Never before in the history of the human race have we had the ability to decimate our entire world at the push of a button. We have developed fearsome technology that now threatens our existence on a global scale. The scientific advances designed to make our lives safer and more carefree have evolved into weapons of mass destruction. This has only compounded the already oppressive technological legacy that has deprived us of our humanity and robbed us of a meaningful relationship with God. “It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity” Albert Einstein (1879-1955).

The book of Revelation provides us with another sign of our world’s closing moments by mentioning the destruction of them which destroy the earth (Revelation 11:18). Several nations have nuclear weapons capability today. The United States, Russia, Britain, China, France, India, and Pakistan have acknowledged nuclear capability. Israel has unofficial capability. Iran, Iraq, and North Korea have been vigorously seeking nuclear weapons capability (Source: U.S. State Department). With the proliferation of nuclear weapons and the abundance of radioactive, biological, and chemical agents potentially accessible to rogue terrorist groups, the probability for global catastrophe has increased exponentially. Terrorism may not be a new phenomenon, but it has certainly undergone a radical change in just the past decade alone. With advances in technology and more aggressive efforts by international terrorist organizations to acquire or build weapons of mass destruction, the specter of biological, chemical, or nuclear attacks has become overwhelmingly real. The impact of such events would be unprecedented, and the social and economic consequences incomprehensible.

When the September 11 attacks occurred, everything that had happened before seemed to pale in comparison. We had come to believe that the United States is impervious to such devastating acts of terror, and yet in one brief moment our perceptions were shattered. Nearly 2,800 people died almost instantly, although many acknowledge that the death toll could easily have been in the tens of thousands. The unprecedented event was followed by a series of deadly anthrax attacks using the U.S. postal system as a delivery mechanism. Now that weapons of mass destruction are within the reach of terrorist factions, what can we anticipate next in the aftermath of these historic tragedies?

On November 11, 2001, the Wall Street Journal reported that the collapse of the Soviet Union may have drastically increased the availability of nuclear weapons to terrorist organizations. General Igor Volynkin of the Russian Defense Ministry’s 12th Main Directorate, informed the media that unknown terrorist factions had made two attempts to penetrate Russian nuclear storage facilities known as S-shelters. The S-Shelters are fortified concrete bunkers where nuclear warheads are stored and maintained. Although the incursions were repelled by the Russian military, a major mystery remained: how did the terrorist groups know the location of these facilities? S-shelters are spread across Russia and usually situated near secure airfields or missile bases. The locations are top secret. The fact that such information has never been disclosed, not even to the United States during arms-reduction talks, raises serious concern about the capability of terrorist organizations to obtain the intelligence necessary to secure nuclear weapons or material to build such weapons. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) estimates that a decade ago, nearly 603 metric tons of nuclear materials were stored in 53 sites throughout Russia where security was euphemistically said to be poor. This is enough fissionable material to make about 41,000 nuclear weapons.

Of far greater concern are the numerous reports over the past several years about missing suitcase size nuclear weapons. On September 10, 1997, the Moscow Times reported that 100 of these easily transportable devices were unaccounted for. According to Alexander Lebed, a former Russian general and presidential hopeful, “the state of nuclear security in Russia poses a danger to the whole world.” Lebed later became governor of Russia’s Krasnoyarsk region. He had previously served as President Boris Yeltsin’s top security advisor and was well aware of such internal matters. In an interview with CBS Television’s 60 Minutes, he said that the small nuclear devices are “ideal weapons for terrorists because they can be armed and detonated by a single person within 30 minutes.” The one-kiloton bombs can kill over 100,000 people instantly. In a busy metropolitan area they can potentially kill hundreds of thousands, while exposing millions of others to lethal levels of radiation. Russian government officials denied Lebed’s allegations, stating that the suitcase size nuclear weapons were never constructed and that even the United States would not attempt to build such weapons. However, a much earlier January 1985 NBC News report revealed the fact that the United States had produced more than 300 such devices. Known as backpack nuke, or SADMs (Special Atomic Demolition Munitions) to the Army, Navy, and Marine Corps units that carried them, many were constructed as far back as the mid 1960s. They were later dismantled because their small size posed a substantial security risk if stolen. The Russian military officials were well aware of this fact and had known about the devices for years.

On March 12, 1998, the London Telegraph reported that the Russian mafia was taking hold of the military. According to Russian Defense Minister Marshal Igor Sergeyev, crime in the armed forces had become “more frequent and more serious.” He claimed that there is a real danger of organized crime penetrating military units and selling some of the nation’s most sophisticated weapons to rogue Third World states or terrorist organizations. Considering the harsh economic conditions affecting the region, this would certainly present a very lucrative opportunity for military personnel who have access to nuclear weapons or radioactive contraband, and are financially impoverished.

On October 6, 1998, Al-Hayat, the Saudi-owned, London-based Arabic newspaper reported that the Al-Qa’ida terrorist organization under Osama bin Laden’s direction had acquired nuclear weapons. A subsequent report in the Arabic news magazine Al-Watan al-Arabi on November 13, 1998, claimed that Al-Qa’ida made a deal with organized crime figures in Grozny, Chechnya to purchase 20 nuclear weapons for $30 million and two tons of opium. What is particularly unsettling about the report is the fact that Chechnya figured prominently in brokering the deal with Al-Qa’ida. In 1995, Chechen rebel leader Samil Basayev claimed that his forces had access to nuclear weapons and radioactive materials. To prove his point, he directed a Moscow television crew to Izmailovsky Park in Moscow where they found a container of radioactive cesium. His claims were indeed legitimate.

On January 10, 1999, the Philadelphia Enquirer reported that fissionable material is being sold on the black market. The story cited an arrest of eight men by Turkish officials on charges of smuggling nuclear material from the former Soviet Union. Turkish agents posing as buyers seized about 12 pounds of uranium-235 and one-quarter ounce of plutonium powder. According to the report, “the material was being peddled for $1 million by three men from Kazakstan, one from Azerbaijan, and four from Turkey. One suspect was a colonel in the Kazak army.” There have been at least 18 nuclear smuggling busts reported since 1993.

The political volatility in Russia is now greater than it was in the 1990s, posing a serious threat to global nuclear security. Deepening economic and political upheaval has encouraged those with expertise in nuclear weapons and access to them to sell their wares to the highest bidder. U.S. intelligence has estimated that more than 3,000 underpaid and disillusioned Russian scientists with expertise in weapons of mass destruction have left the country since the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

On January 11, 1999, Time and Newsweek published interviews conducted with Osama bin Laden in late December of 1998. In those interviews Bin Laden said, “Acquiring [nuclear] weapons for the defense of Muslims is a religious duty.” At the same time, Al-Watan al-Arabi sources said that Bin Laden and Al-Qa’ida had hired “hundreds of atomic scientists” from the former Soviet Union by offering them $2,000 a month – wages that far surpassed those paid by the former Soviet republics for their services. The same source claimed that dating back to 1993, aides to Bin Laden and Al-Qa’ida operatives had been asked to obtain weapons-grade material for the purpose of constructing small, portable nuclear weapons.

In addition to the sale or theft of radioactive contraband over the past decade, there have also been reports of missing nuclear reactor fuel rods and other radioactive material in the United States, Russia, and elsewhere worldwide. In many instances such events are downplayed by governmental agencies to minimize panic from an anxious public. As far back as 1991, three fuel rods containing 4.2 kilograms of natural uranium oxide were reported missing from the Karlsruhe nuclear research center in Germany. Just two years ago, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) fined Dominion Nuclear Connecticut, owner and operator of the Millstone Nuclear Power Station in New London, Connecticut, $288,000 for failing to account for two missing fuel rods. Although it was later claimed that the rods had been transferred to a storage facility and misplaced in the record books, questions about the incident still remain. Over the past few years, two fuel rods have been reported missing from the University of Kinshasa’s research reactor in the Democratic Republic of Congo, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). One of the rods had been recovered in 1998 during an undercover operation by police agencies in Italy, but authorities could not explain how it had been transported to Europe. It was evident at the time that the fuel rod had been tampered with. The other rod, only recently reported missing, has not been recovered and international authorities do not exclude the possibility that it may be in the hands of terrorists. Very recently, in March 2003, the IAEA was summoned to Nigeria to investigate the disappearance of an unspecified amount of radioactive material. The head of the Nigerian nuclear regulatory agency raised concerns that the material may have been stolen with the intention of transporting it out of the country. Although U.S. officials claim they have uncovered what is believed to be an Al-Qa’ida terrorist connection in West Africa that includes a smuggling operation, U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld did not seem to feel the terrorist threat was greater there than elsewhere in the world: “There are certainly terrorists on every continent and there’s no question but that there are terrorists in Africa,” he said. “I wouldn’t say it’s the next area of activity. I mean we have activity there now. This is a global problem.”

There have been numerous reports over the past decade alone involving stolen or missing radioactive materials in a variety of different industries, from nuclear power plants to the medical field. The concern is that the materials can be used to make dirty bombs. These are devices that scatter radioactive material over a large area, exposing people to lethal doses of radiation rather than destroying buildings and infrastructure. The NRC has reported that businesses have lost about 1,500 radioactive sources since 1996, and more than half were never recovered.

On March 25, 2002, CBS News reported that researchers at Stanford University had prepared the largest and most detailed database to date of stolen or missing nuclear material. Friedrich Steinhausler and Lyudmila Zaitseva have been tracking incidents of missing radioactive materials worldwide. Zaitseva, who had worked in Kazakstan’s nuclear program, said that research confirms 700 incidents of nuclear smuggling over the past decade. The Stanford data also confirms long-standing concerns that the dissolution of the Soviet Union has left one of the world’s largest nuclear programs highly vulnerable. Many have warned for years that aside from the obvious danger inherent in the availability of weapons of mass destruction on the black market, the theft or acquisition of weapons-grade material poses an equally profound threat: “If a terrorist group or rogue state gets a hold of such material [plutonium] from smugglers, they solve the single most difficult problem in building a bomb” (“When Terrorists go Nuclear,” Popular Mechanics, Vol. 173, No.1, January 1996, pp.56-59).

On June 25, 2002, the IAEA released a report warning that all countries, including the United States, need to improve security to protect radioactive materials. The report stated that more than 100 countries may have inadequate controls to monitor such materials. This was followed by a report from the National Research Council claiming that theft or diversion of Russian weapons-grade uranium and other radioactive materials for terrorist use represents a significant near-term threat to the United States. The report went on to say that at least 40 kilograms of weapons-grade uranium and plutonium have been stolen from nuclear facilities in the former Soviet Union over the past decade. Echoing similar concerns, the New York Daily News announced on September 10, 2002 that a partly classified report by the National Academy of Sciences declared, “clandestine production of special nuclear material by states or terrorist groups ... for use against the United States represents a significant near-term threat to homeland security”.

On December 14, 2002, WorldNet Daily released a report that President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair had been warned that Al-Qa’ida possesses 20 suitcase size nuclear weapons, according to the London Sunday Express. Paul L. Williams, a former FBI consultant on international terrorism, claimed that the suitcase size nuclear weapons were purchased from former KGB agents for $30 million – confirming the 1998 reports by Arabic newspapers. In his book Al Quieda: Brotherhood of Terror, Williams says that the deal is purportedly one of three in the last decade in which Al-Qa’ida purchased small nuclear weapons or weapons-grade uranium. There is no question now in the minds of many that it is just a matter of time before terrorist factions commit an act that will far overshadow the September 11 tragedy. U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has on more than one occasion stated quite plainly that “hundreds of thousands of Americans” are potentially at risk for nuclear attack.

The fact is, terrorists could have attacked us at any time in our history. Why did it not happen sooner? Is it because of our superior technology and methods for combating crime? Not really. Is it because we are more secure than other countries? Hardly. Or is it that we were not yet coming down the homestretch of the prophetic timeline? It is important that we recognize the real truth about why these terrorist attacks have intensified so that we will not be emotionally devastated by the events that are yet to come. We need to remember that the Lord will be returning soon, so we can find solace in that thought when the inevitable happens. Jesus told us, ”Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me” (John 14:1).

Most of us forget that the September 11 attacks were not principally geared to wreak havoc and fear, but rather to cripple our economy and consequently our way of life. The economic ramifications of the attacks are still profoundly evident today, as we witness entire industries faltering and our national economy continuing to flounder. Despite efforts by the media and our government to tout America’s financial viability and paint an optimistic picture of the future, September 11 will remain a grim cornerstone in the ultimate deterioration of our economy. The reason I make this statement is because of the dangers lurking around the corner. Surely most of us are savvy enough to recognize that there are enough terrorist factions in the world to make further incursions on our soil. Many are still living in this country.

We must be realistic. Our borders are vast and, in large measure, highly vulnerable. How difficult would it be for staunch terrorists to penetrate these borders with the intention of completing the efforts begun on September 11? How challenging would it be to smuggle a few suitcase size nuclear weapons across our borders? It is a physical impossibility to guard every avenue of entry into a country the size of ours. Even our seaports are not secure. On March 24, 2002, CBS News reported that despite the September 11 tragedy, U.S. customs can still effectively inspect only 2 percent of the six million cargo containers entering the United States annually. Robert Bonner, Commissioner of Customs, stated publicly that, “the system is vulnerable.” Captain William Schubert, the U.S. Transportation Department’s maritime administrator, told a Senate subcommittee that U.S. seaports may be the most vulnerable avenue of all for smuggling nuclear devices into the country. He explained that thousands of 40-foot sea/land containers welded shut at their point of origin, arrive at U.S. ports each day. Unless customs dismantles and checks every one of these containers, they will serve as an ideal place for terrorists to hide nuclear devices for use within our borders. According to Schubert, in order to check all these containers we would have to shut down our seaports for four months. The economic impact of such an action would be devastating.

The vulnerability of our seaports aside, illegal crossing of our borders is another viable way to transport contraband into the country unnoticed. It is estimated that as many as half a million illegal immigrants successfully make it across the Mexico-U.S. border each year without being apprehended. Official figures from the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service place the annual number of successful illegal entries as high as 300,000. In any event, the hole in the fence is quite substantial. And what about our 12,000 miles of coastline? The point is that it would not be an insurmountable task for sophisticated terrorist operations to deliver a few lethal weapons to terrorist cells already living in our backyard, by shipping them through our vulnerable seaports or carrying them across our vast borders.

Can you imagine what would happen to this country if a small nuclear device were detonated in two or more of our major cities? Although the carnage would be unimaginable by any standards, one must remember that this is not the primary objective of the terrorist organizations. The goal of such an unprecedented catastrophe would be to completely destroy our economy. If even one of our financial centers were attacked with a nuclear weapon, it could plummet our country into the Dark Ages. Our way of life would be radically altered. We must not be so naïve as to believe this cannot happen. It is just a matter of time. This is why Jesus said, “But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved” (Matthew 24:13).

Excerpt from The Rational Christian
Terrorism and the Potential for World Destruction (Revelation 11:18)
Copyright © 2006 Christopher Creek Publishing. All Rights Reserved.