Bhutto wanted F16s ready to counter Indian attack

ISLAMABAD: Former Pakistan Premier Benazir Bhutto had ordered in 1990 that F-16 fighter jets be kept ready to launch attacks on Indian nuclear facilities amid reports of a similar strike being planned by United States, India and
Israel on it, a former army chief has claimed.
 
She had also dispatched her Foreign Minister Yaqoob Khan to New Delhi with a message that Islamabad would launch a counter-attack on Indian nuclear facilities if New Delhi targeted Pakistani nuclear establishments, former Pakistan army chief retired General Mirza Aslam Baig, was quoted as saying by Dawn.

 

The Pakistan government received intelligence reports that the three countries had hatched a conspiracy to attack Pakistan nuclear facilities in 1990, the paper quoted him as
saying at a meeting in Hyderabad city on Saturday.

 

Baig, who recently floated the political party Awami Qayadat Party said when intelligence reports were passed on to the government, Bhutto, convened an emergency meeting that was attended by then president Ghulam Ishaq Khan, Yaqoob, himself besides the now disgraced nuclear scientist A Q Khan.

 

He claimed Bhutto took a "very bold step" of sending Yaqoob to India with a message that if India launched strikes on Pakistan's nuclear facilities, its own nuclear facilities would be attacked.