Chapter 5
How Radiological Weapons Work
On May 8, 2002 Jose Padilla was arrested in Chicago under suspicion that Padilla
was planning on constructing and setting off a radiological dispersal device (RDD)—
colloquially known as a “dirty bomb.” While Padilla was not charged with this crime,
he was tried and found guilty of conspiring to commit murder and to fund terrorism
in August, 2007—and both lawmakers and the public became aware of yet another
threat [3].
That being said, these weapons were not a totally new threat. In actuality, the
idea of radiological weapons goes back at least a half-century. During the Korean
War, General Douglas MacArthur suggested sowing dangerous levels of radioactivity
along the Korean-Chinese border to prevent further Chinese involvement in Korea
following the presumed United Nation’s victory in Korea [1]. Even earlier, in 1941,
the National Academy of Sciences explored the idea of radiological warfare in the
form of bombs that would distribute radioactivity in enemy territory [5]. In the
1980s, Saddam Hussein is thought to have experimented with Radiological Dispersal
Devices (RDDs), eventually giving up on them for reasons to be outlined below [4].
And, in fact, the most recent incarnation of RDDs is not even a terrorist innovation;
al Qaeda appears to have got this idea from watching US news broadcasts in the late
1990s [2].
In recent years, the first potential radiological terror event was threatened by
suspected Chechen terrorists in Russia [17], who obtained radiological materials
and set them out in public locations in Moscow as well as displaying them at a
conference in the Chechen city of Shali. While these devices were never detonated,
the fact that terrorists obtained radioactive materials and had the capability to use
them in an attack brought this issue to the fore. It is also possible that al Qaeda
produced an RDD [18], although if so, this weapon does not appear to have been
used, and Ferguson (2019) mentions additional radiological plots, most of which
never received a great deal of coverage in the media. In addition, since the early
2000s, Interpol and a variety of national and international security agencies have
noted consistent attempts to traffic radioactive and nuclear materials [11, 13].
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
P. A. Karam, Radiological and Nuclear Terrorism,
Advanced Sciences and Technologies for Security Applications,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-69162-2_5
39
How Radiological Weapons Work
On May 8, 2002 Jose Padilla was arrested in Chicago under suspicion that Padilla
was planning on constructing and setting off a radiological dispersal device (RDD)—
colloquially known as a “dirty bomb.” While Padilla was not charged with this crime,
he was tried and found guilty of conspiring to commit murder and to fund terrorism
in August, 2007—and both lawmakers and the public became aware of yet another
threat [3].
That being said, these weapons were not a totally new threat. In actuality, the
idea of radiological weapons goes back at least a half-century. During the Korean
War, General Douglas MacArthur suggested sowing dangerous levels of radioactivity
along the Korean-Chinese border to prevent further Chinese involvement in Korea
following the presumed United Nation’s victory in Korea [1]. Even earlier, in 1941,
the National Academy of Sciences explored the idea of radiological warfare in the
form of bombs that would distribute radioactivity in enemy territory [5]. In the
1980s, Saddam Hussein is thought to have experimented with Radiological Dispersal
Devices (RDDs), eventually giving up on them for reasons to be outlined below [4].
And, in fact, the most recent incarnation of RDDs is not even a terrorist innovation;
al Qaeda appears to have got this idea from watching US news broadcasts in the late
1990s [2].
In recent years, the first potential radiological terror event was threatened by
suspected Chechen terrorists in Russia [17], who obtained radiological materials
and set them out in public locations in Moscow as well as displaying them at a
conference in the Chechen city of Shali. While these devices were never detonated,
the fact that terrorists obtained radioactive materials and had the capability to use
them in an attack brought this issue to the fore. It is also possible that al Qaeda
produced an RDD [18], although if so, this weapon does not appear to have been
used, and Ferguson (2019) mentions additional radiological plots, most of which
never received a great deal of coverage in the media. In addition, since the early
2000s, Interpol and a variety of national and international security agencies have
noted consistent attempts to traffic radioactive and nuclear materials [11, 13].
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
P. A. Karam, Radiological and Nuclear Terrorism,
Advanced Sciences and Technologies for Security Applications,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-69162-2_5
39