Security at Yemen’s main radioactive material storage facility was so lax, that the one guard on duty had been removed, while its only security camera had been broken for six months, according a leaked US embassy cable.
A senior Yemeni government official warned US diplomats that the security at the facility, which held radioactive material used by hospitals and universities for research, was so poor that it could fall into the wrong hands and potentially be used to make a “dirty” bomb.
The cable, released by WikiLeaks, dated January 9 this year and classified as secret, was sent around two weeks after the failed Christmas Day bomb plot when Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a Nigerian radicalised in Yemen, tried to bring down a plane over Detroit. In the days following the warning, the material was moved to a more secure facility.
Full story: WikiLeaks: Yemen radioactive security so poor, material could fall into wrong hands – Telegraph