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Credible or confirmed terrorist threats
Description
A credible threat (see Appendix 17) of committing a terrorist act perceived by the public or officials as a nuclear or
radiological emergency. This could involve an RDD, contamination of places, food, water or products, exposure of
people, sabotage, or attacks on facilities.
Potential hazards
For a description of the radiological hazards, see the potential hazards sections of the action guides for RDD,
intentional contamination of water supplies, intentional contamination of food/products, theft of a dangerous source or
public contamination / exposure. The objective of the perpetrators may be to create “terror” among the public with the
resulting psychological and economic impact. Experience shows that the public’s perception of the risk posed by the
threat may be more important than the actual risk. Consequently, an important part of the response will be providing
the public with timely, informative (understandable) and consistent information on the true risk.
Emergency response
Incident commander (lead first responder local officialnational official):
— Activate an integrated response (including law enforcement, investigative and public
safety/radiation components) using the ICS (see Appendix 13) under an incident commander
operating from an incident command post.
— Take actions to neutralize the threat such as:
• apprehending suspects;
• eliminating the opportunity to carry out the threat (e.g. improved security, establish means for early detection); or
• removing the motive for the threat.
— Take action to mitigate the economic and psychological consequences of the threat, including
provisions to promptly make a public announcement describing the hazard realistically and to limit
the spread of contamination and contaminated products.
— Implement action consistent with international standards (see. Ref. [11]) to protect the public,
workers, responders, and the economy from the actual or perceived radiological risk.
— Prepare secondary/simultaneous threats
— Prepare for bobby traps, a second devise intended to injure responders, a second devise intended to
injure evacuees.
— Prepare for hoaxes once the threat is publicly known.
— Prepare to implement additional response actions using one of the following guides as appropriate:
• RDD
• Intentional contamination of water
• Intentional contamination of food/products
• Theft of a dangerous source
• Public contamination/exposure
• Serious overexposure
— Have the national competent authority notify potentially affected States and the IAEA if there are
indications that other States or their citizens may be affected (Transnational emergency - see
Element A2.15).
— Monitor public response and deal with inappropriate behaviour (see Element A11.2).
Radiological assessment (radiological assessornational team):
— Operate under the ICS incident commander.
— Prepare a radiation assistance team (radiological assessor) (see Element A3.1) to perform
monitoring consistent with Ref. [11].
— If there are indications that a dangerous neutron source (e.g. Cf-252, Be/Am well
logging) may be involved obtain experts to conduct neutron monitoring (possibly with
IAEA assistance if not available within the State).
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