Development of Analytical Instruments for Prediction of Nuclear Terrorist Activities

Creation of nuclear weapons, proliferation, and accumulation oflarge stocks of fissile materials in several states led to the emergenceof a new threat—nuclear terrorism. In turn, nuclear terrorismis inseparably linked with the expansion of the scope ofterrorist activity and intensification of subversive actions on thepart of various extremist and fundamentalist religious groups thatare considering this kind of terror as a powerful tool to achievetheir goals.The presence of different nuclear materials in about 450industries, as well as at hundreds of research reactors, tens ofthousands of nuclear warheads, and a number of various facilitiescombining infrastructures in more than thirty countries, createsobjective prerequisite for the expansion of criminal activities andfor the spread of possible acts of terrorism in this extremely sensitivearea of the global community. The situation is also aggravatedby the fact that hundreds of thousands of professionals, personnel,and support staff are involved in nuclear field activities.In addition, the amount of nuclear material (NM) necessaryfor an act of terrorism, which may lead to horrible consequenceswith large human and environmental impacts, is relatively small.This fact makes such materials most attractive for terrorist groups.All of the above factors increase the vulnerability of nuclear fieldprotection systems to terrorist attacks. Therefore, along with NMmanagement and accounting, another important task is developmentof additional analytical instruments that might be helpfulin predicting terrorist actions and in the determination of crucialpoints of present protection and security systems. Thi