Turkish police seize weapons-grade uranium

[SKULLS_Viper 0]

http://dailynews.attbi.com/cgi-bin....aniumdc

Captured weapons-grade uranium weighing more than 33 pounds is on display at the paramilitary police headquarters of southeast province of Sanliurfa, Turkey, September 28, 2002. Turkish gendarmes seized the uranium and detained two men accused of smuggling the material, Anatolian Agency said. Authorities believe the uranium came from an eastern European country and has a value about $5 million. Photo by Anatolian/Reuters

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Updated 10:24 AM ET September 28, 2002  

ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkish paramilitary police have seized more than 33 pounds of weapons-grade uranium and detained two men accused of smuggling the material, the state-run Anatolian news agency said on Saturday.

Officers in the southern province of Sanliurfa, which borders Syria and is about 155 miles from the Iraqi border, were acting on a tip-off when they stopped a taxi cab and discovered the uranium in a lead container hidden beneath the vehicle's seat, the agency said.

The incident happens at a time of mounting speculation the United States could launch a military attack on neighboring Iraq for its alleged program of weapons of mass destruction.

U.S. President George Bush has accused Baghdad of clandestine efforts to develop a nuclear bomb as his administration works to build international support for an operation to oust Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

Officials at Ankara's Atomic Energy Institute would not confirm they had been notified about the material, which Anatolia had reported.

"Our investigation on whether the uranium was destined for a neighboring country is continuing," a Sanliurfa police official was quoted as saying by Anatolian.

Police officials in Sanliurfa and Ankara declined to comment on the case.

Authorities believe the uranium came from an east European country and has a value of about $5 million, Anatolian said.

It was not immediately clear when the operation was carried out. Anatolian only gave the first names of the suspects, which appeared to be Turkish.

Smugglers use Turkey's porous eastern border to import drugs, and hundreds of thousands of migrants each year illegally cross the rugged frontier on their way to more affluent European Union nations.

Police in Istanbul seized more than 2.2 pounds of weapons-grade uranium last November that had been smuggled into Turkey from an east European nation. The smugglers were detained after attempting to sell the material to undercover police officers.

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A lot worse then smuggling drugs over.

[Placebo 28]

On that pic it says "Made in W. Germany" ?

[red oct 2]

hate to amagine what it would have been used for if they hadn't caught it.

[SKULLS_Viper 0]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (placebo @ Sep. 28 2002,22:14)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">On that pic it says "Made in W. Germany"   ?<span id='postcolor'>

Shure does.

[SKULLS_Viper 0]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Red Oct @ Sep. 28 2002,22:15)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">hate to amagine what it would have been used for if they hadn't caught it.<span id='postcolor'>

Yea...

[PFC_Mike 2]

HOLY SHIT!

Why is this not front page news?

[Sadico 1]

Scary... 33 pounds of uranium is not enough to make a nuke, but still...

[Assault (CAN) 1]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (placebo @ Sep. 28 2002,22:14)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">On that pic it says "Made in W. Germany"   ?<span id='postcolor'>

It was probably just the case that was made in W. Germany...... who knows where the contents came from.

Scary when you think that other shipments might have got through the border. We don't know where it was going but I have one good idea of where. So maybe Iraq does have some Uranium after all?

Tyler

[Sam Samson 0]

who might have tipped the cops off?

could it be...

[ralphwiggum 6]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Sam Samson @ Sep. 28 2002,23:33)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">who might have tipped the cops off?

could it be...<span id='postcolor'>

Osama?

heck if he can have US divert its resource and attack Iraq, it works.

[SKULLS_Viper 0]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (RalphWiggum @ Sep. 28 2002,23:42)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE"></span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Sam Samson @ Sep. 28 2002,23:33)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">who might have tipped the cops off?

could it be...<span id='postcolor'>

Osama?

heck if he can have US divert its resource and attack Iraq, it works.<span id='postcolor'>

Aye!Good thinking lad!

[kevinblake 0]

Well if you think of it in the context of drug smuggling, for every seizure thats made, 20 others get across un-noticed... We could well be underestimating Saddam...

[Placebo 28]

Welcome back Kevin

[kevinblake 0]

Thanks Placebo. Ill prob just be popping in and out to see whats happening. So much has changed in the time ive been gone! So many posts and members! Pity about the old guys leaving. Wobble,Hamster etc.... Remember Farren?

[SKULLS_Viper 0]

Wobble...

But any how, im glad those guys where caught.I dont know what would they have used it for, but im shure something very very very very very very etc. etc. etc. bad.

[kevinblake 0]

Did they release anything on the origins of the guys that were smuggling it? The Russian Mafia apparently smuggle plutonium around quite a bit.. Why did you not get on with Wobble? Funny guy!

[Guest]

I wouldn't be surprised if they found some "evidence" that linked this to Saddam.

Wobble was a spammer, flamer and bigot. Strangely enough he wasn't banned, but left on his own

[second_draw 0]

kevin blake came suddenly on the arrival of the last forum (i think) and posted heaps. Then never made the connection to this new forum. Welcome!

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">I wouldn't be surprised if they found some "evidence" that linked this to Saddam. <span id='postcolor'>

more like, i wouldn't be suprised if they link this to the US trying to link it to saddam. I'm sure the US will try anything to nail saddam's @ss. The US economy thrives on war. I know what i said is harsh but it's the truth (IMO).

[ralphwiggum 6]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (second_draw @ Sep. 29 2002,08:51)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">The US economy thrives on war. I know what i said is harsh but it's the truth (IMO).  <span id='postcolor'>

nope...that's more of fiction than truth.

war drains gov't money, thus increasing longterm rates higher, which dampens rest of the economy. sure, during war time, US and its weapon manufacturers make money, but it's at the cost of other sectors. so net gain is questionable.

[second_draw 0]

The US has a huge arms industry. They also gain global political power/strength (sharemarket).

[scousejedi 0]

The thing about a hude arms industry is that it only increases the wealth of a country when it is exporting arms.

To use the weapons itself it will consume vast amounts of revenue that could do better things like education, pensions, welfare, etc.

With the US economy in its fragile state, with Oil prices going up and the US being the biggest importer. With US opinion being generatlly anti war. I wonder what the real reason for going in is.

In the UK our glorious leader has failed to provide an argument that stands up but despite that there must be some reason too frighteneing or revealing to disclose publically to go in. Politicians do not take risks with their careers like this under normal circumstances.

Anyway, back on topic 'Made in W Germany'

1. That stuff must have been floating round for 15 year+

2. It must have been made for export - most non english countries would put {German word for Made} en Deutchland

sry for spelling

edit : typos

[SKULLS_Viper 0]

UPDATE*

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Turkish Police Say Seized Uranium Weighs 5 Ounces

Updated 12:30 PM ET September 29, 2002

DIYARBAKIR (Reuters) - A Turkish police official said on Sunday the amount of uranium recently seized by officers was around 5 ounces and did not weigh 33 lbs as initially reported.

The state-run Anatolian news agency on Saturday reported that paramilitary police in the southern province of Sanliurfa detained two men after discovering 15 kg of uranium in a lead container hidden beneath a taxi car seat.

But that amount had included the weight of the container and the radioactive material was actually around 140 grams, an official from the gendarmes force in Sanliurfa said on condition of anonymity.

The International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna was also skeptical because the amount previously reported would have been enough to make a nuclear bomb, spokeswoman Melissa Fleming told Reuters on Sunday.

The Turkish official said the weapons-grade uranium was seized on Friday after police stopped the vehicle on a road in Sanliurfa, which borders Syria and is about 155 miles from the Iraqi border.

The incident comes at a time of heightened tension between the United States and Iraq, accused by Washington of developing weapons of mass destruction.

President Bush claims Baghdad has tried to acquire uranium to develop a nuclear bomb as his administration works to build international support for a military operation to oust Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

The IAEA also questioned the contents because the word uranium was spelled in a strange way on the container, which itself was made in West Germany, Fleming said.

"We have no primary information and are trying to verify the contents of the object but it's very suspicious," she said.

The Anatolian agency on Sunday quoted Sanliurfa's provincial governor Muzaffer Dilek as saying experts had yet to determine the amount of uranium but that intelligence agents believed it only weighed about 100 grams.

Dilek also said police charged the two men in connection with the case but released them pending trial.

"These people said they believe that what was given to them was medical material," he said, adding police were now looking for two other suspects.

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[Satchel 0]

It´s not yet determined if the Uranium is weapon capable:

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">

Sunday, September 29, 2002 Posted: 2:16 PM EDT (1816 GMT)

 

ISTANBUL, Turkey (CNN) -- Turkish authorities Sunday released two men accused of attempting to smuggle a quantity of uranium, saying the amount in their possession was only a fraction of what officials originally estimated.

Turkish officials announced Saturday they had seized a box filled with nearly 35 pounds (15 kilograms) of uranium. But Muzaffer Dilek, the mayor of Sanliurfa, a Turkish city near the Turkey-Syria border, said Sunday that the material amounted to only 140 grams -- about five ounces.

The two men arrested with the material were released due to lack of evidence and have since disappeared, Dilek said.

The material is being taken to a nuclear research facility in Ankara to determine its composition, Turkey's Ministry of Internal Affairs said. That analysis was expected to be complete by Monday.

The men, who were riding in a taxi with the box, were stopped en route from Sanliurfa to the nearby city of Gazi Antep in southeastern Turkey, police said. The driver of the taxi was interviewed and released. Authorities displayed the material, which they said was worth $5 million and originated in the former Soviet Union, to reporters in Sanliurfa.

Turkish officials said they did not know whether the uranium was refined weapons-grade material or naturally occurring uranium, which would have to be refined before it could be used in a weapon. However, they said they did not believe the material posed a radiation danger.

U.S. officials and technical experts are in touch with Turkish authorities about the incident.

"If this is real, it is frightening," said a U.S. official familiar with the discussions. "But it is best now that we all look at this with a fair amount of skepticism until we know what it is that they have."

Former U.N. weapons inspector David Albright suggested the men could have been trying to swindle potential buyers. But he said investigators should try to determine both the source and the intended purchaser.

The U.S. official said such material "isn't exactly easy to come by" and added, "There are a lot of unscrupulous people out there who claim to be selling fissile material and weapons-grade material who turn out to be frauds. That is why until we know more I would be more skeptical than anything else. But we are hurrying to learn as much as we can."

-- CNN Senior White House Correspondent John King and Producer Fatih Turkmenoglu contributed to this report

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[jollyreaper 0]

Conspiracy theory time! I don't claim that this is what's going on but it sure would be a slick plan if it were the case.

Bush wants pretext for attacking Iraq. US-backed groups posing as seemingly genuine arms merchants arrange for Saddam to get weapons-grade material. (Saddam thinks he's buying from ex-KGB or east germans or whatever, doesn't know they're fronts for the CIA.) With the US's covert help, Saddam develops a nuclear capability. Once the US is certain he has such a capability, the CIA discovers incontrovertable evidence of such a thing, thus having a perfect pretext for going to war. "We have to attack Saddam! He has nuclear weapons. Such a madman cannot be allowed to exist."

The US specifically supplied Saddam biological and chemical agents in the '80's and helped him put together his own WMD programs. Of course, that was done with the understanding that such weapons were to be used against Iranians.

Realistically, though, I don't think that Bush and crew could put together something so machiavellian. Likely the whole uranium thing is a plant, just like a black man driving a nice car in Orange County, California will be "discovered" carrying illegal drugs when stopped by police. Iraq has WMD's, here's uranium shipments as proof, c'mon let's have ourselves a war, etc. "After all, this is the guy who tried to kill my dad!*"

*Actual bush quote.

[foxer 0]

Likely the whole uranium thing is a plant, just like a black man driving a nice car in Orange County, California will be "discovered" carrying illegal drugs when stopped by police.

That's a stupid comment,it would more be like a mexican. just kidding..

But that soo much bs.