United Nations: In an alarming development, high-precision equipment and materials, which could be used for making nuclear bombs have disappeared from some Iraqi facilities, the United Nations watchdog agency has said.

The equipment includes milling machines, turning machines and electron beam welders which, if in wrong hands, can be used for making deadly weapons for both military and civilian purposes.

"The disappearance of such equipment and material may be of proliferation significance, any State having information about the location of these items should inform the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)," IAEA said in a letter to the Security Council yesterday (Oct 11, 2004).

After Saddam Hussein was ousted, many Iraqi facilities were looted. Some materials, including missile engines, were found in junkyards of Iraq's neighbours. But IAEA said equipment and materials, which are considered potentially useful in making a nuclear bomb have not been located.

The Bush administration had come under criticisms for not quickly securing sensitive sites after victory.

IAEA has no inspectors on the ground and its assessment is apparently based on satellite imagery. The satellite imagery shows the entire buildings housing high precision equipment that could help a terror group in making nuclear bombs in a dismantled state.