Dozens of US nuclear bombs stored at Turkish air base ‘are at risk of being seized by terrorists’
Around 50 nuclear bombs are sitting barely 70 miles from the Syrian border
NUCLEAR weapons being stored at a Turkish airbase are at risk of being seized by radical terrorists, a US report has warned.
Around 50 nuclear weapons are being stored at the Incirlik Air Base, just 70 miles from Turkey's border with war-torn Syria, putting them at risk of being grabbed by terrorists.
In a report released by the Stimson Center, a nonpartisan think tank that works to promote peace, the recent attempted military coup was pointed to as having exposed threats to the airbase's security.
It said during the failed military coup in Turkey in July, power to the base was cut off with the Turkish government banning any US aircraft from flying in or out.
The report said: "Whether the US could have maintained control of the weapons in the even of a protracted civil conflict in Turkey is an unanswerable question".
Report co-author Laicie Heeley further argued the point, telling AFP: "From a security point of view, it's a roll of the dice to continue to have approximately 50 of America's nuclear weapons stationed at Incirlik Air Base in Turkey.
"There are significant safeguards in place... but safeguards are just that, they don't eliminate risk.
"In the event of a coup, we can't say for certain that we would have been able to maintain control."
The Washington think tank report recommended the immediate removal of all tactical nuclear weapons - namely the B61 gravity bomb - from Europe, particularly from the Turkish site.
The report said the Incirlik Air Base was the subject of "even greater concern" given its proximity to war-torn Syria.
"The base is less than 70 miles from Syria's border, which prompted the evacuation of the dependants of US service members; yet it is also the site of approximately 50 US tactical nuclear weapons."
It argued: "The continued presence of these weapons at five sites in Europe, particularly in Turkey, raises serious risks of their seizure by terrorists or other hostile forces."
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Incirlik is a vital base for the US-led coalition fighting the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria with the strategically located facility allowing drones and warplanes to have fast access to IS targets.
About 180 of the nuclear weapons are kept in bases across Belgium, Italy, Germany, the Netherlands and Turkey.
The report warned that it would be costly for the Turkey airbase, described in the report as a "nuclear storage depot", to be completely secure.
"It is costly to ensure the security of the bombs stored at the European bases, and their presence overseas raises the risk that they could falls into hostile hands or become targets for terrorist attacks."
The job of securing the facilities is upwards of hundreds of millions of dollars a year.
The concerns were highlighted as part of a broader paper over the Pentagon's nuclear modernisation program.
The Pentagon declined to comment on the Stimson report.
In a statement, it said: "We do not discuss the location of strategic assets. The (Department of Defense) has taken appropriate steps to maintain the safety and security of our personnel, their families, and our facilities, and we will continue to do so."
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