Colombia Probes FARC Ties to Uranium Seized in Bogota (Update3)

By Joshua Goodman

March 27 (Bloomberg) -- Colombian authorities are investigating what the country's biggest guerrilla group planned to do with 30 kilograms (66 pounds) of depleted uranium seized in a raid on the outskirts of Bogota.

The depleted uranium, found yesterday in a rural area outside the city, poses no health risk and can't be used to build a dirty bomb, said Charles Ferguson, a nuclear affairs analyst at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington. A video released by the Colombian military showed the metal had a slow radiation rate of 1.5 Microsieversts per hour, he said.

``You could stand next to this material for days and nothing would happen to you, unless you dropped it on your foot,'' said Ferguson.

Possible uses for the FARC might include making armor- piercing conventional weapons or an ingestible poison, Ferguson said. Less likely, the metal could be used as a shield while handling more potent radioactive materials that would be used to make a dirty bomb.

Here is a partial list of what Colombian investigators found on the FARC terror leader's computer:

-- FARC connections with Ecuadorean president Rafael Correa
-- Records of $300 million offerings from Hugo Chavez
-- Thank you notes from Hugo Chavez dating back to 1992
-- Uranium purchasing records
-- Admit to killing the sister of former President Cesar Gaviria
-- Admit to planting a 2003 car bomb killing 36 at a Bogota upper crust club
-- Directions on how to make a Dirty Bomb
-- Information that led to the discovery of 60 pounds of uranium
-- Letter to Libya's Moammar Gadhafi asking for cash to buy surface-to-air missiles
-- Meetings with "gringos" about Barack Obama
-- Information on Russian illegal arms dealer Viktor Bout who was later captured
-- FARC funding Correa's campaign
-- Cuban links to FARC
-- Links to US Democrats
-- $480,000 of FARC cash in Costa Rican safe house
...And, more.

Originally posted by redmage
What Beautiful timing. I feel so much safer, with uranium floating around South America, knowing that our southern border will stay secure in the coming months...

Edit (instead of a double post):

I can almost see it now...

Leave a six onth gap, for plausible deniability, and smuggle it in on a C.I.A. cocaine charter so that warring government factions can stage a false flag operation in order to seize the election.

Where's Tom Clancy when ya need him!

[edit on 3/27/08 by redmage]