November 3, 2001	Saturday	Shaba’an 16, 1422

VIENNA, Nov 2: The UN’s nuclear watchdog called on Friday for an urgent response to new terror threats after Sept 11, while experts warned Osama bin Laden would not hesitate to explode an atomic bomb.

One terror expert even said that the September suicide hijackers may have planned to slam an aircraft into a nuclear facility with the fourth hijacked plane which crashed in Pennsylvania.

“The prospect of nuclear terrorism has been catapulted to the forefront,” said International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Mohamed ElBaradei at a one-day special session at the body’s Vienna offices.

The IAEA, which monitors nuclear power facilities worldwide, says governments will have to pay to improve security, calling for an increase of up to 50 million dollars, or 15 per cent of its annual budget.

The threat of attacks on nuclear facilities, a terrorist atomic bomb or a so-called “dirty bomb” were all highlighted at the Friday meeting, called to decide how to respond to the new terror threat.

The nuclear threat was underlined only this week when US authorities imposed an air exclusion zone around 86 nuclear power facilities, saying it had credible information that they could be targeted.

Terrorist expert George Bunn of Stanford University said September 11 had been a “wake-up call” to the world’s nuclear industry.

And he singled out Osama as a key threat.

“There is evidence that Osama’s Al Qaeda organization has been ... seeking to purchase stolen nuclear material from the Soviet Union for use in nuclear explosives,” he told the session.

Jerrold Post of the George Washington University went further.

“This organization is considered at the highest risk to move into radiological or nuclear terrorism, as Osama bin Laden is innovative and continually seeking to create ever greater terror,” he said.

ElBaradei described the threat of terrorists building a nuclear bomb as “unlikely,” but declined to rule it out, calling it the “doomsday scenario.”

“That is obviously the most horrific scenario but in our judgment the most unlikely scenario,” he said, but added: “Nothing is excluded ... We need to take account of that possibility.”

The IAEA head said he had no information about Al Qaeda acquiring nuclear bomb-making material, although he remained worried. “We are concerned about Al Qaeda as well as any other terrorist organization,” he told reporters on the sidelines of the conference.

A British terror expert, Gavin Cameron of Salford University, said the fourth hijacked plane on September 11, which went down in Pennsylvania, may have been targeting a nuclear plant, possibly Three Mile Island.

Speculation was fuelled notably because, before the struggle which is believed to have preceded its crash, it had already descended to an altitude which did not suggest Washington was the target.

“The speculation is that it was actually targeted at somewhere rather closer that Washington. And there are a series of reactors in southern Pennsylvania that would be possible targets,” he said.

Addressing the conference, he also cited reports that Mohammed Atta, suspected mastermind of the attacks, had sought information about nuclear facilities. “But basically no-one knows,” he said.

IAEA head ElBaradei said September 11 had put everyone on alert, including nuclear industry leaders.

“We need to take preventive measures. We are not in any way trying to create panic ... but we need to be prepared. We need to be concerned,” he said. —AFP