Break in at nuclear site baffles South Africa

And get this. There were two attacks in one night

This much is known: Just after midnight on Nov. 8, Anton Gerber was sitting with his fiancée in the control room of South Africa’s most secretive nuclear facility, the site at which this nation’s apartheid government conceived and delivered six atomic bombs, when four gunmen burst into the room. Mr. Gerber pushed his fiancée under a desk. The attackers shot him in the chest, grabbed a computer and fled, but abandoned their booty as they came under assault by guards.

Now, one week after the assault, the most serious on a nuclear installation in recent memory, the government is largely mum about who was behind it, how they broke in or why.

Already, the attack is raising questions among advocates and analysts about the wisdom of plans by South Africa and other African states to embrace nuclear energy as a solution to chronic power shortages and the looming problems of climate change.

The assault on the Pelindaba nuclear reactor and research center, one of South Africa’s most zealously guarded properties, is a severe embarrassment to the government. The four gunmen escaped cleanly, neither caught by guards nor identified on surveillance cameras. Mr. Gerber is still recovering.

On Tuesday, officials belatedly acknowledged that the Pelindaba reactor had come under attack that same night by a second team of gunmen who were also repelled — and also escaped — after guards sounded an alarm.

It was evidently quite a busy week for nuclear activity in South Africa

A woman has appeared in Cape Town Magistrate's Court Nov 8th on charges of helping to smuggle parts used in manufacturing nuclear weapons from the United States to South Africa. Marisa Sketo, 46, allegedly also helped to export the nuclear weapon parts illegally from South Africa to Pakistan. She is facing charges under the Weapons of Mass Destruction Act. The trial has been rescheduled for January 23, according to a court official.

An unnamed US source reportedly told the TV station the parts she allegedly helped to smuggle to Pakistan were "rapid high-voltage electric switches". A nuclear weapons expert, who did not want to be named, said these switches "were used in nuclear weapons." Most likely he is referring to Krytron detonation switches or similar switches.

More details here:

Raid on site planned, co-ordinated. Armed men clearly had prior knowledge of the security system.

Computer taken, internal security personnel suspended pending the outcome of an internal investigation.