WASHINGTON, April 15: Terrorists can attempt to hijack radioactive material in Pakistan during transportation and would want to use it for causing massive damages inside the country, says a paper presented recently at a Washington think-tank.
The paper – “Consequences of Nuclear Terrorism in Pakistan: Sabotage of a Spent Fuel Cask or a Commercial Irradiation Source in Transport” – explores various scenarios of a possible terrorist attempt to hijack radioactive material but concludes that Pakistan has taken adequate measures to deal with such eventualities.
The author, Abdul Mannan, is a visiting fellow at Washington’s Stimson Centre, and is the director for transport and waste safety at the Pakistan Nuclear Regulatory Authority.
Before discussing various scenarios for terrorist attacks on the country’s nuclear assets, the author declares that Pakistan envisages an expansion in its nuclear power programme from its current production capacity of 437 megawatt electrical to 8,800 MWe by 2030.
The author stresses that the vulnerability of Pakistan’s facilities to nuclear terrorism can’t be ignored, especially in the current context of the government’s renewed alliance with the US after 9/11.
