Nuke security guard killed in Belgium
Reuters reports that a security guard for a nuclear plant was killed for his security badge;
The French language Derniere Heure (DH) newspaper reported the security guard’s badge was de-activated as soon as it was discovered he had been shot dead in the Charleroi region of Belgium and his badge stolen.
An updated Reuters article says that the Belgian government denies those claims;
[T]he local prosecutor on Saturday ruled out any militant link.
The Charleroi prosecutor’s office also denied media reports that his security pass had been stolen and been de-activated as soon as investigators raised the alarm, public broadcaster VTM said.
The UK’s Daily Mail reports that the guard, Didier Prospero, was found dead in his bathroom by his children when they returned home from school;
It had been feared the murder may be part of an ISIS plot to attack the facility and release radioactive waste into the atmosphere.
Or, the terrorists could have been planning to steal radioactive material to create a so-called dirty bomb.
Also, it is possible the terrorists wanted to sabotage a critical piece of machinery and cause the plant to meltdown, leading to a critical release of radioactive material.
Sebastien Berg, spokesman for the federal agency responsible for Belgium’s nuclear industry said they were fearful of a bomb exploding inside a plant or terrorists conducting a 9/11-style attack using a hijacked aircraft.
According to the New York Times, several of the employees at the nuclear plant were stripped of their security badges and sent home.
The Daily Mail article says that two former employees of the Belgian nuclear plant in Doel were fighting for ISIS in Syria.
One of the men, reportedly known as Ilyass Boughalab, is believed to have been killed in Syria, while the second served a short prison sentence in Belgium for terror-related offences in 2014.
With an extensive understanding of nuclear facilities, the convict’s short jail sentence has raised further questioned of the Belgian security services as well as fears he may have passed on important knowledge about the sites to the terrorist group.
Category: Terror War
In reality, it’s EXTREMELY unlikely any of the scenarios posted were actually plausible.
Even if one were to be able to obtain say, a spent fuel rod, it’s not likely the material would be spread over a wide area if used in a bomb, and much more likely anyone trying to make it into a dirty bomb would be a crispy critter long before it was built.
And disabling safety-related systems to cause a meltdown? Uh, no. I’ll just leave that there.
Basically, ISIS could shut down the plant without any damage to the primary or critical components, but because of people’s near total ignorance of anything nuclear related, they’d freak the public the hell out, which kinda what terrorists do.
Agreed. They’d have to be extremely lucky or VERY knowledgeable of the plants SR systems to cause a “meltdown.” The plant I work at literally had a 120kv line short out, and still the plant shutdown safely (very quickly, mind you, and it sounded like the Death Star getting ready to fire).
Also, I completely disagree with the prosecutor’s office. I fully believe they deactivated his badge. Why wouldn’t they?
That’s not much comfort to the family of the security guard, though.
Very true, and while my sympathies go out to him and his family, the prospect of a someone just showing up with someone else’s badge (if they’re anything like the ones here, they have pics on them) and wreaking havoc is all but nil.
Without going into great detail, if security at European plants is anything like ours (and I suspect if anything it’s stricter) he wouldn’t even get inside the protected area, let alone into a vital area.
Not so sure about that, SEA. The guy killed was apparently a security guard, not a nuclear worker per se. That probably meant he did entry or perimeter security duties wherever he worked. If the guy who replaced him looked reasonably similar, he might pass for a short while – and for a quick raid, that might be all they were planning on him doing.
Further, the security guard killed appears to have worked at a research facility vice a commercial power plant. I’m guessing that means the terrorists’ intent was other than to cause a shutdown at/damage to/meltdown of a commercial nuclear power plant.
I’ll not speculate further.
The object of terror is to terrorize. With that silly statement out of the way, what is the objective? I see two possibilities. Objective one, Take over the world: overthrow democratic governments, replace them with sharia and the Caliphate, convert everyone to Islam. Start by changing the population from trusting that their government can protect them from terrorists to believing that their government cannot protect them. As the population’s trust and support for their government wanes, the population gets to choose – reinforce the government (Malaysia, France in the 1960s), protect themselves (Afghanistan in the 1980s, 1990s, and now, Somalia in the 1990s, Libya today), or make/support a government who will make the bombings stop (Germany in the 1930s, Vietnam in the 1950s and 1960s). In general populations do not choose to protect themselves – and the ability (that is, private possession of firearms) is commonly removed by their government as part of the anti-terrorist operations – so people sometimes choose to let the attacker run the government. The bombings stop and, viewed from the perspective of a population who has been bombed into submission, all national governments are alike and sharia can’t be any worse than being bombed all the time. Objective two. “Leave me alone!” If the terrorists can sufficiently terrorize the Belgian population, those people will withdraw their support for operations against the World Caliphate guys. Since bombings support both rationales and, for the Islamists, the results are effectively the same. If they can get Europe out of their hair in the ME, that would be good enough for most of them. So I don’t see an easy way to distinguish between the objectives and probably both are true. Most people on here are old enough to remember the terrorist attacks in Europe in the 60s, 70s, and 80s. The French Army did a bunch of civilian bombing in order to change the official government policy toward Algeria. The Red Army Faction and numerous others attacked US occupation forces in Germany and Italy and democratic governments in general. There were Palestinian attacks – airplane hijackings, bombs, cruise… Read more »
I say turn the Middle East into a glowing sheet of glass starting with Mecca. Anyone Second the motion?
Second. We now have a Second to the motion on the floor. All in favor say “Aye”.
Aye!
Should that be, “say Aye-sotope”?
NAY!
I say, instead of a glowing sheet of molten glass, spread an engineered virus onto Mecca, Medina, and whatever that meteorite they worship. Anyone and everyone that makes the hajj will pick up the virus.
Let’s see. . . . make it non-contagious, so it won’t spread world wide. Make it slowly debilitating, so instead of a quick death, it gives a lingering wasting illness, say, over a 6 month to 1 year time. Gender specific? Male only?
That’s the broad outlines. I’ll leave the details to better minds.