Dirty Bomb Parts Found in Tbilisi

Monday, June 16, 2003
(1:45 PM ET) (17:45 GMT)
Reuters

A dirty bomb combines conventional explosives with radioactive material. It may not cause more casualties than a conventional blast, but the threat of radioactive contamination could create widespread panic.

TBILISI, Georgia -- Reuters
Georgian authorities have found highly radioactive material that could be used in a "dirty" bomb and a container of lethal Mustard Gas in a taxi in the capital Tbilisi, police said Monday.

Police searched the taxi on May 31 and found two metal boxes stuffed with radioactive by-products of nuclear fission, Cesium-137 and Strontium-90. One container, inscribed in Russian and English, weighed at least 170 lb.

A separate container had Mustard Gas, or Yperite, an odorless chemical used in World War I and which can be lethal in small quantities.

"The most likely version is that the containers were intended to be transported on to Turkey and to be resold," police spokesman Givi Mgebrishvili told a news conference.
(More: CNN.com)

2003 © Reuters, Ltd.

Dan