Hyping up the Fear: Mission to Stop Nuclear Terrorism

To the Warsaw motorists returning from their Saturday afternoon shopping trips, it looked like a nuclear emergency.

Frantic policemen, some wearing ski masks and all armed with submachineguns, flashed their headlights and leant out of their patrol car windows, shouting and waving to make the traffic pull over and stop at the side of the road as helicopters clattered overhead.

Then a convoy of seven lorries rumbled past, armed police in the cabs and radioactive warning signs stuck on the shipping containers they carried.

The frightened-looking motorists and their families didn't know it but this convoy two weeks ago wasn't an emergency; it was no exercise though, and the cargo being moved through the Warsaw suburbs in a top secret operation was the stuff of nightmares.'

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