With
Brussels still reeling in the aftermath of the deadly bombings this
week, the murder of a nuclear power plant security guard and the theft
of his badge has compounded fears that Belgium's two sprawling nuclear
plants could be vulnerable to attacks.
The nuclear power plant in Doel, Belgium. The country has a troubled history of security lapses at its nuclear power facilities.Credit
Julien Warnand/European Pressphoto Agency
BRUSSELS
— As a dragnet aimed at Islamic State operatives spiraled across
Brussels and into at least five European countries on Friday, the
authorities were also focusing on a narrower but increasingly alarming
threat: the vulnerability of Belgium’s nuclear installations.
The
investigation into this week’s deadly attacks in Brussels has prompted
worries that the Islamic State is seeking to attack, infiltrate or
sabotage nuclear installations or obtain nuclear or radioactive
material. This is especially worrying in a country with a history of
security lapses at its nuclear facilities, a weak intelligence apparatus
and a deeply rooted terrorist network.
On
Friday, the authorities stripped security badges from several workers
at one of two plants where all nonessential employees had been sent home
hours after the attacks at the Brussels airport and one of the city’s
busiest subway stations three days earlier. Video footage of a top official
at another Belgian nuclear facility was discovered last year in the
apartment of a suspected militant linked to the extremists who unleashed
the horror in Paris in November.
Asked
on Thursday at a London think tank whether there was a danger of the
Islamic State’s obtaining a nuclear weapon, the British defense
secretary, Michael Fallon, said that “was a new and emerging threat.”
While
the prospect that terrorists can obtain enough highly enriched uranium
and then turn it into a nuclear fission bomb seems far-fetched to many
experts, they say the fabrication of some kind of dirty bomb from
radioactive waste or byproducts is more conceivable. There are a variety
of other risks involving Belgium’s facilities, including that
terrorists somehow shut down the privately operated plants, which
provide nearly half of Belgium’s power.
The
fears at the nuclear power plants are of “an accident in which someone
explodes a bomb inside the plant,” said Sébastien Berg, the spokesman
for Belgium’s federal agency for nuclear control. “The other danger is
that they fly something into the plant from outside.” That could stop
the cooling process of the used fuel, Mr. Berg explained, and in turn
shut down the plant.
The
revelation of the video surveillance footage was the first evidence
that the Islamic State has a focused interest in nuclear material. But
Belgium’s nuclear facilities have long had a worrying track record of
breaches, prompting warnings from Washington and other foreign capitals.
Some
of these are relatively minor: The Belgian nuclear agency’s computer
system was hacked this year and shut down briefly. In 2013, two
individuals managed to scale the fence at Belgium’s research reactor in
the city of Mol, break into a laboratory and steal equipment.
Others
are far more disconcerting. In 2012, two employees at the nuclear plant
in Doel quit to join jihadists in Syria, and eventually transferred
their allegiances to the Islamic State. Both men fought in a brigade
that included dozens of Belgians, including Abdelhamid Abaaoud,
considered the on-the-ground leader of the Paris attacks.
One
of these men is believed to have died fighting in Syria, but the other
was convicted of terror-related offenses in Belgium in 2014, and
released from prison last year, according to Pieter Van Oestaeyen, a
researcher who tracks Belgium’s jihadist networks. It is not known
whether they communicated information about their former workplace to
their Islamic State comrades.
At
the same plant where these jihadists once worked, an individual who has
yet to be identified walked into the reactor No. 4 in 2014, turned a
valve and drained 65,000 liters of oil used to lubricate the turbines.
The ensuing friction nearly overheated the machinery, forcing it to be
shut down. The damage was so severe that the reactor was out of
commission for five months.
Investigators
are now looking into possible links between that case and terrorist
groups, although they caution that it could also have been the work of
an insider with a workplace grudge. What is clear is that the act was
meant to sow dangerous havoc — and that the plant’s security systems can
be breached.
“This
was a deliberate act to take down the nuclear reactor, and a very good
way to do it,” Mr. Berg, the nuclear agency spokesman, said of the
episode in a recent interview.
These
incidents are now all being seen in a new light, as information is
mounting from investigators that the terrorist network that hit Paris
and Brussels may have been in the planning stages of some kind of
operation at a Belgian nuclear facility.
Three men linked to the surveillance video were involved in either the Paris or the Brussels attacks.
Ibrahim
and Khalid el-Bakraoui, the brothers who the authorities say were
suicide bombers at the Brussels airport and subway station, are believed
to have driven to the surveilled scientist’s home and removed a camera
that was hidden in nearby bushes. The authorities believe they then took
it to a house connected to Mohammed Bakkali, who was arrested by the
Belgian police after the Paris attacks and is accused of helping with logistics and planning. The police found the videocamera during a raid on the house.
Belgium
has both low-enriched uranium, which fuels its two power plants, and
highly enriched uranium, which is used in its research reactor primarily
to make medical isotopes, plus the byproducts of that process. The
United States provides Belgium with highly enriched uranium — making it
particularly concerned about radioactive materials landing in terrorist
hands — and then buys isotopes.
Brussels Terror AttackBy YOUSUR AL-HLOU, DEBORAH ACOSTA and NEIL COLLIER2:35Terror in Brussels: A Timeline of Horror
Video
Terror in Brussels: A Timeline of Horror
A breakdown of the locations in Tuesday’s terrorist attacks in Brussels.
By YOUSUR AL-HLOU, DEBORAH ACOSTA and NEIL COLLIER
on Publish Date March 22, 2016.
Photo by Belgian Federal Police, via Agence France-Presse — Getty Images.
Watch in Times Video »
Experts
say the most remote of the potential nuclear-related risks is that
Islamic State operatives would be able to obtain highly enriched
uranium. Even the danger of a dirty bomb is limited, they said, because
much radioactive waste is so toxic it would likely sicken or kill the
people trying to steal it.
Cheryl
Rofer, a retired nuclear scientist at the Los Alamos National
Laboratory and editor of the blog Nuclear Diner, said Belgium’s Tihange
nuclear plant has pressurized water reactors, inside a heavy steel
vessel, reducing the danger that nuclear fuel could leak or spread. She
said that the Brussels bombers’ explosive of choice, TATP, might be able
to damage parts of the plant but that the damage would shut down the
reactor, limiting the radiation damage.
And
if terrorists did manage to shut down the reactor and reach the fuel
rods, they would have to remove them with a crane to get the fuel out of
them, Ms. Rofer said. And then the fuel would still be “too radioactive
to go near — it would kill you quickly.”
While
experts are doubtful that terrorists could steal the highly enriched
uranium at the Mol reactor without alerting law enforcement, some
nuclear scientists do believe that if they could obtain it, they could
recruit people who know how to fashion a primitive nuclear device.
Matthew
Bunn, a specialist in nuclear security at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy
School of Government, said another worry was the byproducts of the
isotopes made at Mol, such as Cesium-137.
“It’s
like talcum powder,” he said. “If you made a dirty bomb out of it, it’s
going to provoke fear, you would have to evacuate and you have to spend
a lot of money cleaning it up; the economic destruction cost could be
very high.”
The
discovery of the surveillance video in November set off alarm bells
across the small nuclear-security community, with fresh worries that
terror groups could kidnap, extort or otherwise coerce a nuclear
scientist into helping them. The official whose family was watched works
at Mol, one of five research reactors worldwide that produce 90 percent
of the radio isotopes used for medical diagnosis and treatment.
Professor
Bunn of Harvard noted that the Islamic State “has an apocalyptic
ideology and believes there is going to be a final war with the United
States,” expects to win that war and “would need very powerful weapons
to do so.”
“And if they ever did turn to nuclear weapons,”
he added, “they have more people, more money and more territory under
their control and more ability to recruit experts globally than Al Qaeda
at its best ever had.”
Alissa J. Rubin reported from Brussels, and Milan Schreuer from Paris.
A version of this article appears in print on March 26, 2016, on page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: Belgium Fears Nuclear Plants Are Vulnerable. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe
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