Pakistan has refused to let the UN atomic agency directly interview disgraced nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan, father of Pakistan's atomic bomb(AFP/File/Tanveer Mughal)
Posted on 09/30/2004 11:45:25 AM PDT by TexKat
PESHAWAR, Pakistan - Pakistani intelligence agents arrested a Libyan on suspicion of having links to al-Qaida after raiding a home on the outskirts of this northwestern city Thursday, security officials said.
The suspect identified himself as Ahmed Abdullah during initial interrogation after his arrest in the area of Matanni near Peshawar, the capital of Pakistan's deeply conservative North West Frontier Province, said an official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
It was unclear what prompted the authorities to conduct the raid, and Interior Minister Aftab Ahmad Khan Sherpao refused to confirm it.
However, another security official in the capital, Islamabad, confirmed the arrest. The official spoke on condition of anonymity.
It was unclear what link Abdullah was believed to have with al-Qaida.
Pakistan is a key ally of the United States in its war on terror and says it has arrested scores of terror suspects in recent months.
On Thursday, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage said Pakistan's fight against terrorism was "very noteworthy, very noble."
Armitage said he has held discussions recently with Pakistani officials, including President Gen. Pervez Musharraf, about Osama bin Laden and his deputy Ayman al-Zawahri.
"Whatever the level, the rank of the terrorists, they have to be rooted out," Armitage told Geo television.
On Wednesday, Sherpao told the Cabinet that security agencies had "broken the back" of al-Qaida's network in the country by killing a key Pakistani operative, Amjad Hussain Farooqi, during a weekend raid in a southern town.
Officials have implicated Farooqi in many terrorist attacks in Pakistan, including the 2002 kidnapping and beheading of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl and two failed assassination attempts on President Gen. Pervez Musharraf in December 2003 that left 17 people dead.
Since Farooqi's killing, authorities have rounded up at least 11 other suspects, all Pakistanis, although it is unclear whether they are linked to any attacks.
Authorities say they are still hunting for a top Libyan al-Qaida operative, Abu Faraj, said to have plotted at least one of the attacks against Musharraf with Farooqi.
Shhhh. Don't tell the naysayers who always claim we should have done Pakistan first.
They'd be first in line to complain we were ignoring Iraq if we had gone to Pakistan instead. LOL
Thu Sep 30, 6:38 AM ET
VIENNA (AFP) - Pakistan has refused to let the UN atomic agency directly interview disgraced nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan, father of Pakistan's atomic bomb and ringleader of a smuggling network that supplied Iran, Libya and North Korea with sensitive nuclear technology, an agency spokesman said.
"The Pakistanis have made it clear that while they will provide the IAEA all information available to them, direct access to Mr. Khan would not be possible," IAEA spokesman Mark Gwozdecky said on Thursday.
It was the first time the IAEA has admitted that Pakistan is refusing to let the agency see Khan, Gwozdecky said.
The IAEA has been asking Pakistan regularly to help it investigate the international black market run by Khan, who confessed last February to passing on nuclear secrets.
"From the beginning, we have made it clear to the Pakistani authorities that we would like the maximum amount of information on the Khan network, including access to any person with such knowledge," Gwozdecky said.
Pakistan Foreign Minister Khurshid Mahmud said in Tehran in August that his country was cooperating with the IAEA probe into Iran's suspect nuclear programme but ruled out allowing inspectors into Pakistan as part of the crucial investigation.
He pointed out that Pakistan was not a signatory of the NPT (nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty), which mandates the IAEA to monitor compliance with international atomic safeguards.
IAEA inspectors have found traces of highly-enriched uranium inside Iran, leading to suspicions that Iran has been trying to produce nuclear bombs and not just atomic energy as it insists.
But Tehran maintains the traces found their way into the country on equipment bought from Khan's black market network.
Pakistan's cooperation with the probe is crucial in resolving outstanding questions related to Iran's bid to generate nuclear energy, seen by the United States as a cover for weapons development.
The IAEA wants to take so-called "environmental samples" from Pakistan to compare them with those found in Iran -- crucial in verifying Tehran's claims.
Pakistan has supplied results from sampling it has conducted itself, but has not allowed IAEA inspectors into the country to do their own sampling, IAEA director general Mohamed ElBaradei said in a report earlier this month.
ElBaradei said the IAEA needed results from its own testing to be able to draw definitive conclusions.
Pakistan has refused to let the UN atomic agency directly interview disgraced nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan, father of Pakistan's atomic bomb(AFP/File/Tanveer Mughal)
The Paki naysayers have gotten very quiet.
Yes. It must just kill them to see Pakistan doing such a good job. LOL
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