Iran's smuggling of uranium

from African mine uncovered

Tanzanian customs officials have uncovered an Iranian smuggling operation transporting large quantities of bomb-making uranium from the same mines in the Congo that provided the nuclear material for the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima sixty-one years ago today, reports the London Sunday Times.

A United Nations report, outlining the interception last October, said there is "no doubt" the smuggled uranium-238 came from mines in the Democratic Republic of the Congo's mineral-rich Katanga province.

The Shinkolobwe uranium mine was officially closed and its main shafts covered with concrete in 1961, before the country became independent from Belgium, but U.N. investigators have reported evidence of ongoing mining operations.

In the late 1990s, the government allowed small-scale mining for cobalt, leading to uncontrolled and dangerous mining activities that grew to 6,000 miners a day entering the former Shinkolobwe mine site. The U.S. demanded that the Congalese government regain control over the site because of fears that uranium could be bought and sold on the black market. Despite a ban on access to Shinkolobwe issued by President Joseph Kabila in January 2004, nine people were killed in a collapse at the site in July of that year.

"The situation in Shinkolobwe could be described as anarchistic - there is no respect for mining safety regulations," Bernard Lamouille, an expert in small-scale mining who participated in the U.N. assessment, told the Environment News Service.

According to reports in 1999, Congolese authorities sought assistance from North Korea to re-open the mine.

The smuggled uranium discovered by Tanzanian customs agents was hidden in shipment of coltan, a rare mineral used to make chips in mobile telephones. According to the manifest, the coltan was to be smelted in the former Soviet republic of Kazakhstan after being shipped to Bandar Abbas, Iran's largest port.

"There were several containers due to be shipped and they were all routinely scanned with a Geiger counter," one customs official said.

"This one was very radioactive. When we opened the container it was full of drums of coltan. Each drum contains about 50 kilograms of ore. When the first and second rows were removed, the ones after that were found to be drums of uranium."

Uranium-238, when used in a nuclear reactor, can be used to create plutonium for nuclear weapons.

"The container was put in a secure part of the port and it was later taken away, by the Americans, I think, or at least with their help," he said. "We have all been told not to talk to anyone about this."

According to the U.N. report, which has been submitted to the sanctions committee, Tanzania provided "limited data" on three other shipments of radioactive materials seized over the past ten years.

"In reference to the last shipment from October 2005," the report reads, "the Tanzanian government left no doubt that the uranium was transported from [Katanga province] by road through Zambia to the United Republic of Tanzania."

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