DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Some 2.5 tonnes of natural uranium that was stored at a facility in Libya has gone missing, the United Nations nuclear watchdog warned on Thursday. The news raised concerns about nuclear security and proliferation.
Natural uranium cannot be immediately used for power or bomb-making, as the enrichment process often requires turning the metal into gas and spinning it in centrifuges to the necessary concentration levels.
However, if done by a group with the resources and technological means to do so, each ton of natural uranium can be refined into 5.6 kilograms (12 pounds) of weapons material. This makes locating the missing metal important for experts fighting against nuclear proliferation.
International Atomic Energy Agency Director Rafael Mariano Grossi briefed member states on the event on Wednesday, according to a statement from the agency.
The IAEA statement avoided revealing many details.
On Tuesday, “the agency’s safeguards inspectors discovered that 10 barrels containing approximately 2.5 tons of natural uranium in the form of uranium ore concentrate were not present as previously reported at a state site. of Libya,” the IAEA said.
Reuters first reported on the IAEA’s view of the missing uranium in Libya, noting that the agency had told its members that access to the site, which was not under government control , required “complex logistics”.
The IAEA declined to provide further details on the missing uranium. However, his admission that the uranium had disappeared at a “previously stated location” reduced the odds.
One such place is Sabha, located about 660 kilometers (410 miles) southeast of the Libyan capital Tripoli, in Libya’s lawless region in the southern Sahara Desert. During the reign of dictator Muammar Gaddafi, Libya stored thousands of barrels of unrefined uranium there, known as yellow cake, for a planned and never built uranium conversion plant, as part of a secret weapons program that lasted decades.
Estimates were around 1,000 tons of uranium stored during the Gaddafi regime, which declared its fledgling nuclear weapons program to the world in 2003 after the United States invaded Iraq.
Although inspectors removed the last stocks of enriched uranium from Libya in 2009, yellowcake uranium was left behind. The United Nations estimated in 2013 that there were around 6,400 barrels of material at Sabha. US officials feared that Iran was trying to buy Libya’s uranium. According to a diplomatic report published by WikiLeaks, the main person in charge of the civil nuclear program of the Gaddafi government tried in 2009 to reassure the United States on this eventuality.
“Underlining that Libya viewed the matter as a commercial matter, (the official) noted that prices of yellowcake uranium on the world market had risen, and that Libya wanted to maximize its profit by timing the sale of its reserves. .,” said then-Ambassador Gene A. Cretz.
But in the 2011 Arab Spring, rebels overthrew Gaddafi and eventually killed him. Sabha became increasingly lawless as the transit of African migrants through Libya increased, some of whom were sold into slavery in the city, according to the United Nations.
In recent years, Sabha has been largely under the control of the so-called Libyan National Army, led by Khalifa Hifter. The general, widely seen as a former CIA aide while in exile under Gaddafi’s regime, fought to gain control of Libya from a Tripoli-based government.
A spokesperson for Hifter declined to answer questions from The Associated Press. Chadian rebel forces have also had a presence in the southern city in recent years.
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Associated Press writers Samy Magdy and Jack Jeffrey in Cairo contributed to this report.