Monday, February 07, 2005
Khan network still operational: TIME
Daily Times Monitor
LAHORE: While the world is focused on a possible showdown over the Iranian nuclear programme, a recent investigation has revealed that Pakistan’s AQ Khan network played a larger role in helping Tehran and Pyongyang than had been previously disclosed, TIME magazine reported on Sunday.
According to US intelligence officials, the magazine said, Dr Khan sold North Korea much of the necessary material to build a nuclear bomb, including high-speed centrifuges used to enrich uranium and the equipment required to manufacture more of them.
They, along with officials at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), also believe that Iran may have bought the same set of goods — centrifuges and possibly weapons designs — from Khan in the mid-1990s. Although the IAEA says it has so far not found any definitive proof of an Iranian weapons programme, its investigators have revealed that Tehran privately confirmed at least 13 meetings (from 1994 to 1999) with representatives of the Khan network.
Many fear that these disclosures represent the tip of the iceberg, given that the father of the Pakistani nuclear bomb travelled the world for more than a decade, visiting countries in Africa, Central Asia and the Middle East.
US officials are currently investigating the possibility that Khan’s network sold nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries, the magazine quotes a Pakistani defence official as saying. He also confirmed that the US has submitted questions to Khan on whether North Korea and Iran sold such equipment to third parties.
The report said that although Washington has no concrete evidence that any of Khan’s clients have passed along nuclear technology and expertise to terrorist groups, they cannot rule out the possibility that Khan did business with Osama Bin Laden’s Qaeda network. US officials point to the fact that several members of Pakistan’s military and intelligence establishment, which worked closely with Khan in his role as the government’s top nuclear scientist, are known to sympathise with the Qaeda group.
This fear is compounded by the fact that colleagues close to Khan claim he was driven by a devout faith and a burning belief that a nexus existed between returning Islam to its former glory and Muslim nations acquiring nuclear capability.
The report goes on to say that if Washington discovers that Khan sold nuclear warhead blueprints to Iran, as he did with Libya, it find immediate justification to ratchet up its charges that Tehran’s nuclear research has a military purpose.
Indeed, such a US move might even gain acceptance in the international community given that sources close to the Khan Research Laboratories in Islamabad have claimed that Khan’s illicit network of suppliers and middlemen is still operational, the magazine reported.
“Nothing has changed,” TIME quoted one of Khan’s former aides as saying. “The hardware is still available, and the network hasn’t stopped”. Sources close to the lab have also revealed that 16 cylinders of uranium hexafluoride gas, a critical ingredient for uranium enrichment, are missing from the lab.
According to one Pakistani official, the international community should be doing more to intercept members of the network. He pointed to the fact that the Swiss and German governments, among others, have failed to arrest to arrest individuals implicated by Khan’s testimony. The Khan network has been under CIA investigation since the 1990s.
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