WI: Terrorist Groups Acquire "Nuke"; First City To Go Is...?

[Armored Diplomacy]

The terrorists will most likely try to smuggle into and detonate a bomb in either Tel Aviv or Haifa. Unlike Jerusalem, they don't have any Islamic holy sites. Tel Aviv is widely seen as the symbol of Israel in the Arab world. Haifa is often mentioned by Arabs as being rightfully Palestinian, and has a history of Jewish-Arab bloodshed during the pre-state Mandate era. However, the type of bomb used will definitely be a small, low-kiloton one; terrorists would struggle to build even that one, and there's no way they could build more. Even if they could build one, or if they managed to obtain a Soviet bomb, it would still have to be a small tactical one, because it would be virtually impossible to smuggle even a small one past Israeli security. So there would not be absolute death or destruction in whatever city is hit; maybe a few blocks if it is a few kilotons. At worst, it will be an Iranian-built tactical suitcase nuke - the kind of nukes Iran is suspected of building have the potential of destroying an entire district, and killing up to 30,000 people.

The fact that the bomb did not destroy the entire city may result in Israel only nuking a few Arab cities rather than laying waste to the entire region. If the bomb originated from Iran, Israel may just go after a few major Iranian cities.

On an interesting side note, there was a nuclear scare in the United States after 9/11. Pakistani intelligence reported that Al-Qaeda had gotten its hands on an old Soviet bomb, and even provided its serial number. There was an intense search, which was kept secret. A bunch of things could have happened - there may have been no bomb, it malfunctioned, it was found, defused and kept quiet, etc....