Washington: India and Pakistan are "very vulnerable" to the "dirty bomb" threat and any such attack has the danger of scuttling South Asian peace moves, a US Senate Committee has been told.

Terrorists could steal some of the vast stocks of unsecured radioactive material in India and Pakistan to launch a "dirty bomb" attack, which could scuttle South Asian peace moves, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee heard yesterday (Jan 28, 2004).

"The first act of nuclear terrorism will be a momentously bad event," political analyst Michael Krepon, told the committee.

"In tense regions like South Asia, the detonation of a 'dirty bomb' could scuttle a peace process and generate severe pressures for escalation," he said.

Krepon, founder of the Henry L Stimson Centre think tank, warned the committee in a hearing on India and Pakistan, that the two countries were "very vulnerable" to the dirty bomb threat, as was the US, and urged Washington policymakers to help both nations secure radioactive materials.

Senior US Senator Joseph Biden said he was also concerned about the impact of any "dirty bomb" attack in South Asia, and said Washington should be "extremely proactive" in offering help to New Delhi and Islamabad.

The stakes in South Asia, said Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman Richard Lugar, have become too high to risk a return to military confrontation or creation of new sources of Islamic terrorism.