country that is meeting its international export control obligations.[7] An article in Tsentralnoaziatskiy byulleten took a more conspiratorial view of the case, suggesting that Kazakhstani officials were orchestrating a cover-up in order to minimize damage to Kazakhstan's international reputation. The article ridiculed the idea that the Uzbekistani customs officers had been mistaken about the lead containers, or could not read their dosimetric instruments correctly. The article said that since the truck had been returned to Kazakhstan, it would now be impossible to independently verify whether there had been any containers of radioactive material in the truck or not. The article cited previous incidents involving smuggling of nuclear materials from the Ulba Metallurgy Plant in Ust-Kamenogorsk, Kazakhstan and the 1999 case of MiG fighers illegally exported to North Korea from Kazakhstan as evidence that the illicit export of nuclear and military technologies from Kazakhstan remains a problem. It also noted that Iranian agents had approached the Ulba plant in the past looking for nuclear material, and suggested that since the driver of the truck in this case was an Iranian national, its destination may have been Iran, not Pakistan.[8]

Foreign reaction to the incident was extensive, notwithstanding the uncertainty about the nature of the cargo involved.  Pakistan denied any involvement in the case on 8 April 2000, with a Pakistani Foreign Ministry spokesman saying that 'Pakistan is not connected in any way with this shipment...This is obviously an attempt to falsely implicate Pakistan, which we condemn.'[10] A commentary in the Washington Times, assuming that the cargo included the containers, said that they held radioactive isotopes such as strontium-90 that could be used to make radiological weapons. It claimed that unspecified 'Middle Eastern terrorists' were likely to use such weapons in the future.[11] Indian media took a similar view of the case, with an article in the Navbharat Times (New Dehli) arguing that it showed that 'Pakistani terrorists now want nuclear arms besides traditional weapons,' and concluding that 'it is now clear that there is a link between the terrorists and the smuggling activities...the secret services of Iran, Afghanistan, and most probably Pakistan are monitoring these events.'[12]  A report in the Sunday Telegaph (London) said that anonymous US intelligence officials believed the truck in the case was carrying strontium-90 intended for use by the international terrorist Osama bin Laden in radiological weapons. The article said that the seizure of the material had 'raised fears that the wealthy bin Laden and his fellow terrorists could be developing the capability to unleash them [radiological weapons] on the West and Israel.' It noted that Quetta, Pakistan, the destination listed on the truck's manifest, is the main Pakistani border crossing into Afghanistan, and only a few hours' drive from Kandahar, the Afghan city where bin Laden is currently believed to be based.[13] An article in the Moscow daily Izvestiya on 25 April 2000 repeated these allegations, citing the Sunday Telegraph report, although it also cited Kazakhstani officials as denying that anything other than contaminated scrap was in the truck.[17]

In statement released on 25 April 2000, the Kazakhstani Foreign Ministry denounced these media reports as 'not very well planned and obvious disinformation.' The ministry said that the reports about the attempted export from Kazakhstan of containers with radioactive materials 'have nothing in common with reality.' The statement reiterated the Kazakhstani government position that there were in fact no containers of radioactive material in the truck involved, which carried only slightly radioactive scrap metal.[14]
 

[1] 'Radioaktivniy gruz, zaderzhanniy v Uzbekistane, ne prednaznachalsya dlya yadernykh tekhnologiy, utverzhdayut v Tashkente,' Interfax, 3 April 2000.
[2] 'Trayler s radioaktivnymi konteynerami vydvoren v Kazakhstan,' The Globe (Almaty), 4 April 2000.
[3] 'V Kazakhstane provedut rassledovaniye po faktu zaderzhaniya uzbekskimi tamozhennikami radioaktivnogo gruza,' Interfax, 3 April 2000.
[4] NISNP Correspondence with CNS Representative Office in Almaty, Kazakhstan, 7 April 2000.
[5] Lyubov Dobrota, 'Po slukham i kompetentno,' Kazakhstanskaya pravda, 7 April 2000, p. 4.
[6] Aleksey Mironov, 'Radioaktivnyy skandal v blagorodnom semeystve,' Nezavisimaya gazeta, 12 April 2000, http://news.mosinfo.ru.
[7] Interfax-Kazakhstan, 10 April 2000; in 'Kazakh FM: Uzbeks 'Hasty' in Reacting to Radioactive Cargo,' FBIS Document CEP20000411000110.
[8] Nikolay Fomin, 'Yadernyye prizraki na kazakhskoy granitse,' Tsentralnoaziatskiy byulleten, 14 April 2000, http://www.eurasia.org.ru.
[9] Tim Weiner, 'Uzbeks Said to Seize Pakistani Nuclear Cargo,' New York Times, 4 April 2000, http://www.nytimes.com.
[10] Anwar Iqbal, 'Pakistan Denies Nuclear Weapons Smuggling,' UPI, 8 April 2000; in Lexis-Nexis Academic Universe, http://web.lexis-nexis.com/universe.
[11] Stephen D. Bryen, 'The New Islamic Bomb,' Washington Times, 10 April 2000, http://www. washtimes.com.
[12] Harish Agarwal, 'Increasing Danger of Nuclear Terrorism,' Navbharat Times (New Dehli), 18 April 2000, p. 5; in 'Indian Daily Warns of Nuclear Terrorism,' FBIS Document SAP20000420000063.
[13] Julian West, 'Atomic Haul Raises Fear of Bin Laden Terror Bomb,' Sunday Telegraph (London), 23 April 2000; in 'Seized Nuclear Materials Feared Headed for Bin Laden,' FBIS Document EUP20000423000023.
[14] 'Astana nazvala dezinformatsiyey soobshcheniya SMI o popytke vyvoza iz Kazakhstana radioaktivnogo gruza,' Interfax, 25 April 2000.
[15] 'Special Services Deny Uzbeks Thwarted Smuggling of Radioactive Cargo,' Interfax-Kazakhstan, 3 April 2000; in BBC Summary of World Broadcasts, 5 April 2000; in Lexis-Nexis Academic Universe, http://web.lexis-nexis.com/universe.
[16] 'Kazakh Researchers Examining Radioactive Material Confiscated in Uzbekistan,' Interfax-Kazakhstan, 5 April 2000.
[17] Gennadiy Charodeyev, 'Islamskaya bomba v rukakh ben Ladena,' Izvestiya, 25 April 2000, p. 7.