The threat of a nuclear strike by terrorists on the United States is real and growing, South Florida police, fire and federal officials learned Monday, and the radioactive materials to create such terror lie all around them.

"There are many individuals who would not think twice about using such weapons," FBI Director Robert S. Mueller told hundreds of law enforcement officers gathered Monday in Miami for a conference on nuclear terrorism. "The economics of supply and demand dictate that someone, somewhere, will provide nuclear material to the highest bidder and that material will end up in the hands of terrorists." South Florida is no stranger to the threat of nuclear terrorism.

A former South Florida man, Jose Padilla, is on trial in Miami on terrorism conspiracy charges. He was initially detained for three years on allegations he tried to create a radioactive bomb. Another Islamist with local ties, former Broward Community College student Adnan Gulshair Muhammad el Shukrijumah, is wanted by federal authorities who say he is al-Qaida's point man on nuclear terror operations in the United States.

"I'd be the first to say that a nuclear threat is the most unlikely of all the terror threats we're looking at, after chemical and biological, but at the same time we know there's a lot of jihadists out there just dying to obtain fissionable material," said Maj. Dan McBride, a former federal agent and scholar of terrorism who heads the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Homeland Security Bureau.

"If you consider the importance of South Florida as a cruise port center, a major trading and metropolitan region, then we're certainly an attractive target for jihadists," McBride said.

McBride and other local officials were tight-lipped about the tactics and technology currently used to monitor radiological activity in South Florida. But they agreed that "first responders" -- police officers, firemen and emergency crews -- still need more training and education on what to look for at the scene of a possible terror attack.

"The fact is that we're dealing with global terror, and the more we know on the local level the better, because if it happens here, local officers will be on the scene first," said Maj. John Brooks, a Broward County Sheriff's official who is interim police chief of Sunrise. "Obviously there are high-value targets here, the malls, the BankAtlantic Center. But we want to be proactive, and that's where this training comes in."

While several scientists downplayed the threat of a high-tech nuclear bomb or missile being detonated in South Florida, other experts said they were surprised that terrorist cells in the United States had not yet tried to explode a "dirty bomb," utilizing explosives and easy-to-find radioactive materials.

A well-built nuclear bomb seems beyond the reach of al-Qaida at the moment, experts said. Procuring a government-manufactured nuclear warhead or highly enriched uranium would be extremely difficult. The expertise to hide, transport and detonate a warhead against an enemy is rare and extremely specialized.

But a dirty bomb, while nowhere near as deadly, would be easy to rig and highly effective in spreading terror and economic damage in a densely populated area such as South Florida. Of special concern are hospitals and universities, where huge irradiators used to sterilize blood, tissue and medical instruments often sit largely unsecured.

One of the experts, Dr. Leonard Connell, of Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, N.M., told the group the radioactive fallout from a dirty bomb would likely spread hundreds of meters, rather than miles, and be no more deadly than the blast itself. But the panic caused could bring demands to relocate the residents of entire towns and reimburse businesses for miles surrounding the blast site.

It would be an unprecedented economic disaster similar to Hurricane Katrina, several experts agreed.

"A university isn't exactly a place synonymous with high security. It's a place of academic freedom and exchange," Connell said. "It's the loose nuclear material that's not behind government fences that we have to worry about, that you have to be aware of in your region. We need to get it out behind the guns, the gates and the guards."

About 500 law enforcement officers, including U.S. Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, attended the first day of the Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism Law Enforcement Conference. The international program is the outgrowth of a pact signed last year between the United States and Russia, former Cold War powers that control most of the world's nuclear material. The conference, which ends Friday, draws together the latest intelligence and technology on nuclear terror threats.

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