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Pakistan & dangers of nuclear Jihad
Severely EFL, and from an Indian intell website..
Pakistan is not the original birth place of the Islamic fundamentalist and jihadi organizations. Islamic fundamentalism and jihadi terrorism were born elsewhere in the Islamic Ummah and thereafter spread to Pakistan after the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran. But, Pakistan is the original birth place of the concept of the nuclear jihad, which highlighted the need for an Islamic atomic bomb and advocated the right and the religious obligation of the Muslims to acquire weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and use them, if necessary, to protect their religion. The jihadi terrorists and their ideologues in Pakistan perceived the nuclear weapon as the ultimate weapon of retribution against States which they viewed as enemies of Islam, particularly the USA and Israel. It was, in fact, the late Zulfiquar Ali Bhutto, a Western-influenced liberal and not a religious fundamentalist, who first projected Pakistan’s clandestine quest for an atomic bomb as the quest for an Islamic bomb to counter what he described as the Christian, Jewish and Hindu atomic bombs. He used this depiction in order to convince other Islamic States such as Libya, Saudi Arabia and Iran to fund Pakistan’s clandestine military nuclear programme.

The late Gen.Zia-ul-Haq, who ruled Pakistan from 1977 to 1988, strengthened the Islamic motivation of not only the Pakistani Armed Forces, but also of its scientific community in the nuclear field. Just as he started projecting the Pakistani Army not only as the Army of the State of Pakistan, but also as the Army of Islam to serve the Islamic cause, similarly, like Z.A. Bhutto whom he overthrew and sent to the gallows, he started providing a religious justification for Pakistan’s clandestine quest for the atomic bomb. Zia’s policies resulted in the injection of the fundamentalist virus into the Pakistani Army and the scientific establishment. While the increasing influence of fundamentalism in the lower and middle levels of the Pakistani Armed Forces received the attention of the analysts of the world, a similar increase in the influence of fundamentalism in the scientific establishment did not receive similar attention despite the fact that sections of the Pakistani media had been reporting about the presence of unidentified scientists of Pakistan’s nuclear establishment in the religious conventions of Pakistani jihadi organizations such as the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LET).

The first indications of the presence of pro-jihadi scientists in Pakistan’s nuclear establishment came to notice during the US military operations in Afghanistan against Al Qaeda and the Taliban when documents recovered by the US forces reportedly spoke of the visits of Sultan Bashiruddin Ahmed and Abdul Majid, retired scientists of Pakistan’s nuclear establishment, to Kandahar when bin Laden was operating from there before 9/11. At the instance of the USA, the Pakistani authorities detained the two for some weeks and interrogated them. They reportedly admitted visiting Kandahar and meeting bin Laden, but maintained that the visit was in connection with the work of a humanitarian relief organisatiion for helping the Afghan people. Since no evidence linking them to Al Qaeda’s Abu Khabab project could be found, they were released, but banned from traveling abroad.

Since 9/11, one of the major concerns of the US intelligence and counter-terrorism agencies has been over the dangers of Al Qaeda and its jihadi associates in the IIF managing to acquire a WMD capability. In this connection, attention was particularly focused on Pakistan as the most likely spot from which such leakage could occur. Pakistan has been the epicentre of State-sponsored nuclear proliferation since the late 1980s. Having benefited from funds contributed by Libya, Iran and Saudi Arabia for its clandestine military nuclear project, the Pakistan State had to agree to requests from these countries for helping them in acquiring a similar capability.
Bingo. Large, dark mark in the middle of my forehead, as I wonder why I didn't ask myself where they got the money for a nuke program. The Paks don't have any money of their own...
Large sections of the media and the community of strategic analysts have been writing as if the Pakistan State’s collusion with Iran in the nuclear field came to light only last year. In fact, this came to light in the early 1990s when Nawaz Sharif was the Prime Minister. If one goes back to the 1990s—immediately before and after the first Gulf war of 1991—one would find reports of the role played by Gen.Mirza Aslam Beg, the then Chief of the Army Staff and Dr.Abdul Qadeer Khan, in the clandestine nuclear co-operation not only with Iran, but also with Iraq. Dr.A.Q.Khan had been the honoured guest of Saddam Hussein, the then President of Iraq, on many occasions. The reports of those years were dismissed by the apologists for Pakistan in the US on the following grounds: first, the reports about the co-operation with Iran came from sources in the anti-Teheran Mujahideen-e-Khalq, which were not reliable. Second, it did not sound logical that Pakistan should be helping Iran as well as Iraq, both sworn enemies of each other. Such arguments have no validity in the case of Pakistan. Duplicity has been the defining characteristic of Pakistan’s foreign policy ever since it was born in 1947. It co-operated with China against India and with the US against China. It co-operated with the USA against Iran by allowing the USA’s Central Intelligence Agency to use Pakistani territory for its operations against the Islamic regime in Iran and, at the same time, had no qualms about helping the Islamic regime in strengthening its conventional capability and developing a nuclear capability. The political and military leadership of Pakistan clandestinely helped not only other Islamic countries, but also North Korea. Initially, Pakistan paid for North Korea’s missiles and related technology with dollars and wheat purchased from the US and Australia and diverted to it. The supplementary agreement to help North Korea in developing a military nuclear capability was reached after Musharraf assumed power in October, 1999.
Yeah, y'might say duplicity wears a turban and a cloak of pious denials...
Right from its inception, the clandestine nuclear and missile projects in Pakistan were treated as a top secret intelligence operation of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) to ensure deniability. All payments to the foreign suppliers were made not from the accounts of the Government of Pakistan, but from private accounts in the BCCI, which collapsed in 1991, and other Dubai and Geneva based banks. The financial contributions from Libya, Iran and Saudi Arabia were transferred to these accounts from numbered secret Swiss accounts and payments to the overseas suppliers were made from these accounts. Till now, strategic analysts have been focusing only on the dangers of a possible Talibanisation or Al Qaedisation of the Pakistan Army. It is time now to pay more attention to the dangers of a Talibanisation or Al Qaedisation of Pakistan’s scientific community.
Posted by: Paul Moloney 2004-01-28
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=25156