Free Republic

AQ Khan-esque N-trafficking continues: Jane’s WASHINGTON: Despite the break-up of Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan’s nuclear smuggling operation, there have been several indications in the past two years that trafficking activities along similar lines continue, according to Jane’s. In a news report circulated on June 16, the generally authoritative British publication said that portions of the AQ Khan network appear to be intact. Several officials involved in investigating the network’s activities said it now appears that parts of the organisation are yet to be uncovered and includes individuals who are more senior in the Khan network than previously believed. The...

The American spy who persuaded Libya to renounce its weapons of mass destruction is to return to the Central Intelligence Agency, where he will direct an aggressive drive to recruit informants inside Iran to aid possible negotiations over Teheran's nuclear capability. Stephen Kappes, a former United States Marines officer who resigned from the CIA after a clash with its then director, Porter Goss, has been brought back from self-imposed exile in London by George W Bush. Iran will be top of his agenda. "He's a remarkable guy, a talented leader and among the finest officers of his generation," said Gary...

I suspected Khan for three years: Musharraf PTI | February 10, 2004 | 10:43 IST Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf has acknowledged for the first time that he had suspected for at least three years that his country's top scientist was sharing nuclear technology with other countries, but argued the US had not given him convincing proof. In an hour-long interview with the New York Times on Monday Musharraf shared blame for the delay with Washington saying it was not until October that American officials provided him with evidence of the activities of the scientist, Abdul Qadeer Khan. "If they knew...

US-PAKISTANI RELATIONS IN DOWNWARD SPIRAL Ahmed Rashid 5/17/06 A EurasiaNet Commentary President Pervez Musharraf and other top Pakistani military leaders are defying the United States on key policy issues, including nuclear proliferation and pipeline construction, as relations between the two countries plummet. The downward spiral in US-Pakistani relations began following President George W. Bush’s brief visit to Pakistan in early March. Bush ruffled Pakistani sensitivities by spending a relatively short time in Islamabad after spending several days in India, Pakistan’s chief rival. Military leaders were furious that Bush would finalize a nuclear cooperation pact with the Indian government during his...

The fact that the United States continues to be soft on Pakistan even though its leaders are aware that Pakistan is the epicentre of Jehadi terrorism, is a great puzzle for the Indian government and strategic analysts in India. The mastermind of the 9/11 attack is a Kuwait born Pakistani. The ISI and Omar Sheikh sent $ 100,000 to Mohammed Atta, the leader of the 9/11 attack. The shoe bomber Richard Reeves and the London train bombers had a Pakistani connection. Osama Bin Laden and Ayman Al Zawahiri were permitted to have safe havens in Pakistan and continue to be...

In the first such revelation of its kind, US intelligence has said that the network headed by Pakistani scientist AQ Khan had offered and supplied nuclear weapons technology to Syria. The startling disclosure was made in the 'Intelligence Report to Congress,' which said that Pakistani investigators had confirmed reports from International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that Khan's network 'offered nuclear technology and hardware' to Syria. This is for the first time that Bush administration publicly linked Syria to Pakistan via Khan network. So far, it has been saying that the network supplied nuclear materials and goods to only Libya, Iran...

U.S. intelligence agencies suspect Syria was offered and received nuclear weapons technology from the covert Pakistani supplier group headed by A.Q. Khan, according to an intelligence report. An annual report to Congress on arms proliferation states that Pakistani investigators have confirmed reports from the International Atomic Energy Agency that the Khan network "offered nuclear technology and hardware to Syria." "We are concerned that expertise or technology could have been transferred," said the intelligence report, which is the first time the Bush administration has publicly linked Syria to Khan.

LONDON, April 21 (IranMania) - According to an AFP report, a senior UN nuclear inspector put off a trip to Iran late Thursday in what diplomats said was a clear sign that Tehran is failing to give the UN atomic agency key concessions it demands. The development comes with the UN Security Council waiting to see if Iran honors an April 28 deadline for it to halt uranium enrichment and cooperate fully with inspectors from the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency. The IAEA's director of safeguards Ollie Heinonen has decided not to travel to Iran after being on standby...

Of all the claims that Iran made last week about its nuclear program, a one-sentence assertion by its president has provoked such surprise and concern among international nuclear inspectors they are planning to confront Tehran about it this week. The assertion involves Iran's claim that even while it begins to enrich small amounts of uranium, it is pursuing a far more sophisticated way of making atomic fuel that American officials and inspectors say could speed Iran's path to developing a nuclear weapon. Iran has consistently maintained that it abandoned work on this advanced technology, called the P-2 centrifuge, three years...

Regard this as a supplement to War Warning, part 4. [This is a document under construction in at least twenty-five parts over the next many months. (Caveat: this is not for Queasy Anonymous.)] 1. Below find the most helpful and signals intelligence meaty part of the Broad/Sanger version, published NYT Monday 17, of the status of Iran's nuclear fuel production ability. 2. Significant is that A.Q. Khan is mentioned prominently. Best signals source points to Khan as the centerpiece of the new information with regard what Iran has and how soon it can convert its tech into weapons grade material...

JEDDAH, 1 April 2006 — Saudi Arabia yesterday denied a German magazine report that it was working on a secret nuclear program with the help of Pakistani experts. The report “is totally unfounded,” a Defense Ministry spokesman told the Saudi Press Agency, adding that Riyadh “advocates imposing nuclear non-proliferation in the (Middle East) region.” Pakistan also rejected the report. “It is a fabricated story and motivated by vicious intentions,” Foreign Office spokeswoman Tasnim Aslam said. Citing Western security sources, German magazine Cicero said in its latest edition that during the Haj seasons in 2003 through 2005, Pakistani scientists posing as...

Saudis, with Pakistani help, working on nuclear programme Tue Mar 28, 5:37 PM ET Saudi Arabia is working secretly on a nuclear programme, with help from Pakistani experts, a German magazine reports in its latest edition, citing Western security sources.The German magazine Cicero says that during the Hajj pilgrimages to Mecca in 2003 through 2005, Pakistani scientists posed as pilgrims to come to Saudi Arabia in aircraft laid on by the oil-rich kingdom.Between October 2004 and January 2005, some of them took the opportunity to "disappear" from their hotel rooms, sometimes for up to three weeks, it quoted German security...

The world's first-ever court case against a presumed member of Khan's global nuclear weapons bazaar is beginning on Friday. The German defendant may have helped Libya acquire nuclear weapons technology. Iran is implicated too. The building itself is modest. Dating from the 1960s, it's covered with rust-brown steel siding on the outside and nicotine-yellow ceiling tiles on the inside. But the building, a courthouse in the German city of Mannheim, has been charged with a vitally important mission -- case number 25 Kls 613 Js 17967/05. The mission is that of saving humanity, and it starts at 10:00 a.m. this...

Port Security Remains a Concern in War on Terrorism Gary Thomas VOA, Washington 06 Mar 2004, 23:59 UTC News that Pakistan's top nuclear scientist was engaging in nuclear arms sales sent shock waves around the world. What was alarming to security experts was how easily the sensitive materials slipped undetected through major ports. The sheer volume of goods shipped through seaports makes ferreting out contraband material a nightmare. When Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan wanted to ship nuclear-related materials to spots like Libya or Iran, his customers had little to fear. The contraband goods, hidden amidst the huge number...

Brazil is poised in the next several weeks to produce large quantities of enriched uranium... ...Contrasting Iran’s nuclear programs with Brazil, White House spokesman Scott McCllellan stated “I think a difference here… that I would point out—if you’re talking about Brazil versus Iran—is one of trust. Iran has shown that they can’t be trusted with nuclear technology because they have hidden their activities for some two decades; they failed to comply with their international obligations.” Trust is a strange choice of words in a world of increasing nuclear proliferation while Brazil’s cooperation with IAEA still remains ‘non-intrusive.’ Brazil has not...

An US bomb just missed the Al-Qaeda number two in NWFP, Ayman al-Jawahiri, but killed civilians, but worse is in store for Pakistan, and General Parvez Musharraf, this time on Iran. Like it had to turn its back on the Taliban, which it created and succoured till 9/ 11, Pakistan is being forced by the United States to go hostile on Iran, which faces the threat of US-led economic sanctions, a blockade, and worse, military strikes on at least two of its nuclear facilities, at Isfan and Natanz. Western diplomats say that if Pakistan does not come in on the...

Every year, as we enter a New Year, my mind goes back to Daniel Pearl, the Mumbai-based American correspondent of Wall Street Journal, who met with a brutal end to his young life during a visit to Karachi in January 2002 to enquire, inter alia, into the suspected Pakistani links of international jihadi terrorists. In his keenness to find out the truth, Pearl fell into a treacherous trap laid by a mixed group of Pakistani terrorists belonging to different organisations and orchestrated by Omar Sheikh, a British resident of Pakistani origin, who had participated in the so-called jihad against the...

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) — Pakistan said Thursday it had taken all "appropriate action" to break up the underground nuclear network run by its former chief nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan. Foreign Minister Khursheed Kasuri made the remarks one day after a British newspaper alleged Khan's network may still be in operation. The Guardian report cited an unidentified European Union source. "Pakistan is very sorry and is very upset and has taken all appropriate action in dismantling the underground network," Kasuri said. "Dr. A.Q. Khan has fallen from the high pedestal that he had," he said, adding that Khan had...

VIENNA: The CIA, using a double-agent Russian scientist, may have handed a blueprint for a nuclear bomb to Iran. State of War by James Risen, the New York Times reporter who exposed the Bush administration's controversial domestic spying operation, claims the plans contained fatal flaws designed to derail Tehran's nuclear drive. But the deliberate errors were so rudimentary they would have been easily fixed by sophisticated Russian nuclear scientists, the book said. The operation, which took place during the Clinton administration in early 2000, was codenamed Operation Merlin and "may have been one of the most reckless operations in...

http://upload3.putfile.com/videos/b8-35001164188.swf (Requires Flash) Factually accurate, but hilarious.