We live in uncertain and troubling times. We are rightly on red alert against the threat of what has now become conventional terrorist acts of indiscriminate suicide bombings, gun and knife attacks. But we are seemingly blind to the much more catastrophic and all too real threat of nuclear weapons falling into the hands of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil) and other terrorist groups. It is hard for us to imagine, but terror groups are alarmingly close to acquiring nuclear weapons. Security experts believe the Jihadi brothers Khalid and Ibrahim el-Bakraoui were plotting to make a radioactive bomb by kidnapping Belgium’s nuclear programme chief in order to force him to let them into one of Belgium’s two atomic facilities to steal nuclear material. Nuclear proliferation, either by terrorist groups such as Isil or state actors like North Korea, mean we are living in a world confronted with a threat level the likes of which we have not seen since the Cold War.
Telegraph 8th June 2016 read more »