Russian permanent representative recently called on the UN to take control over loosely guarded uranium yellowcake stockpiles in the Libyan Desert Sabha, writes ITAR-TASS. “I have spoken with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon about the issue, and asked him to take it up with the United Nations mission in Libya,” says Russia’s UN envoy, Vitaly Churkin. “I also said we would mention the problem at UN Security Council consultations, and we have done so.” He added that the head of the United Nations Support Mission in Libya, Tarek Mitri, spoke with Libya’s Prime Minister Ali Zeidan, who promised to focus on the issue. According to the diplomat, a special inter-ministerial committee was set up in Tripoli to deal with the matter. He said the continued lack of airtight control over uranium yellowcake in Libya and potential access by a terrorist group pose a danger to the region and global community.
Source: Photo courtesy of Cogema.
Yellowcake is a coarse, oxidized powder that is often yellow in color after the processing of uranium ore. Having 750-kilogram uranium content per 1000 kilogram, yellowcake is an attractive target for terrorist groups because it can be directly used to make a simple radiological explosive device. Yellowcake is generally used to produce commercial nuclear materials, such as fuel elements in nuclear reactors that use un-enriched uranium. It can be packaged and put into barrels, then sent to processing plants where it can be enriched further to and above 90 percent uranium-235, the main explosive ingredient in nuclear bombs, after a series of complex operations.
Recent reports have alleged that Al-Qaeda is interested in the supply of Libya’s yellowcake that can be used to fabricate the explosive components of radiological weapons. In October, a visiting journalist reported in the UK’s Times newspaper the stockpile was controlled by a local weapons dealer and his men did not watch over the warehouse closely for fear of suffering radiation sickness caused by nuclear radiation exposure. Greater exposure to nuclear radiation can cause sterility and cataracts while severe exposure can cause death within hours. Besides safety concerns, the militia seem to have no special interest to guard preciously the yellowcake stockpile. “We have no use for the yellow uranium ourselves and are frightened of it,” said Bharuddin Midhoun Arifi, a militia commander of 2000 fighters in Sabha. “My men don’t like guarding the site as they believe it will make their skin fall off. So we guard it from a nearby checkpoint. Maybe someone could steal one or two drums if they wanted, but not more.”
The security vacuum that exist in Libya today since the overthrow of Gaddafi in October 2011 is now attracting Al-Qaeda that is seeking nuclear weapons material and equipment, the commander added. “Qa’ida come to visit me, asking to buy weapons, asking for heat-seeking missiles, asking for uranium,” Arifi said. “It started this year when the French sent troops to chase them out of Mali. Qa’ida came to Sabha asking for medical supplies. They received some. Next they came back asking for weapons” including surface-to-air missiles capable of shooting down a passenger liner.
The fact that Libya has so much of this uranium yellowcake is a concern, says Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, a former commander of the British military’s chemical defense regiment. “If Al Qaeda did get hold of this yellowcake it potentially could be used for a radiological explosive device. One would expect that security agencies around the world would be looking very closely at this to ensure that yellowcake is secured in Libya and any potential proliferation of it outside of Libya is looked at very closely indeed.”
Libya remains an issue of “concern” as it acts as a source of proliferation of weapons and materials related to the production of weapons of mass destruction throughout Africa and the Middle East, stressed Churkin. He mentioned that Russia has already offered two specific proposals to ensure watertight security over the yellowcake during the Security Council consultations. First, Russia suggested UNSC members send the matter to the expert panel committee of the UNSC that monitors the implementation of sanctions against Libya with the possibility to ban arms exports from the country. Second, Russia has asked the UNSC to relay the UN’s concern to the Libyan authorities so that Tripoli can take practical steps, swiftly and decisively, to ensure airtight security of the yellowcake warehouse, said Churkin.
Although the October UK’s Times report pointed to poor security of the yellowcake warehouse, the Libyan Foreign Minister Mohamed Abdelaziz in September claimed the stockpile near Sabha city in Southern Libya had been secured with the help of IAEA inspectors. Looking forward, he added that “Libya is trying to determine if the concentrated uranium can be used for peaceful nuclear energy purposes or sold to countries which use the product for peaceful purposes.” The Centre for Strategic Studies in Tripoli had previously called on the Libyan authorities to use the uranium for “industrial and agricultural development and in the production of clean energy.”
In December 2003, under Muammar Qaddafi, Libya declared it would disarm its nascent biological, chemical and nuclear weapons programs and would open the country to immediate and comprehensive verification inspections. Libya pledged, inter alia, to eliminate all elements of its nuclear weapons programs, declare all nuclear activities to the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), accept international inspections to ensure its complete adherence to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), and sign the Additional Protocol. The United States and Britain dismantled and destroyed key aspects of the nuclear program including removal of ballistic missiles beyond a 300-kilometre range with a payload of 500-kilograms, leaving the IAEA inspectors to verify the process.
Since 2003, the IAEA monitors and verifies all nuclear materials, equipment and activities in Libya. However, towards the end of the Libyan revolution, an estimated 6,400 barrels of uranium yellowcake exist in the Libyan Desert, near Sabha city, the stronghold of Muammar Gaddafi, who was killed in the Libyan uprising in October 2011. The yellowcake stockpile is kept in an ordinary warehouse that is guarded loosely, next to an estimated 4,000 Russian surface-to-air missiles. The IAEA has performed an inventory of the yellowcake and technically maintains control over it.