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| Kathleen Jay's travel blog |
Saw this, and became a little more than just casually concerned...
If increased realistic fears of suicide conventional bombing at Sochi were not enough, the Chechen connection is troubling when considering whether any of these groups might attempt to use radioactive materials to disrupt the Olympics. Chechens have been responsible for some of the earliest uses of radioactive material, starting from the placement of a small cesium 137 source in a Moscow park in the mid-1990s and there have been repeated threats and reports of Chechen groups intent to use radioactive material in a Radioactive Dispersal Device (RDD), particularly the threat to use explosives to carry out the dispersal, creating a “Dirty Bomb.”
Since various sorts of radioactive material has been out of control in Chechnya since the Soviet Union collapsed it is certainly possible that militant groups might possess small amounts of radioactive material. Obviously explosives are readily available. Would any of these groups use radioactive material against the Olympics if they possessed it? Unfortunately the answer may be that they would. Not only is it an extremely visible target, but Russian President Putin has made his personal prestige an issue, which may be viewed as too tempting a challenge for some of these groups to forego.
Federation of American Scientists: A Credible Radioactive Threat to the Sochi Olympics?
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