Nuclear proliferation by Pak still going on: Report

London, Sep 2: The proliferation of nuclear weapons carried out by Pakistan has not come to an end, according to new intelligence assessments.

In an article published in the Sunday Times, Adrian Levy and Catherine Scott-Clark have revealed the extent of danger that a nuclear weapon State like Pakistan possesses, after the instability hit the radicalised nation.

Terming Islamabad's nuclear programme as a 'threat' for the West, the report stated: "The nuclear programme and trading were - and are - completely under the Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf's military government's control, and proliferation did not stop (after nuclear scientist Dr. A Q Khan admitted to selling nuclear technology to 'rogue nations' like Libya and North Korea)."

"Four years on, Khan is still under house arrest, and Musharraf is still in power. In a further exercise in "real-politik", another political deal is being stitched together to keep him (Musharraf) in the presidency as America's best hope of maintaining stability in this geo-politically vital but desperately unstable country," the report added.

The report quoting a highly classified 55-page assessment carried out by Germany's Federal Intelligence Service, in association with British, French and Belgian spies, stated that a range of materials and components were still being procured by Pakistan that "clearly exceeds" what Islamabad needed for its domestic nuclear programme.

According to the report, KRL labs- A Q Khan's old facility- continued to coordinate the Pakistani sales programme, and now ran a network of front companies in Europe, the Gulf and Southeast Asia.

Most alarming was the finding that hundreds of thousands of components amassed by Khan had vanished since he had been put out of operation, indicating that Pakistan continues to sell nuclear weapons technology (to clients known and unknown) even as Musharraf denies it.

Musharraf's denial could possibly mean that either the sales of nuclear weapon technology are being carried out with his secret blessing or that he is no more in control of Pakistan's nuclear programme.

Some of Pakistan's Generals openly talk about nuclear trade.

General Khalid Mahmud Arif, formerly in charge of the nuclear programme said, "Now we have a new generation of men and the technology. We have labs and the industry to rival the West."

He said Pakistan was producing super-strength maraging (low carbon) steel, which is primarily used for making centrifuges with which Pakistan enriched uranium to weapons grade. It was also making high-frequency inverters, which regulate power to the centrifuges.

"They used to come from the UK and now we are selling them ourselves," he said.

Robert Gallucci, who as a young US diplomat tracked its nuclear programme from inception in 1972, and ended his career as US President Geroge Bush's adviser on WMD, describes Pakistan as "the number one threat to the world at this moment in time".

Galluci warns, "If it all goes off, a nuclear bomb in a US or European city, I'm sure we will find ourselves looking in Pakistan's direction."

Adding to this is the growing clout of Islamic radicals in Pakistan.

"Musharraf presides over a country that is not only still a nuclear proliferator, but also the real source of the Islamist terrorism menacing the West," the report stated, adding that Washington's greatest nightmare is a nuclear Pakistan controlled by fundamentalists.

Al-Qaeda, which has merged with Pakistan's homegrown terrorists, is building new camps, and at least 17 of the worst Sunni terror groups banned by the US and the UN have been allowed to operate openly and launch recruitment drives, using flimsy cover-names, most of them operating within sight of the Pakistan military.

US intelligence sources have accused elements of Pakistan's intelligence establishment and army - including General Mo-hammad Aziz Khan, who until October 2004 was Musharraf's chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff - of coaching and sheltering the neo-Taliban, the report added.

ANI

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