Pak moving 'mated' nuclear weapons on congested roads to hide them from US, Indian spy agencies

Washington, Nov 5 (ANI): Pakistan's Strategic Plans Division (SPD), which has custodial responsibility for the country's nuclear assets, has started moving them in civilian-style delivery vans on congested and dangerous roads post-Osama bin Laden raid, making the weapons more vulnerable to theft by jihadists simply to hide them from the United States, according to a joint report in two US magazines.

Shortly after the US raid on the then al Qaeda chief's hideout in Abbottabad on May 2, Pakistan Army chief General Ashfaq Kayani spoke with Khalid Kidwai, the retired lieutenant general in charge of securing Pakistan's nuclear arsenal, The Atlantic and National Journal stated in a joint report, which they said was the product of dozens of interviews over the course of six months.

Kayani expressed his anxiousness about the safety of Pakistan's nuclear weapons to SPD Director General Kidwai, the report said.

"There is evidence to suggest that neither the Pakistani army, nor the SPD itself, considers jihadism the most immediate threat to the security of its nuclear weapons; indeed, General Kayani's worry, as expressed to General Kidwai after Abbottabad, was focused on the United States.

According to sources in Pakistan, General Kayani believes that the U.S. has designs on the Pakistani nuclear program, and that the Abbottabad raid suggested that the U.S. has developed the technical means to stage simultaneous raids on Pakistan's nuclear facilities," it added.

General Kidwai assured General Kayani that Pakistan's program was sufficiently hardened, and dispersed, so that the US would have to mount a sizable invasion of the country in order to neutralize its weapons; a raid on the scale of the Abbottabad incursion would simply not suffice.

"Still, General Kidwai promised that he would redouble the SPD's efforts to keep his country's weapons far from the prying eyes, and long arms, of the Americans, and so he did: according to multiple sources in Pakistan, he ordered an increase in the tempo of the dispersal of nuclear-weapons components and other sensitive materials," the report said.

"One method the SPD uses to ensure the safety of its nuclear weapons is to move them among the 15 or more facilities that handle them. Nuclear weapons must go to the shop for occasional maintenance, and so they must be moved to suitably equipped facilities, but Pakistan is also said to move them about the country in an attempt to keep American and Indian intelligence agencies guessing about their locations," it added.

Nuclear-weapons components are sometimes moved by helicopter and sometimes moved over roads, the report said, adding that instead of moving nuclear material in armored, well-defended convoys, the SPD prefers to move material by subterfuge, in civilian-style vehicles without noticeable defenses, in the regular flow of traffic.

"According to both Pakistani and American sources, vans with a modest security profile are sometimes the preferred conveyance. And according to a senior U.S. intelligence official, the Pakistanis have begun using this low-security method to transfer not merely the "de-mated" component nuclear parts but "mated" nuclear weapons," it said.

Western nuclear experts have feared that Pakistan is building small, "tactical" nuclear weapons for quick deployment on the battlefield. In fact, not only is Pakistan building these devices, it is also now moving them over roads, it added.

"What this means, in essence, is that in a country that is home to the harshest variants of Muslim fundamentalism, and to the headquarters of the organizations that espouse these extremist ideologies, including al-Qaeda, the Haqqani network, and Lashkar-e-Taiba (which conducted the devastating terror attacks on Mumbai three years ago that killed nearly 200 civilians), nuclear bombs capable of destroying entire cities are transported in delivery vans on congested and dangerous roads," the report said.

"And Pakistani and American sources say that since the raid on Abbottabad, the Pakistanis have provoked anxiety inside the Pentagon by increasing the pace of these movements. In other words, the Pakistani government is willing to make its nuclear weapons more vulnerable to theft by jihadists simply to hide them from the United States, the country that funds much of its military budget," it added. (ANI)