SAN FRANCISCO - International researchers have compiled what they say is the world's most complete database of lost, stolen and misplaced nuclear material - depicting a world awash in weapons-grade uranium and plutonium that no one can account for.
"It truly is frightening," said Lyudmila Zaitseva, a visiting fellow at Stanford University's Institute for International Studies. "I think this is the tip of the iceberg."
Stanford announced its database as United States senators held a hearing in Washington to assess the threat of "dirty bombs", or radioactive material dispersed by conventional explosives.
The Stanford programme is intended to help Governments and international agencies track wayward nuclear material.
The project took on urgency following the September 11 attacks, which spurred fears that extremists might turn to nuclear weapons.
Zaitseva said that, over the past 10 years, at least 40kg of weapons-usable uranium and plutonium had been stolen from poorly protected nuclear facilities in the former Soviet Union. Though most was retrieved, at least 2kg of highly enriched uranium stolen from a reactor in Georgia remains missing.
Other thefts have included several fuel rods that disappeared from a research reactor in the Congo in the mid-1990s. One later resurfaced in Italy - reportedly in the hands of the Mafia - but the other has not been found.
The Stanford group, led by nuclear physicist and arms control researcher Friedrich Steinhausler, decided to form the database after becoming alarmed over the lack of information available.
Combining data from two existing unclassified databases and adding information from sources ranging from Government agencies to local media reports, the team has evaluated each entry.
Steinhausler said the database would be open only to approved researchers. The Stanford group was beginning to contact Government agencies in the US and Europe about sharing information.
In other developments yesterday:
* US intelligence has detected al Qaeda operatives communicating with one another in Pakistan with an eye towards regrouping for terrorist attacks against Western interests in Afghanistan and elsewhere.
* A third Australian, a 28 year-old man from Melbourne, is reported to have trained with al Qaeda.
The Herald Sun said he converted to Islam in a Melbourne mosque, and changed his name to Jihad, before leaving Australia last March.
- AGENCIES
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Timeline: Major events since the Sept 11 attacks
Database to track nuclear material
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