Free Republic

Counter-terrorism authorities are investigating after a bulk shipment of unregistered—and potentially lethal—nuclear material was ferried off of an airplane at Heathrow Airport’s Terminal 4 on Dec. 29. The cargo, which originated in Pakistan and was smuggled into London from Oman aboard the hold of a passenger flight, was intended for Iranian nationals in the U.K., according to The Sun. “The race is on to trace everyone involved,” said an unidentified Heathrow source who spoke with the newspaper. “Security bosses are treating this with the seriousness it deserves. Protocol was not followed and this is now an anti-terror operation. There are...

Acting Attorney General Jeffrey A. Rosen has released the following statement: “We understand that Pakistani authorities are taking steps to ensure that Omar Sheikh remains in custody while the Supreme Court appeal seeking to reinstate his conviction continues. The separate judicial rulings reversing his conviction and ordering his release are an affront to terrorism victims everywhere. We remain grateful for the Pakistani government’s actions to appeal such rulings to ensure that he and his co-defendants are held accountable. If, however, those efforts do not succeed, the United States stands ready to take custody of Omar Sheikh to stand trial here....

The archive of Iranian nuclear documents seized by the Israeli Mossad from a Tehran warehouse in January shows that Iran’s program to build nuclear weapons “was almost certainly larger, more sophisticated and better organized” than was suspected, unnamed nuclear experts were quoted as saying in the New York Times on Sunday, after being shown selected documents from the haul by US reporters. One of the Iranian documents specifies plans to build a first “batch of five weapons” and discusses sites for possible underground nuclear tests, the Times reported, after one of its reporters was given limited access to the haul...

WASHINGTON: Under tremendous pressure from the United States, Islamabad’s ruling dispensation appears to be zeroing in on Pakistan’s national hero, Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan, as the source of nuclear proliferation. Several people, perhaps up to 25, included some of Khan’s closest aides, have been detained in recent days. Some of them have been dragged out of their homes kicking and screaming, according to family members who have spoken to the Pakistani media. Khan himself has been treated more circumspectly, but he has also been questioned exhaustively and further steps against him seem imminent. The military government already seems to be...

      Aktuell   China's participation in atomic smuggling Fissionable material for the coalition by  Matthias Gebauer The new dislosures about China's role in the sale of nuclear know-how has the discussions over the export of the Hanau fuel element plant boiling up again. Some Greens are threatening openly with the end of the coalition if Chancellor Schröder allows the deal to go through. MARCO-URBAN.DE Governing-Team Schröder/Fischer: Looking for a solution without losing face. Berlin - Green party leader Angelika Beer didn't want to say much about the Hanau topic during her press conference on Monday. "There isn't any new position",...

Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi provided al-Qaida with chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction before changing heart and agreeing to destroy his arms program, Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin has learned. Libyan intelligence chief Musa Kussa told U.S. and UK spy agencies that tens of thousands of weapons had been produced at 10 secret sites in the country. Kussa has named hundreds of what he termed "sleeper" al-Qaida agents in Britain and the U.S. Gadhafi's dramatic turnaround has earned him a future meeting with British Prime Minister Tony Blair and President Bush. He was welcomed back on to the world stage...

U.S. military forces have discovered a smuggling ring moving copious quantities of explosives and weapons from Iraq to terrorist training camps constructed by the Saddam Hussein regime inside Syria prior to Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF). The Pentagon also announced that the structure bombed by U.S. warplanes last week, described by many major media outlets as a wedding celebration at a private ranching operation, was actually a "dormitory-like" facility used as a "safe house" to facilitate the clandestine movement of foreign terrorists into Iraq from Syria. According to Pentagon officials, small arms, explosives, and bomb making materials are being removed from...

GENEVA (AP) — A Swiss man suspected of being involved in the world's biggest nuclear smuggling ring claims he supplied the CIA with information that led to the breakup of the black market nuclear network led by Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan. In a documentary airing Thursday on Swiss TV station SF1, Urs Tinner says he tipped off U.S. intelligence about a delivery of centrifuge parts meant for Libya's nuclear weapons program. The shipment was seized at the Italian port of Taranto in 2003, forcing Libya to admit and eventually renounce its efforts to acquire nuclear weapons. The 43-year-old Tinner...

A new assessment of Iran's nuclear program by the United Nations' International Atomic Energy Agency says that, as early as 1995, Pakistan was providing Tehran with the designs for sophisticated centrifuges capable of making bomb-grade nuclear fuel. It also finds evidence that, as of the mid-August, Iran had assembled and tested the major components for 70 of the machines, which it showed to inspectors from the agency. But the report, issued to members of the agency on Wednesday as a confidential document, provided no new evidence of the kind of covert programs that the agency has discovered in the last...

A High-Risk Nuclear Stakeout The U.S. took too long to act, some experts say, letting a Pakistani scientist sell illicit technology well after it knew of his operation. By Douglas Frantz, Times Staff Writer WASHINGTON — Nuclear warhead plans that Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan sold to Libya were more complete and detailed than previously disclosed, raising new concerns about the cost of Washington's watch-and-wait policy before Khan and his global black market were shut down last year. Two Western nuclear weapons specialists who have examined the top-secret designs say the hundreds of pages of engineering drawings and handwritten notes...

WASHINGTON, Feb. 1 - Scientific tests have led American intelligence agencies and government scientists to conclude with near certainty that North Korea sold processed uranium to Libya, bolstering earlier indications that the reclusive state exported sensitive fuel for atomic weapons, according to officials with access to the intelligence. The determination, which has circulated among senior government officials in recent weeks, has touched off a hunt to determine if North Korea has also sold uranium to other countries, including Iran and Syria. So far, there is no evidence that such additional transactions took place. Nonetheless, the conclusion about the uranium transfer...