LONDON, Dec. 20 (UPI) -- There isn't much standing in the way between nuclear material in Yemen and terrorist groups, leaked U.S. diplomatic cables from January reveal.
Stephen Seche, the U.S. ambassador to Yemen, wrote in a January cable from Yemen to U.S. intelligence agencies that security at Yemen's national atomic energy facility was lax.
"Very little now stands between the bad guys and Yemen's nuclear material," the secret cable obtained by WikiLeaks and published by London's Guardian newspaper reveals.
The only guard at the nuclear facility used to store research isotopes was removed from his post and a closed-circuit security camera wasn't working at the site, the Guardian adds.
Washington, the diplomat warned, should urge the Yemeni government to "remove all materials from the country until they can be better secured, or immediately improve security measures at the (nuclear) facility."
The memo was sent shortly after a failed attempt to detonate an explosive device on a passenger plane bound for Detroit on Christmas Day 2009. The suspect in the case allegedly received instruction for the plot from al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, the Yemeni branch of the terrorist group.
Matthew Bunn, a former nuclear threat specialist for the White House, told the Guardian that Yemen had "a big source" of material in its stockpile.
