Kyrgyzstan: Authorities Seize Radioactive Material Bound For Iran

**American Patriot** · January 17th, 2008, 21:21

Quote of the Day

Cesium chloride is very much like table salt. It dissolves in water and it can be blown away, and so on. And this is a very dangerous form … simply because it can enter the environment easily and it can be spread easily by a terrorist.

—Nonproliferation expert Peter Zimmerman, after Kyrgyz authorities reported seizing cesium 137 from a train headed toward Iran.

This is from Global Security Newswire at gsn@nti.org (news letter I get).

There's no associated newsletter with that "Quote of the Day".

Anyone aware of this Cesium Chloride shipment that was bound for Iran???????

**American Patriot** · January 17th, 2008, 21:26

(Here's an August 2007 article - only thing I've found so far, and not related to this so-called "seizure")

Hospital Cesium Is 'Terror Chemical' Says Expert
The Telegraph (UK) ^ | 8-3-2007 | Nic Fleming

Hospital cesium is 'terror chemical' says expert
By Nic Fleming, Science Correspondent
Last Updated: 1:42am BST 03/08/2007

A radioactive chemical widely used in medical and industrial equipment should be banned because of its potential use in a terrorist attack, scientists say.
Prof Peter D Zimmerman and colleagues at King's College London said hundreds could be poisoned or burnt if enough cesium-137 fell into the wrong hands.

They argued that the substance, used in radiotherapy machinery and on factory production lines, was one of the most likely candidates for use in an "I-cubed" attack - involving victims' chemical ingestion, inhalation or immersion.

The warning comes after two foreign doctors, who worked in British hospitals, were charged with offences relating to the foiled London and Glasgow car bomb attacks.
The driver of the jeep that crashed into Glasgow airport, who is seriously ill in hospital, also worked as a doctor. (This terrorist is now dead, BBC)

In an article in The New York Times, Prof Zimmerman said: "Water-soluable cesium chloride should be taken off the market immediately.

"The death of Alexander Litvinenko, the former KGB officer who drank polonium-210 in a cup of tea, underscored the damage that radiological terrorists could do.

"Most analysts believe that about 10 people would die from radiation poisoning after a dirty bomb attack. But radioactive material inside the human body is far more dangerous.

"A terrorist attack using the ingestion, inhalation or immersion of radioactive material would be almost certain to kill hundreds."

Many hospital machines use cesium-137, especially in the treatment of gynaecological cancers. It is also used in blood sterilising equipment.

One of the main industrial uses is measuring the thickness of steel or on production lines to signal when a can of drink is full.

An Environment Agency spokesman said: "There is already a strong regulatory regime in place. We work with Government on this issue and with counter terrorism advisers to ensure it is kept securely."

**American Patriot** · January 17th, 2008, 21:27

Radiation metal ‘Cesium 137’ is found on a train to Iran

http://www.neurope.eu/view_news.php?id=81845

12 January 2008 - Issue : 764

Cesium 137 has been found on a train carrying ferrous scrap metal from Kyrgyzstan, experts said. The train with a radioactive car was returned to Kyrgyzstan from the Uzbek border on December 31. The Kyrgyz Emergency Situations Ministry said that the emission was coming from litter and dust. The litter and dust were taken to a special storage facility. The scrap metal belonged to a private company from Kyrgyzstan. The cesium 137 emission reached 1,000 milliroentgens per hour, head of the ecological monitoring department of the Kyrgyz Environmental State Agency Omor Rustembekov told a press conference in Bishkek on January 9. “The source of radiation was found in the car, which had earlier carried scrap metal,” he said.

**American Patriot** · January 17th, 2008, 21:33

Kyrgyzstan: Authorities Seize Radioactive Material Bound For Iran
By Bruce Pannier

(AFP)

If the world needed reminding of the ongoing threat posed by nuclear materials left unsecured and scattered across the former Soviet Union, it's got it now.

On January 9, Kyrgyz officials announced that they had taken possession of a small load of a radioactive substance discovered aboard a train bound for Iran. The material has been placed in a special area in Kyrgyzstan, but questions are being raised about the nature and quantity of the substance, who was behind its transport, and how the train carrying it crossed three border checkpoints before being detected.

While it might simply be a coincidence that the train was bound for Iran, such a destination is also likely to raise eyebrows, given Western concerns over Tehran's nuclear activities and alleged support of terrorism.

Kyrgyz officials are looking for answers, but their behavior has raised questions, too. Why, for example, did it take them nine days to announce the discovery of the material, which was found on December 31 when radiation detectors alerted Uzbek border guards? They promptly sent the train back to Kyrgyzstan.

The Kyrgyz National Security Service continues to decline comment on that and other questions, and Almabek Aitikeev, a departmental head in the Kyrgyz Emergency Situations Ministry, offered only generalities about the quantity of the material when asked by RFE/RL's Kyrgyz Service.

"Not quite a bucketload of radioactive waste material was there mixed in with sand, dust, and snow," Aitikeev said. "We did our work and sealed up the waste on December 31."

Through Three Border Checks

Kubanych Noruzbaev, an official from the Kyrgyz Ecology and Environmental Protection Ministry, said on January 10 that the material was cesium-137, a product of nuclear reactors and weapons testing that is often used in medical devices and gauges. But it could also be used in a crude radioactive explosive device -- a "dirty bomb" -- and underscores the fact that despite some progress since 1991, parts of the former Soviet Union are still littered with sites where lethal radioactive materials remain largely unsecured.

Noruzbaev said the cargo train belonged to a Tajik firm but the cargo was loaded by Kyrgyzstan's state railway company, Temir, in Kyrgyzstan with other material and was bound for Iran. Noruzbaev also questioned how the train made it so far before being detected by Uzbek border guards.

"It passed through our border, the Kyrgyz border [and] it passed through two border checkpoints in Kazakhstan, entering and exiting [Kazakhstan]," Noruzbaev said. "Only on the territory of Uzbekistan was it discovered, and they [the Uzbeks] sent the train back to us."

Noruzbaev said the radioactive material should have been discovered long before the train arrived in Uzbekistan. "But how could it happen that it was not detected when it passed through special checkpoints?" Noruzbaev said. "And even more so, how could a [radioactive] source like cesium-137 or -140 pass [without detection]?"

'You Would Get Burns'

The Kyrgyz news agency 24.kg reported on January 9 that the levels of radiation being emitted from the train car were so high that the Emergency Situations Ministry asked for volunteers to go and unload the cargo. Four people wearing special protective clothing volunteered to venture into the wagon where they discovered the source of the radiation: dust and waste material on the floor, which they swept up and deposited in a bucket. The bucket was then sealed in concrete and stored in a special facility.

Reports say the material emitted 1,000 milliroentgen per hour, which is considered a dangerous level. Most companies handling such material consider 5,000 milliroentgen per 2,000-hour work year to be the "regulatory upper limit" for safety.

"It emits radiation, radioactive waves, and they are harmful, maybe not in mediocre amounts but prolonged exposure," Noruzbaev said. "If you held it a while, depending on the dosage, you would get burns of varying degrees."

But how did the material make it onto the train? In an interview on January 9 with RFE/RL's Kyrgyz Service, Emergency Situations Minister Kamchybek Tashiev was vague. "We established a commission immediately after the information about [the radioactive material] became known," Tashiev said. "The commission arrived at the site and removed the radioactive waste according to the law on radioactive security. In such a way, we took every measure to stop the spread of any radioactive substance among the populace."

Kubat Osmonbetov, a geologist, told RFE/RL's Kyrgyz Service that cesium-137 and cesium-140 are definitely lethal in large doses. Osmonbetov also noted that there is a uranium-processing plant in northern Tajikistan, raising the possibility that the Tajik train in question may have been used in the past to transport radioactive material and that remains of that material had somehow been left in the wagon.

(Amirbek Usmanov of RFE/RL's Kyrgyz Service and Mirosrar Asrorov of RFE/RL's Tajik Service contributed to this report.)

**American Patriot** · January 17th, 2008, 21:35

Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD)

http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/li...16-rferl01.htm

Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD)

Kyrgyzstan: IAEA Seeks Answers To Radioactive Seizure

By Jeffrey Donovan

The UN's International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has lodged a formal request with the Kyrgyz government to provide more detailed data on the troubling incident that unfolded in the last days of 2007.

But an IAEA official has told RFE/RL that the Vienna-based nuclear watchdog is still awaiting an official reply from Kyrgyz officials -- five days after they announced that dangerous levels of the radioactive substance cesium-137 had been discovered aboard a freight train bound for Iran. The IAEA official added that Bishkek so far had not asked the agency for any assistance or support on the matter.

The seizure itself occurred several days before its disclosure by the Kyrgyz government.

In late December, radiation detectors alerted Uzbek border guards to the presence of dangerous material. The guards then sent the train back to Kyrgyzstan, where the State Environmental Agency says it was first informed of the incident on December 29. Kyrgyz officials later seized the substance and stored it in a special holding area.

In an interview with RFE/RL's Kyrgyz Service on January 9, Almabek Aitikeev, a senior official with the Kyrgyz Emergency Situations Ministry, offered some details about the material. It was identified as cesium-137, a product of nuclear reactors and weapons testing that is often used in medical devices and gauges.

"Not quite a bucketload of radioactive waste material was there mixed in with sand, dust, and snow," Aitikeev said. "We did our work and sealed up the waste on December 31."

But details remain sketchy. The Kyrgyz National Security Service continues to decline requests for comment on the incident, as does the Kyrgyz state railway company Temir, which loaded the material in Kyrgyzstan along with nonferrous scrap metals onto the train, which belonged to a Tajik company. Kyrgyz officials confirm the train's ultimate destination was Iran, which is linked to the region via railway through Turkmenistan and regularly imports Central Asian scrap metal.

Cesium In 'Very Dangerous' Form

Peter Zimmerman, a U.S. expert on nuclear proliferation and terrorism, says he finds the story disturbing on a number of levels. "There may be contamination elsewhere. We simply don't know because, first off, the Kyrgyz authorities have not been forthcoming," Zimmerman told RFE/RL. "And second, we don't have any other data, so we are speculating. If a [radioactive] source was broken, and the material, which looks like glow-in-the-dark table salt, could have been scattered well before it was found. And some amounts could be anywhere."

That raises serious public health concerns. But Zimmerman cautions that the lack of information makes it extremely difficult to speculate just how serious the risk could be.

What is clear is that cesium-137 is a dangerous radioactive isotope. Zimmerman, the former chief scientist at the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, says that it would be the favored substance of terrorists seeking to build a radiological "dirty bomb" or to launch a so-called "I-cube attack," which would use the easy ingestion, inhalation, or immersion of the powdery chemical to kill on a large scale.

"Cesium chloride is very much like table salt," Zimmerman says. "It dissolves in water and it can be blown away, and so on. And this is a very dangerous form to use, simply because it can enter the environment easily and it can be spread easily by a terrorist."

Last August, in an op-ed in "The New York Times," Zimmerman and his colleagues warned of the dangers of cesium and other similar substances falling into terrorists' hands. "We believe that a first measure should be to get all cesium sources converted to something that uses a solid rather than a powder form. We think that's safer," he says.

As for the Kyrgyz case, Zimmerman believes that is unlikely to have involved any malice or smuggling, and that negligence or incompetence remain the chief culprits. Zimmerman added that one possibility is that a gauge containing the cesium-137 got caught up in the scrap metal in the shipment.

"In all probability, a radioactive source -- which was used for measuring the thickness of a steel band or something of that sort, or aluminum band -- was left behind when the equipment was scrapped, and that source got mixed in with the scrap metal in the shipment," he says. "This happens even in the most developed countries with the best radiation protection, once or twice a year."

Where the source may have come from is still a mystery.

Like many former Soviet states, Kyrgyzstan has areas of poorly secured radioactive material -- as does neighboring Tajikistan, the home country of the company that owns the train.

Tajik Nuclear Leaks

Although the Tajik nuclear plant at Vostokredmet was shut down after the Soviet Union's collapse, the company that runs it still manages 10 dumps of radioactive materials around the northern Tajik city of Chkalovsk. Reports say that only one of these radioactive dump sites has been completely secured, one is still active, and the others are only partially closed.

In comments to RFE/RL's Tajik Service, Shavkat Bobojonov, the head of the Vostokredmet nuclear plant, denied any possibility of legal transfer of radioactive substances from the area. "There is no trace of cesium in the plant," he said. "Now, we don't sell any kind of scrap metals from what we have. We need it ourselves for our own work. Our radioactive scrap metals are collected separately and they remain here."

Two years ago, Tajikistan created a National Nuclear Agency in a bid to attract international investment to fully secure its radioactive materials. That move followed registered cases of nuclear smuggling out of the country.

"No [recent] cases of smuggled radioactive materials have been registered in Tajikistan," Muzaffar Yunusov, the deputy of the head of Vostokredmet, told RFE/RL's Tajik Service. "In the [Sughd] region and in the country, some cases of smuggled radioactive materials or 'illegal transfers' were registered, but that was two or three years ago."

Kubat Osmonbetov, a Kyrgyz geologist, raised the possibility last week that the Tajik train may have been used in the past to transport radioactive material from the Vostokredmet area -- and that the remains of that material had somehow been left in the wagon.

But for now, the experts can only speculate -- at least until Kyrgyz officials respond to the IAEA's request for more detailed information.

Copyright (c) 2008. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. www.rferl.org

**American Patriot** · January 17th, 2008, 21:37

Kyrgyzstan: Authorities Seize Radioactive Material Bound For Iran

Posted: 11 Jan 2008
Kyrgyzstan: Authorities Seize Radioactive Material Bound For Iran
If the world needed reminding of the ongoing threat posed by nuclear materials left unsecured and scattered across the former Soviet Union, it's got it now.

On January 9, Kyrgyz officials announced that they had taken possession of a small load of a radioactive substance discovered aboard a train bound for Iran. The material has been placed in a special area in Kyrgyzstan, but questions are being raised about the nature and quantity of the substance, who was behind its transport, and how the train carrying it crossed three border checkpoints before being detected.
While it might simply be a coincidence that the train was bound for Iran, such a destination is also likely to raise eyebrows, given Western concerns over Tehran's nuclear activities and alleged support of terrorism.
Kyrgyz officials are looking for answers, but their behavior has raised questions, too. Why, for example, did it take them nine days to announce the discovery of the material, which was found on December 31 when radiation detectors alerted Uzbek border guards? They promptly sent the train back to Kyrgyzstan.

The Kyrgyz National Security Service continues to decline comment on that and other questions, and Almabek Aitikeev, a departmental head in the Kyrgyz Emergency Situations Ministry, offered only generalities about the quantity of the material when asked by RFE/RL's Kyrgyz Service.
"Not quite a bucketload of radioactive waste material was there mixed in with sand, dust, and snow," Aitikeev said. "We did our work and sealed up the waste on December 31."
Kubanych Noruzbaev, an official from the Kyrgyz Ecology and Environmental Protection Ministry, said on January 10 that the material was cesium-137, a product of nuclear reactors and weapons testing that is often used in medical devices and gauges. But it could also be used in a crude radioactive explosive device -- a "dirty bomb" -- and underscores the fact that despite some progress since 1991, parts of the former Soviet Union are still littered with sites where lethal radioactive materials remain largely unsecured...
-- Article source/continues at: http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle...142bcf3e1.html

**American Patriot** · January 17th, 2008, 21:38

Iran rejects Kyrgyz N-delivery claim

Tuesday, January 15, 2008 - ?2005 IranMania.com

	Related Pictures

LONDON, January 15 (IranMania) - The Iranian Embassy in Kyrgyzstan has denied a report that a consignment of radioactive material was seized in a train headed for Iran, PressTV reported.
An embassy statement described the report as fabricated and said that releasing such reports ahead of the IAEA Chief Mohammad ElBaradei's visit to Tehran indicates the concern of certain countries about Iran's nuclear achievements and its cooperation with the Agency.
Kyrgyz officials announced on Jan. 9th that they had taken into possession a small radioactive consignment aboard a train bound for Iran on Dec. 31st, 2007.
The officials later said the cargo train belonged to a Tajik firm but the cargo had been loaded by Kyrgyzstan's state railway company, Temir, along with other material bound for Iran.
They later said that the alleged radioactive load contained cesium-137, a product used in weapons testing and medical devices and gauges.
The statement condemned Western media for manipulating public opinion about Iran's nuclear program and concluded that the reports by Kyrgyz media were aimed at pressuring Iran into abandoning its peaceful nuclear activities.