ABSTRACT:

Terrorist groups aspiring to weapons of mass effectcapabilities are facing a range of practical and strategic constraints.Conventional means are thus likely to remain the weaponry of choice formost terrorists. However, as the world will experience new acts of terror,the provable and strong interest in nuclear weapons by some terrorist groupsdoes not allow us to ignore the risk of nuclear terrorism.

Differing requirements with regards to yield, reliability,safety, and delivery could potentially make the manufacturing of terroristnuclear devices less challenging than the production of traditional state(military) nuclear weapons. Crude nuclear terrorist weapon production is,moreover, likely to be assisted by the increasing availability of essentialknowledge and relevant declassified information.

Due to the less sophisticated "standards" of possiblecrude terrorist nuclear devices, technical barriers should not be regardedsufficient to prevent future large-scale nuclear terrorist violence. Avoidingsuch acts of terrorist can best be done by denying terrorist access tohighly enriched uranium or plutonium, the essential ingredients of anynuclear device.

Morten Bremer Maerli:  "TheThreat of Nuclear Terrorism"