Pakistan's Nuclear Arsenal

"As the number of nuclear weapons facilities grows, and the number of those with access to nuclear weapons or related components rises, the complex challenge of assuring the security of nuclear weapons and nuclear weapons components will become ever more difficult." Dr. Shaun Gregory, director, Pakistan Security Unit, University of Bradford, Britain

Having a socially, politically immature state with a volatile population and an insecure security apparatus in ownership of nuclear weapons represents an unfortunate formula for disaster somewhere down the road. Pakistan felt entitled to become the first Islamic country in the nuclear club, mostly because its arch-enemy India, a hugely populous country of ethnic and religious variety but harbouring little ill-will toward anyone, was in nuclear possession.

It's an old story: Canada's enterprising CANDU nuclear industry fitted India out with its first civilian-purpose (for isotope production) nuclear installation, CIRUS, in 1956 and enterprising India sought to enrich plutonium to become a military-nuclear-munitions state. India feared aggression from nuclear power China with which it shared a border.

"India is now a nuclear weapons state.
We have the capacity for a big bomb now.
Ours will never be weapons of aggression." Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee

Then in 1959, Canada sold a CIRUS nuclear reactor to Pakistan. And finally Benazir Bhutto's father, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, at the time Pakistan's prime minister, delegated A.Q. Khan, a nuclear scientist, to focus on nuclear weapons development, in 1972. And the rest is history. Pakistan was determined to have nuclear weaponry because of its hatred of India and the wars fought over Kashmir.

Since then, the Islamic world has been the crucible and Pakistan the launching pad of Islamist terrorism, and Pakistan itself has been well infiltrated by jihadists intent on taking over the government, while it launches attacks on India and Afghanistan and by extension the West. Pakistani Taliban and other terror groups have demonstrated their facility in carrying out violent attacks, in infiltrating the country's military and security establishments.

Incursions by the Taliban and extremist groups have resulted in deadly attacks against the country's military installations and government offices. And they have been able to access nuclear installations for brief periods before being routed. Their numbers and the boldness of their attacks are increasing.

About 70,000 people in Pakistan have access to some element of nuclear weapons production. And a proportion of them have been useful to terrorist groups.

Informing the Taliban of the storage, maintenance and deployment cycles as well as production, obviously impacting on securing the safety of the nuclear program from access by terror groups. On occasion terrorists dressed in military uniforms, driving army vehicles and with close knowledge of nuclear installation complexes have successfully staged raids on those complexes.

They've been capable of penetrating security, demonstrating insider knowledge, wearing uniforms and holding forged identification cards. "Almost certainly [the terrorists] learned their tactics from the SSG [the Pakistan Army's elite commandos, the Special Service Group], which had trained earlier generations of Pakistani Kashmiri militants in similar tactics for operations against India". (Dr. Gregory)

"Terrorist groups have now shown themselves capable of penetrating even the most securely defended of Pakistan's military bases and of holding space within those bases for many hours, even against the elite SSG, more than enough time with the right equipment and sufficient numbers to carry out terrorist acts with enormous political or destructive pay-off."

Rest easy, World.