Nuclear bazaar

In his memoirs, written while facing a death sentence, Pakistan prime minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto revealed that an important reason for Pakistan developing nuclear weapons was that while the “Christian, Jewish and Hindu civilisations” had developed nuclear weapons capability, it was the “Islamic civilisation” alone that lacked nuclear weapons.

This ideological belief about a Pakistan bomb forging Islamic solidarity under Pakistani leadership, has profoundly affected the mindset of Pakistan’s politicians and its military and scientific establishment.

It underlies the development of what is labelled as the “AQ Khan Network,” which readily transferred nuclear weapons technology to Saudi Arabia, Libya, Iraq and Iran. Pakistan’s nuclear weapons programme was liberally financed in its early stages, by some of these oil-rich Islamic countries, though the technology and weapons designs came from China.

Khan’s family migrated to Karachi in 1952, with Khan, who was born in Bhopal in 1936. Khan pursued higher studies in Germany and Netherlands. He joined the Physical Dynamics Laboratory in Netherlands in 1972. In this company Khan gained access to and purloined the designs and know-how for uranium enrichment — a crucial route to making nuclear weapons.

Returning to Pakistan and receiving unlimited support from his original mentor Zulfiqar Bhutto and General Zia ul Haq, the AQ Khan Laboratories was producing enough enriched uranium for serial nuclear weapons production by the mid 1980s. Khan used his contacts in Europe to build a worldwide clandestine network, to illegally import equipment and materials. 

It was in the 1980s that Pakistan successfully used its American connections to ward off all queries about its nuclear activities, as long as Soviet forces occupied Afghanistan. Former Netherlands prime minister Ruud Lubbers has revealed that on two occasions, in 1975 and 1986, the CIA intervened to prevent Dutch authorities from arresting Khan, who was convicted by an Amsterdam Court and sentenced in 1983 to four years imprisonment.

This was the period during which Chinese assistance coupled with American acquiescence led to a situation, wherein, Pakistan acquired nuclear weapons even before India.  It was only after the Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan that the US acknowledged that Pakistan had acquired nuclear weapons and cut off all economic assistance.

Engulfed by economic bankruptcy, following the termination of American assistance, Pakistan turned to North Korea, for what led to a missiles-for-nuclear technology deal. This followed a Pakistan-China-North Korea Agreement in January 1994 for cooperation in manufacture of missiles and guidance systems. Between 1994 and 1998, Khan paid over a dozen visits to North Korea and by 1998 aircraft of the Pakistan air force and the air force-run Shaheen Airlines were carrying cargos of missile components and nuclear enrichment equipment and materials between Rawalpindi and Pyongyang. 

There is evidence that around the same time, Khan offered nuclear technology to Iraq and Libya. While Saddam Hussein was guarded in responding to Khan’s offer, Libya’s Colonel Gadhafi had no such reservations and went full steam ahead with getting enrichment equipment and even nuclear weapons designs (of Chinese origin) from Khan. Moreover, in 1998, Saudi defence minister Prince Sultan was given unprecedented access to the AQ Khan Laboratories in Pakistan. 

Pakistan’s nuclear tests in May 1998 paradoxically marked the beginning of Khan’s decline, as the scientists and physicists led by his rival Samar Mubarak Mand carried out the tests. In the meantime, the CIA had infiltrated his network in Dubai and Geneva and gained access to its computers and global operations. General Musharraf was confronted with the evidence the CIA had collected.

Fearing that if he did not act against Khan, the Americans could well expose the crucial role the Pakistan army had played in assisting Khan’s activities, Musharraf extracted a “confession” and “apology” from Khan that he alone had acted illegally, out of considerations of personal profit. The Americans absolved the Pakistan army, the real villains in Khan’s proliferation activities, of all responsibility for what had transpired.

Khan’s release from “house arrest” has raised international concern as it follows an understanding with the Pakistan government. His close associates like Sultan Bashiruddin Mehmood have long-standing links with Taliban leaders and Bin Laden and openly advocate possession of nuclear weapons by Islamic countries. Pakistan’s “Islamic bomb” and its scientific and military establishment will continue to cause nightmares for those across the world concerned about nuclear proliferation,  which threatens global security, from an increasingly unstable and volatile country.