Weapons of mass dislocation

摘要

Ever since the September nth attacks, it has been clear that the capacity of al-Qaeda and its affiliates to plot death and destruction is limited only by the power of the weapons they can obtain. Keeping nuclear, chemical and germ weapons out of their hands has therefore been a prior-ity.The arrest of Abdullah al-Muhajir on suspicion of plotting to build and set off in America a radiological device-a "dirty bomb" that uses radioactive materials packed around a conventional explosive core-is an indication of how hard that fight will be. Why a radiological bomb? Unlike chemical, biological or even the more familiar sort of nuclear-fission bombs, radiological weapons have never been used. Only Iraq's government is thought to have experimented with them for deployment on the battlefield. It is not just that they cause far fewer casualties than their atomic cousins. Like chemical and biological weapons, which are already outlawed, radiological weapons have long been considered inappropriate for military use. But for the al-Qaeda breed of terrorist, such weapons have value precisely for their power to shock.