WHERE THE WAR ENDS:

Pakistan's forgotten al-Qaeda nuclear link (Kaushik Kapisthalam, 6/05/04, Asia Times)

Despite all the ominous-sounding facts mentioned above, some readers might wonder whether the Pakistan nuclear-terrorism threat is a credible one. Indeed, some analysts do feel that the idea of Pakistan's nuclear warheads falling into the hands of terrorist groups such as LeT is an exaggeration. After all, it is widely believed that Pakistan's nuclear weapons are under the secure safekeeping of the nation's army, the only institution in Pakistan that is supposedly free of al-Qaeda influence. But is that really so?

Just recently, Musharraf revealed that some "junior" Pakistani army and air force officers had colluded with al-Qaeda terrorists in the two attempts on his life last December. The Pakistani newspaper the Daily Times revealed that the "junior officers" referred to by Musharraf may include an army captain, three majors, a lieutenant-colonel and a colonel. This is extremely significant. While many retired Pakistani generals and intelligence chiefs have openly associated with groups such as al-Qaeda, their actions have been glossed over because they weren't in active service. But when we know that serving Pakistani military officers have been conducting joint operations with al-Qaeda, the possibility of a Pakistani nuclear device falling into the hands of al-Qaeda appears more credible.

Even if al-Qaeda never gets hold of a Pakistani nuclear warhead, thanks to US technical safeguards, the possibility of it building a Pakistani-designed radiation dispersal device or a "dirty bomb" looks plausible. A recent analysis by US nuclear experts David Albright and Holly Higgins found strong evidence that Pakistani nuclear scientists Sultan Mahmood and Abdul Majid "provided significant assistance to al-Qaeda's efforts to make radiation dispersal devices". Therein lies the most overlooked Pakistani threat - the knowledge in the heads of nuclear experts sympathetic to the jihad movement, and jihadi groups with weapons-of-mass-destruction ambitions such as LeT operating secure facilities and training camps in Pakistan with only the most minimal of restraints.

Assuming that the US might be secretly monitoring Pakistani nuclear fuel and weapons sites, such actions would not be enough to prevent, for instance, radioactive materials stolen from the former Soviet Union by Chechen LeT members and delivered to Pakistan, packaged into a dirty bomb designed by a Pakistani nuclear scientist (or an improvised nuclear device based on a Pakistani warhead design) in an LeT compound and delivered by a Pakistani-trained Western citizen taking orders from a handler in Karachi or Lahore.

For those who are skeptical of such a scenario it is worthwhile to recall that there have been reports of every one of its individual elements over the past three years, including the smuggling of radioactive and fissile material in to the region. This March, Tajik authorities arrested a man with a small quantity of plutonium that he allegedly planned to sell in Afghanistan or Pakistan. Indeed, Pakistan remains the single most important country of focus in preventing an attack using a dirty bomb or even an improvised nuclear device.

Cleaning out Pakistan actually will be quagmirish and difficult, which is why it has to wait until we've taken care of the easier targets--Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria.

Posted by Orrin Judd at June 6, 2004 11:29 AM