How Do Terrorists Get a Hold of Nuclear Material?

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In The Media

How Do Terrorists Get a Hold of Nuclear Material?

Nuclear smugglers acquire nuclear material and technology piece by piece through clandestine networks. They are potentially very dangerous people who are aggressive in looking for innovative ways to illegally transfer nuclear material and dual-use items.

By Mark Hibbs

Published on Apr 11, 2010

Source: NPR's All Things Considered

World leaders at the Nuclear Security Summit this week hope to make progress toward preventing nuclear terrorism. But how do the myriad parts that go into making a nuclear weapon get into the hands of terrorists and rogue governments in the first place? Host Linda Wertheimer talks to Mark Hibbs, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, who has actually searched out nuclear traffickers and asked just that.

"Many of the [nuclear smugglers] I have met have very deep backgrounds in engineering, physics, and chemistry," says Hibbs. "They also tend to be logistical experts … these people are very aggressive in looking for innovative ways of solving the problem of moving illegal [nuclear] material."

About the Author

Mark Hibbs

Nonresident Senior Fellow, Nuclear Policy Program

Hibbs is a Germany-based nonresident senior fellow in Carnegie’s Nuclear Policy Program. His areas of expertise are nuclear verification and safeguards, multilateral nuclear trade policy, international nuclear cooperation, and nonproliferation arrangements.

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