Pakistanis confess to nuclear leaks

[Darranar]

Pakistanis confess to nuclear leaks

Pakistan's top nuclear scientists have confessed to leaking nuclear secrets, according to an official close to the government's probe.

The official told AFP late on Sunday:"Dr Qadeer and four others have accepted that they were involved in leaking nuclear know how outside Pakistan to groups working for Iran, Libya and North Korea," the official who could not be named said.

Nuclear pioneer Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan is the father of Pakistan's nuclear programme and is regarded as a national hero in the country.

The information was leaked between 1986 and 1993, he added.

[Darranar]

1. Pakistan Ousts Nuclear Scientist From Post

Pakistan Ousts Nuclear Scientist From Post

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Jan. 31 — The Pakistani government on Saturday removed Abdul Qadeer Khan, the founder of Pakistan's nuclear weapons program, from his post as a special adviser to the country's prime minister.

The step, and other measures, suggested that the government was laying the groundwork for exposing wrongdoing by Dr. Khan, a man revered as a national hero in Pakistan.

Dr. Khan, three scientists and three low-level army officers are the focus of an investigation into the possible sharing of Pakistani nuclear technology with Iran, Libya and other countries in the late 1980's and early 1990's. Gen. Pervez Musharraf, the Pakistani president, has said that "some individuals" appear to have sold nuclear technology for personal profit.

General Musharraf, who seized power in a coup, has been under competing pressures from the United States, secular and Islamist political rivals and Pakistan's powerful army. He must somehow strike a balance between being tough enough in the investigation to satisfy American concerns and not being seen as an American lackey, or betraying the army, his base of support.

[varun]

2. what is NOT being said...

...is what is more important.

And that is, how much of this technology has been transferred to Al-Qaeda and other groups waiting to get their hands on such a weapon.