Posted on 10/25/2001 8:10:10 PM PDT by kattracks
| (Islamabad/Moscow, October 25) |
| There is now a nuclear dimension to the Afghan war. A second retired Pakistani atomic scientist was picked up by Islamabad on Tuesday night on the suspicion that he was developing a nuclear device for Osama bin Laden and the Taliban. The arrests followed tip-offs by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation to the Pakistani authorities. Sultan Bashiruddin Mehmood and Abdul Majeed, both scientists who had retired from the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC), were picked up after the FBI provided evidence of their links to jehadi outfits. The Pakistan Interior Minister, Moinuddin Haidar, said on Thursday that Bashiruddin was being taken into "protective custody." Military spokesman, Rashid Qureshi, only said the scientist was being questioned. After retirement, Bashiruddin had formed an NGO called Ummah Tameer-e-Nau (Reconstruction of the Muslim Ummah). This NGO was affiliated to the Al Rasheed Trust, an organisation banned for its links with Al-Qaeda network. The NGO was one of the few allowed by Mullah Muhammad Omar to carry out relief work in Afghanistan. Majeed was the chief engineer of PAEC until last year. Pakistani press reports said he had been trying to get a hold of supplies of plutonium and enriched uranium to send to the Taliban. Bashiruddin was with the PAEC for 35 years. He held many senior positions, including director of the Kahuta Enrichment Project. He was also one of the designers of the Khusab nuclear plant in Punjab. He took early retirement in 1998 to protest moves by the then Nawaz Sharif government to sign the CTBT, a treaty he strongly opposed. Bashiruddin founded Ummah Tameer-e-Nau after vowing to rebuild Afghanistan. Most of its membership consisted of nuclear scientists and military officers. Bashiruddin's Islamic fervour was well known, catching even the attention of Mullah Omar. The Taliban gave him permission to conclude business agreements on their behalf. This strengthened suspicions that Bashiruddin's NGO was looking for nuclear hardware for Kabul. He and Majeed had been under investigation by a joint US-Pakistani intelligence team. The West is reportedly also concerned about A.Q. Khan, the father of Pakistan's nuclear bomb. Khan resigned as head of the country's nuclear programme in March this year. Because he had publicly expressed sympathy for the jehad movement, it was rumoured he was joining the fundamentalists. The detention of the two scientists follows statements by Pakistani officials, including President Pervez Musharraf, that the country's nuclear installations and assets were secure. There have been persistent rumours Bin Laden has sought weapons of mass destruction —chemical, biological and nuclear. Pakistan is increasingly seen as a possible source of such weaponry for the Taliban or Bin Laden. One reason is the large number of scientists employed by its nuclear programme. The other is the creeping popularity of the fundamentalist cause among educated, urban Pakistanis. In the past, the most likely source was one of the "loose nukes" scattered about the ex-Soviet Union. Seven years ago, Russian agents stopped a planeload of Russian nuclear scientists heading off to North Korea. Says Michael Krepon of the Henry Stimson Centre in Washington, which does research on nuclear security, "It is easy to get fissionable material, but difficult to make a bomb." He points out the Taliban could just mix nuclear material with RDX. This would not produce an atomic explosion. But, say other experts, the very knowledge Kabul has weapons-grade nuclear material could deter US bombing as Washington would have to fear a terrorist strike that could leave nuclear contaminants. |
....Geez. I bet you'refun at a party.
Besides, I don't think America will have to lose 'a few million' to get serious about waging effective, ruthless, and overwhelming war.
It will come soon enough, even for your taste.
Because Israel has some nukes too and won't hesitate to use them. America does hesitate right now, which is terrible. Nukes away!!!
We had a big hand in these guy's getting their start.
Not much gets checked here in Los Angels--- see this
ID System for Port Workers Considered (Los Angeles California )
The container could even be personally attended - perhaps this was an experiment:
Egyptian terror suspect had satellite telephone, fake ID (Hid In Container)
Um, what does a small percentage of a billion people translate into?
I think their summation is in error. Their logic is bad. This fact would cause the U.S. to increase its efforts, no appeasement like what they suggest would bring any measure of safety at all -- the only safety is in their complete and swift destruction.
They just caught one Islamic bozo with an onboard container set up to carry him to Toronto in comfort. Had a laptop, three cellphones, one of which was a satellite phone, etc. Looked like he was ready to hide in the cargo hold all the way.
If a dirty nuke were set off on a ship, located near Montreal, during the proper wind conditions, much of the east coast of the US would get a radioactive dusting.
I hope they searched every container on that ship.
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