Defence & Arms
Taliban to Target Nuke Production?
By F. Michael Maloof, G2 5/5/09
May 11, 2009 - 7:05:39 AM

The international community, alarmed over the deteriorating conditions in Pakistan and worried whether the nation's stockpile of nuclear weapons could fall into Taliban hands, has been assured by both Pakistani and U.S. officials that's unlikely at this point.

But there have been no such assurances regarding the research and production facilities where materials are processed and bombs are assembled.

Pakistani officials have asserted that physical security of their nation's nuclear arsenal is very tight and U.S. officials have echoed the sentiment, since U.S. efforts have helped strengthen it, with physical security reportedly subject to U.S. monitoring.

In fact, security experts claim that the threat to these facilities is low unless the Taliban forcibly take over the reins of power in Islamabad.

However, these same sources say, the Pakistani Taliban may attempt attacks in other areas of nuclear and strategic concern – Pakistani nuclear weapons research and development sites, facilities for the production of plutonium and uranium enrichment, including those to manufacture the weapons themselves.

A number of these facilities not only are located in areas that make rushing security teams to the areas difficult but are located in parts of the country that are coming under increasing Islamist and al-Qaida influence. They include the region of Baluchistan and near such cities as Karachi that has heavy Sunni Islamist influence.

In Wah where Pakistan’s largest weapons complex is located, for example, there recently were twin Taliban suicide bombings, killing 59 people. The bombers hit two separate gates of the weapons complex as workers were leaving.

Vulnerability also exists particularly in the transportation of sensitive nuclear items. Recent supplies for NATO forces in neighboring Afghanistan have been ambushed with virtual impunity by Taliban in Pakistan's Kyber Pass region. Transportation routes appear to be the weakest link, as well as the fact that many of these far-flung facilities are less guarded.

Specific sites of potential vulnerability include the Kahuta uranium enrichment plant and the Khushab plutonium facility, both of which are considered Pakistan's main research and centrifuge centers.

Kahuta is the site of the Khan Research Laboratories, or KRL, named after A.Q. Khan, the nuclear scientist who stole western secrets to become the father of Pakistan's nuclear bomb. Khan was the German-educated scientist who had stolen blueprints for the uranium centrifuge while employed at the Physical Dynamics Research Laboratory, a subcontractor for the European nuclear consortium URENCO in Amsterdam, capital of the Netherlands.

KRL is Pakistan's main nuclear weapons lab as well as the center for that country's long-range missile development.

Of even greater vulnerability, according to security experts, would be the Chashma nuclear power station in Punjab province, the one at Karachi and various sites in the North-West Frontier Province where Islamists are on the upswing, and Baluchistan where nuclear waste is said to be stored. Baluchistan also is the area of the country of increasing insurgent activity.

A number of these nuclear power plant sites were built with Chinese assistance, thereby raising the issue that the Chinese would not want U.S. personnel to gain access to these facilities.

Having studied the security implications of Pakistan's nuclear power programs, Chaim Braun, Science Fellow at the Center for International Security Cooperation at Stamford University in California, said that the increasingly unstable security situation in Pakistan "is not well conducive to stable long-term expansion of nuclear power capacity. An immediate problem may be the difficulty of security screening of all prospective nuclear stations and infrastructure employees," he added, "with the distinct possibility of terror supporters gaining access to power stations and providing insider support to putative terrorist attacks."

The assessment by security experts is that the Taliban and other jihadi groups will attack one or more of these less guarded facilities.

"They have the capability to target them in order to create panic in the Pakistani population and demonstrate their prowess in the non-Pashtun areas of Pakistan," declared B. Raman of the South Asia Analysis Group.

The Taliban is in the process now of bringing the entire Pashtun tribal belt in the North-West Frontier Province and in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas under its control, subject to Shariah law and to Wahhabi influence. From these regions, the Taliban is viewed as capable of extending its capabilities to the now non-Pashtun areas of the country.

Perhaps the Pakistani Taliban doesn't have to control Islamabad to hold Pakistan hostage. It certainly would not be in a position to defeat the Pakistani Army where it has the capital under heavy guard. However, the army has sustained a number of recent defeats from Taliban insurgency fighting. Indeed, the Taliban could undertake attacks and perhaps control Pakistan's other nuclear facilities in more vulnerable parts of the country, a prospect that should worry the West.

Analysts conclude that the threat to Pakistan's nuclear facilities is, in fact, potentially critical, and the Taliban would be able to steer the course of events there even without taking actual physical control of a stockpile of nuclear warheads.



Source: Ocnus.net 2009