Terrorists or other hostile forces could possibly capture dozens of US nuclear weapons housed in a Turkish air base near the Syria border per a Washington-based think tank.
Turkey, which has NATO’s second-largest military, allows the United States to use the Incirlik Air Base in southern Turkey to launch attacks against Islamic State militants.
The claims, made in a new report issued by the non-partisan Stimson Center, raised the issue of the risk of a potential breach following Turkey’s recently failed coup. The air base’s commander was arrested on suspicion of complicity in the aftermath of the coup attempt.
“From a security point of view, it’s a roll of the dice to continue to have approximately 50 of America’s nuclear weapons stationed at Incirlik Air Base in Turkey,” per the report.
The security of the United States’ approximately 50 nuclear bombs stored at Incirlik has been increasingly scrutinized since the attempted coup.