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| Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia |
| FSB sez bad guys seeking to acquire WMDs |
| 2005-08-23 |
| Terrorist groups are making attempts to acquire weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear and biological weapons, Federal Security Service director Nikolai Patrushev told colleagues from other former Soviet republics on Friday. "The terrorists are striving to obtain access to biological, nuclear and chemical weapons. We record this, and we have such information," Patrushev said at a meeting with his counterparts from other countries in the Commonwealth of Independent States. "Our mission is to deny them such access," Patrushev said at the meeting in Aktau, Kazakhstan, which followed a counterterrorism exercise in which CIS forces simulated the seizure of an oil tanker by a terrorist group in the Caspian Sea. Patrushev did not give any details about who had tried to acquire WMD or when and where the attempts had taken place. Russia and the other 11 countries of the CIS were supposed to have destroyed their biological weapons long ago in accordance with international conventions. The United States and several other countries have expressed worries that terrorists could acquire nuclear, biological or chemical weapons materials in Russia and other former Soviet republics. Patrushev said the Federal Security Service, or FSB, was evaluating security and accountability in the defense industry and other enterprises that are or have been involved in the development and production of WMD to ensure that they are impenetrable to terrorist groups. "We are really checking these enterprises and, as of today, we are taking measures to eliminate those flaws that exist," he said, Interfax reported. He said the FSB was focusing on preventive measures. "At the moment, we evaluate the situation this way: Terrorists will not get the weapons they're striving for," he said. "Nonetheless, in light of the aim of terrorists to get access to weapons of mass destruction, we must perfect this work." Earlier this summer, the chief of the Defense Ministry's nuclear safety and security department said there was a constant stream of intelligence from the FSB indicating that terrorist groups were developing plans to target the military's nuclear arsenals. "We have special information continuously coming from the Federal Security Service on terrorist groups' plans against our facilities," Igor Valynkin, head of the ministry's 12th Main Directorate, said in June. Patrushev's comments came after Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev threatened to stage new terrorist attacks and hinted that he might go beyond conventional attacks. In an interview broadcast by the U.S. television network ABC on July 28, Basayev vowed to "do everything possible" to end the second Chechen war. Basayev had ordered radioactive materials planted in Moscow and threatened to detonate them to end the first Chechen war. "I am trying not to cross the line. And so far, I have not crossed it," Basayev said in the interview, which was taped in late June. Basayev has claimed responsibility for the Beslan school hostage-taking, which killed more than 330 people, and scores of other terrorist attacks. During the first and second wars, Chechen rebels sought to acquire radioactive and biological materials, plotted to hijack a nuclear submarine and cased military nuclear installations. While initially skeptical of the threat of WMD terrorism, Russian authorities are increasingly acknowledging the imminence of the menace and are working to safeguard nuclear, chemical and biological substances at military and civil installations with financial and technical assistance from the West. One sign of this change in attitude is that the military and the FSB are holding regular exercises in repelling possible terrorist attacks on nuclear installations. The next CIS counterterrorism exercise will focus on repelling an attack on a nuclear power plant and will take place in Armenia in 2006, Patrushev said. Patrushev also said the FSB had helped investigate violence in the eastern Uzbek city of Andijan earlier this year. He said the FSB had offered to assist in the London subway and bus bombings but that the offer had been declined. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |
| #3 Ya know, I've heard that the clear sky is blue in color.... Perhaps I can get a $10M grant so I can study it...... |
| Posted by: CrazyFool 2005-08-23 14:21 |
| #2 LOL! Maybe their next press relese will be that vodka consumption is a problem in Russia, but that Vodka production is at a all time high and very profitable. Duh! |
| Posted by: Fun Dung Poo 2005-08-23 13:37 |
| #1 Terrorist groups are making attempts to acquire weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear and biological weapons, Brilliant, Nikolai, Brilliant! How much grant money did you spend to need to come to that conclusion and where can I sign up? Perhaps next you will discover that Muslim extremists will go to extremes! |
| Posted by: 2b 2005-08-23 04:31 |