15^th May 2008

LONDON -- Britain's intelligence service MI5 has launched a high priority search for more than 1,000 pieces of missing radioactive medical equipment used in the treatment of cancers and other illnesses in British hospitals.

The loss was discovered after Britain's understaffed National Health Service hospitals made their quarterly inventory returns to the government Environmental Agency -- responsible for the safety of all medical radioactive materials.

In all, some 10,000 items -- mostly used in nuclear medicine -- were accounted for. Those passed their use-by date were destroyed at one of Britain's nuclear reactors.

But the missing 1,000, all of which the last inventory check show contained radioactive material, remain unaccounted for.

"So far nine items are definitely believed to have been stolen or lost. But theft is the most likely reason. While each item contains relatively small amounts of radioactive material, those nine items alone could create a dirty bomb," said an MI5 source.

Osama bin Laden has repeatedly said his prime ambition is to launch any form of nuclear attack against the West.

The loss of the items has been reinforced by a U.S. State Department intelligence report about fears that terror suspects could be working in the NHS.

A State Department counter-espionage officer in London, who works closely with MI5, confirmed there is "concern about the large numbers of foreign born workers in British and European hospitals with access to materials which could be made into a dirty bomb."

At least one of Europe's criminal families, the Rising Sun, based in Minsk in the Ukraine, has made it clear it will pay "market value" for radioactive material.

The organization which runs prostitution and drug-running operations across Europe has, according to an MI5 report, had exploratory talks with British based criminals.

And the MI5 report says that recently the Rising Sun members have developed a "working relationship with al-Qaeda."

An expert at Britain's Atomic Energy Center at Harwell confirmed: "A dirty bomb is a highly lethal weapon. While not having the same impact as a full kiloton explosion, it is relatively easy to construct and would cause, as well as damage, great panic on impact."

MI5 computer experts continue to wipe out radical websites that offer instructions on how to make a bomb. In the past six months, 50 sites have been eliminated.

Scientists at the Swedish Nuclear Power Inspectorate (SKI) confirmed: "An effective weapon can be produced from those hospital rods."

Other scientists at the European Transuranium Institute at Karsruhr, Germany, who are responsible for tracking the loss of radioactive material anywhere within the European Union, believe "there has been a significant increase in the disappearance of materials in the past year."