National ABC deployment concept - 3. -

3. Central Federal Support Group (Meckenheim)

The Federal Ministry of the Interior declared in November 2006:

"To cope with serious threats arising from criminal offenses with radioactive substances, the" Central Federal Support Group for Serious Cases of Nuclear Hazard Defense "(ZUB) has been set up at the federal level. The ZUB, in which special forces from the Federal Criminal Police Office, the Federal Police and the Federal Office for Radiation Protection are involved, supports the states originally responsible for hazard prevention at their request. The aim of the ZUB is to summarize all multidisciplinary specialist knowledge and experience as well as personnel and material logistics. As a result, police security measures are linked with expertise from the radiation protection sector. "(18)

If their own NBC defense options are not sufficient, a state government turns to the federal government with a request for support. Then the "Joint Crisis Team" of the Federal Ministry of the Interior (BIM) and the Federal Environment Ministry (BMU) meet and their head orders the deployment of the ZUB His news collection and information center (NASISTE) is located on the tenth floor of the ministerial building on Berlin's Spreebogen.19)

As a special unit to combat nuclear smuggling and nuclear terrorism, the ZUB has been composed of elements from the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA), the Federal Police (BPOL) and the Federal Office for Radiation Protection (BfS) since August 1, 2003. The BKA assumes the leading role within the ZUB. The head of the ZUB is BKA criminal director Elmar Lillpop, the office is headed by Kriminaloberkommissar Morsch. At the BKA, the ZUB is part of the Central Criminal Police Service ZD 37 (ABC network and operational support for serious crimes involving ABC substances). In addition, various BKA offices are involved in the ZUB. In an official account it says:

“Within the BKA, various organizational units (departments, departments) deal with the task of fighting ABC crime. Investigations and analysis of ABC offenses are provided by the State Security Department (ST), investigation of evidence (forensics) and scientific support by the Forensic Science Department (KT) and ABC support and advice by the Central Services Department (ZD). Requests for support are accepted by the permanent detective service (24/7) and forwarded by them to the on-call officer in the ZD department. "(20)

On the part of the Federal Office for Radiation Protection (BfS), the working group for nuclear hazard prevention and aerogram measurements (AG-SW) in Berlin-Karlshorst is involved in the ZUB. The Federal Police is involved with various units: The Federal Police Department in Sankt Augustin (BPOLABT SA) (President: Jürgen Bischoff) participates with the NBC forces of its Technical Operation Hundreds (TeHu) and the defusing group of its Mobile Control and Monitoring Unit (MKÜ) at the airport Cologne / Bonn. In addition, there is the Federal Police Fliegerstaffel West (Head: Chief Police Director Gunter Carloff) with its 117 employees in Sankt Augustin and - if necessary - Border Guard Group 9 (Head: Chief Police Director Olaf Lindner), which is also stationed in Sankt Augustin. The various organizational parts of the ZUB are spread over six locations in Germany, including Berlin, Meckenheim, Wiesbaden, Salzgitter and Sankt Augustin.

An extensive fleet of vehicles and equipment is available to equip the ZUB. This includes six measuring vehicles (VW T 4) of the BfS with the appropriate technical equipment: scintillation, dose rate and neutron measuring devices. The equipment includes the Thermo Contamat FHT 111 M contamination monitor and the Automess 6150 AD6 dose rate meter. The ZUB has remote-controlled robots for particularly dangerous operations.

The most important areas of activity of the ZUB are the fight against nuclear smuggling and nuclear terrorism. Nuclear terrorism is primarily understood to mean the possibility of attacks on NBC systems or the threat of a radiological bomb. The latter are officially referred to as the "Unconventional Atomic Explosive and Incendiary Device" (USBV-A) or: "USBV with radioactive charge"; internationally one speaks of a "Radiological Dispersion Device" (RDD) or - more simply - of a "dirty bomb". Here it is necessary to make a clear distinction. Atomic bombs are radioactive nuclear fission weapons made from highly enriched uranium or plutonium. B. the atomic bomb of Hiroshima. In contrast, a radioactive USBV-A is "just" a bomb in which radioactive material (e.g. nuclear waste) is dispersed into the air by a small charge of conventional explosives. In such a case, the death toll is rather low , but nevertheless a larger area can be irradiated for a long time, so that the economic damage is correspondingly great.

The operational structure of the ZUB in the event of an incident is as follows: The operational management lies with the command staff (FüSt) at the BKA in Bonn-Meckenheim. This consists of a head, his deputy, numerous liaison officers and the Situation Center (SB LZ), which is staffed equally by officers from the BKA and the Federal Police. The alerted forces on site are divided into several deployment sections (EA) and sub-sections (UA), e.g. B. UA 3 (access), UA 4 (open search / barrier), UA 7 (air) and UA 8 (technology / logistics).

In the event of a radiological bomb threat, the crime scene must first be secured by one or two fireworks from the EOD squad of the Federal Police without the trace image being destroyed too much. The fireworkers are equipped with protective suits from the Canadian manufacturer Med-Eng Systems (presumably EOD-8 or SRS-5), an X-ray machine and probes. You have to defuse any booby traps that may be present and carry out initial radiological measurements. If necessary, a "dirty bomb" still has to be defused. Once the crime scene has been secured, the EOD staff withdraw. Two BfS employees then enter the restricted area to locate and identify any emitters found on site Forensics team of two employees. They support each other in order to secure as many traces as possible through the crime scene work so that the perpetrators can later be identified. All investigation and measurement results of this nuclear forensics must be minutely documented. Particularly dangerous radiation sources must be tracked down Their identification and measurement are removed in order not to expose the four people on site to excessive radiation doses. This is monitored radiologically by the two BfS employees. The emitters are received by a second BfS team, sealed in plastic bags and safely transported away. PossibleAnother BfS team carries out the first forensic examinations on site but outside the danger area. The radiation sources will later be examined more closely by the BfS or the Institute for Transuranium Elements (ITU). The BfS tries to determine where the radioactive bomb material comes from. To this end, it maintains the HRQ register, in which all highly radioactive radiation sources in the FRG are recorded. Since the crime scene work can drag on for several hours, several reserve teams are available for replacement. If the worst comes to the worst, the ZUB's decontamination and medical staff are on standby. Should a detonation actually occur or have already occurred, it would be the task of the BfS to use its special computer program LASAIR to calculate the probable spread of the radioactive dust cloud. Various parameters are evaluated for this purpose: type and mass of the nucleide, wind direction and speed, general weather conditions, topography and development of the site, etc .. (21)

Since around 2001 the ZUB has been carrying out an annual large-scale exercise to combat nuclear terrorists at the Bundeswehr training area in Munster. In addition, ZUB forces took part in country exercises that simulated an attack with a radiological USBV bomb in the run-up to the soccer World Cup. On June 2 and 3, 2008, the ZUB practiced an operation after a terrorist attack with a radiological bomb on the site of the former railway repair shop in Leverkusen-Opladen. 300 members of the ZUB and 200 police officers from NRW took part in the exercise, at which the press was allowed to be present for the first time.

In order to be able to practice defusing a radiological bomb under realistic conditions, the ZUB has to reach certain limits. After all, you can only practice locating and disarming a radiological USBV-A on a corresponding exercise object: the cuboid steel container has a size of around 50 x 20 x 20 cm. It can be opened at the front. The container is painted gray with an orange handle in the lid. Inside there is an energy source (read battery), an explosive device and radioactive material. It was specially manufactured and stored by the Defense Science Institute for Protective Technologies - NBC Protection (WIS) of the German Armed Forces in Munster in the Lüneburg Heath for the exercises of the ZUB. It can be assumed that this Federal Republican "dirty bomb" state property was not really operational. It was only known that the WIS work area "A-Detection" carried out tunnel experiments on radioactive propagation with the isotope europium-152 as part of its research on RDDs Has. In addition, the KT 2.4 Securing of Nuclear Equipment and Transports department for the Federal Office for Radiation Protection (BfS) in Salzgitter produced denuclearized USBV-A exercise bombs. These had an explosive charge of different sizes (including 60 g, 10 kg, 200 kg), but the nuclear charge had been replaced by a harmless, red test powder. Between 1998 and 2001 the BfS carried out around two dozen USBV-A explosive tests. A limestone quarry in Salzgitter-Salder served as an "atomic test site". The aim of the blast tests was to simulate the spread of the potential nuclear cloud. In addition, a so-called "enclosure" was developed: when a real USBV-A is defused in an emergency, this collection facility is wanted Fill with a special foam in order to "capture" part of the radioactive particles in the event of an explosion. At least two of these enclosures were produced. One is stored at the BfS in Salzgitter, the other at Department 65 of the State Criminal Police Office in Mainz the unsuspecting members of the Federation for the Environment and Nature Conservation (BUND) acquired as a nature reserve.

Since it was ready for action, the ZUB had to do standby duty four times. She performed her first service during the Soccer Confederations Cup in June 2005 in Germany. This was followed by the visit of Pope Benedict XVI, alias Joseph Ratzinger, to the World Youth Day in Cologne in August 2005. During the soccer World Cup in June / July 2006, the entire special unit was on call 24 hours a day. Your device was partially loaded on helicopters, which were ready for take-off for weeks at the air bases of the federal police. When the Pope visited Bavaria in September 2006, the ZUB was again on the alert. The ZUB performed its first real mission on December 8, 2006 in connection with the radiological murder of the former secret agent Alexander Litvinenko by Polonium-210. (22) In Berlin, Hamburg and Haselau the radiation protection experts searched for traces of the radioactive isotope in order to support the emergency services of the Hamburg Analytical Task Force. However, the supporters from Meckenheim needed help themselves. The Institute for Hygiene and Environment (HU) had to help out with the measurement technology.

Address:

Federal Criminal Police Office - ZD 37

53338 Meckenheim

Tel: 02225 / 89-23209

Fax: 02225 / 89-45497

Email: ZUB@bka.bund.de

*

Sources:

(18) Piper, Gerhard: The Federal Central Support Group, Telepolis, Munich, February 5, 2007,
Online: http://www.heise.de/tp/r4/artikel/24/24574/1.html

(19) Piper, Gerhard: Security and crime in the Spreebogen, Telepolis, Munich, June 18, 2007,
Online: http://www.heise.de/tp/r4/artikel/25/25502/5.html

(20) Federal Bureau of Investigations: Criminal Police and Epidemiological Investigations, Handbook, German translation, Hamburg / Meckenheim, undated

(21) Hoffmann, Michael / Kesten, Jürgen / Maier, Ralph: From the crime scene to the laboratory, in: Strahlenschutzpraxis - Organ of the Association for Radiation Protection, No. 1/2009, pp. 12-15

(22) Piper, Gerhard: Operation Litwinenko, Telepolis, Munich, December 10, 2006

Donation appeal

- The THTR circular is published by the 'BI Environmental Protection Hamm' and is financed by donations.

- The THTR circular has meanwhile become a much-noticed information medium. However, there are ongoing costs due to the expansion of the website and the printing of additional information sheets.

- The THTR circular researches and reports in detail. In order for us to be able to do that, we depend on donations. We are happy about every donation!

Donations account:

BI Umweltschutz Hamm
Purpose: THTR circular
IBAN: DE31 4105 0095 0000 0394 79
BIC: WELADED1HAM

***