{"id":1543779,"date":"2025-06-26T02:10:00","date_gmt":"2025-06-26T06:10:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/?p=1543779"},"modified":"2025-06-26T02:10:00","modified_gmt":"2025-06-26T06:10:00","slug":"why-not-an-islamic-bomb-how-israel-planned-failed-to-stop-pakistan-going-nuclear","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/why-not-an-islamic-bomb-how-israel-planned-failed-to-stop-pakistan-going-nuclear\/1543779\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Why Not An Islamic Bomb?’: How Israel Planned & Failed To Stop Pakistan Going Nuclear"},"content":{"rendered":"

‘Why Not An Islamic Bomb?’: How Israel Planned & Failed To Stop Pakistan Going Nuclear<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Via Middle East Eye<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Former CIA Director George Tenet\u00a0thought<\/a>\u00a0him “at least as dangerous as Osama bin Laden”<\/strong> and former Mossad Chief Shabtai Shavit\u00a0regretted<\/a>\u00a0not killing him. But to almost 250 million Pakistanis, Abdul Qadeer Khan – the godfather of Pakistan\u2019s nuclear programme – is a legend and national hero.<\/p>\n

The nuclear scientist, who was born in 1936 and died in 2021 aged 85, was more responsible than anyone else for the South Asian nation developing a nuclear bomb. He ran a sophisticated and clandestine international\u00a0network<\/a>\u00a0assisting Iran, Libya and North Korea with their nuclear programs<\/strong>. One of those nations, North Korea, ended up getting the coveted military status symbol. Israel – itself a nuclear power, although it has never admitted it – allegedly used<\/a>\u00a0 assassination attempts and threats to try and stop Pakistan from going nuclear.<\/p>\n

Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan in January 2010, AFP<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

In the 1980s Israel even formulated a\u00a0plan<\/a>\u00a0to bomb Pakistan\u2019s nuclear site with Indian assistance – a scheme that the Indian government eventually backed out of.<\/p>\n

AQ Khan, as he is commonly remembered by Pakistanis, believed that by building a nuclear bomb he had saved his country from foreign threats, especially its nuclear-armed neighbor India.<\/p>\n

Today many of his fellow citizens agree.<\/p>\n

\u2018Why not an Islamic bomb?\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n

Pakistan first decided to build a bomb after its larger neighbor had done so. On 18 May 1974 India\u00a0tested<\/a>\u00a0its first nuclear weapon, which it codenamed Smiling Buddha.\u00a0Pakistani Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto immediately\u00a0vowed<\/a>\u00a0to develop nuclear weapons for his own country.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“We will eat grass or leaves, even go hungry, but we will get one of our own,” <\/strong>he said. There was, he declared, “a Christian bomb, a Jewish bomb and now a Hindu bomb.\u00a0<\/strong>Why not an Islamic bomb?”<\/p>\n

Born during British rule of the Indian subcontinent, AQ Khan completed a science degree at Karachi University in 1960 before studying metallurgical engineering in Berlin. He also went on to study in the Netherlands and Belgium. By 1974 Khan was\u00a0working<\/a>\u00a0for a subcontractor of a major nuclear fuel company, Urenco, in Amsterdam.<\/p>\n

The company supplied enriched uranium nuclear fuel for European nuclear reactors<\/strong>. Khan had access to top secret areas of the Urenco facility and blueprints of the world\u2019s best centrifuges<\/strong>, which enriched natural uranium and turned it into bomb fuel.<\/p>\n

In January 1976 he made a sudden and mysterious departure from the Netherlands,\u00a0saying<\/a>\u00a0he had been made \u201can offer I can\u2019t refuse in Pakistan\u201d<\/strong>. Khan was later\u00a0accused<\/a>\u00a0of having stolen a blueprint for uranium centrifuges, which can turn uranium into weapons-grade fuel, from the Netherlands.<\/p>\n

That July he\u00a0set up<\/a>\u00a0a research laboratory in Rawalpindi which produced enriched uranium for nuclear weapons. For a few years the operation proceeded in secret. Dummy companies imported the components Khan needed to build an enrichment program, the official story being that they were going towards a new textile mill<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

While there is significant evidence indicating that Pakistan\u2019s military establishment was supporting Khan\u2019s work, civilian governments were generally kept in the dark, with the exception of Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto (who had proposed the initiative).\u00a0<\/p>\n

Even the late prime minister, Benazir Bhutto, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto\u2019s daughter, was not told a word about the programe by her generals<\/strong>. She only\u00a0found out<\/a>\u00a0about it in 1989 by accident – in Tehran.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Iranian President Rafsanjani\u00a0asked<\/a>\u00a0her whether they could reaffirm the two countries\u2019 agreement on \u201cspecial defense matters\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat exactly are you talking about, Mr President?\u201d <\/strong>asked Bhutto, confused. \u201cNuclear technology, Madam Prime Minister, nuclear technology,\u201d replied the Iranian president. Bhutto was stunned.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Assassination attempts and threats<\/strong><\/p>\n

In June 1979, the operation was\u00a0exposed<\/a>\u00a0by the magazine 8 Days. There was an international uproar. Israel protested to the Dutch, who ordered an inquiry. A Dutch court convicted Khan in 1983 for attempted espionage (the conviction was later overturned on a technicality). But work on the nuclear program continued.<\/p>\n

By 1986, Khan was confident Pakistan had the capability to produce nuclear weapons.<\/p>\n

His motivation was in large part ideological: \u201cI want to question the holier-than-thou attitude of the Americans and British,\u201d<\/strong> he\u00a0said<\/a>. \u201cAre these bastards God-appointed guardians of the world?\u201d<\/p>\n

There were serious efforts to sabotage the program, including a series of assassination attempts widely understood to have been the work of Israel\u2019s intelligence agency, Mossad<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Executives at European companies doing business with Khan found themselves targeted. A\u00a0letter bomb<\/a>\u00a0was sent to one in West Germany – he escaped but his dog was killed. Another bombing\u00a0targeted<\/a>\u00a0a senior executive of Swiss company Cora Engineering, which worked on Pakistan\u2019s nuclear program.<\/p>\n

Historians, including Adrian Levy, Catherine Scott-Clark and Adrian Hanni, have\u00a0argued<\/a>\u00a0that the Mossad used threats and assassination attempts in a failed campaign to prevent Pakistan from building the bomb.\u00a0Siegfried Schertler, the owner of one company,\u00a0told<\/a>\u00a0Swiss Federal Police that Mossad agents phoned him and his salesmen repeatedly.<\/p>\n

He said he was approached by an employee of the Israeli embassy in Germany, a man named David, who told him to stop \u201cthese businesses\u201d regarding nuclear weapons. The Israelis \u201cdidn\u2019t want a Muslim country to have the bomb\u201d<\/strong>,\u00a0according to<\/a>\u00a0Feroz Khan, a former official in Pakistan\u2019s nuclear weapons program.<\/p>\n

Imran Khan (L) walks with AQ Khan after a meeting at his residence in Islamabad on 7 February 2009 (AFP)<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

In the early 1980s Israel\u00a0proposed<\/a>\u00a0to India that the two collaborate to bomb and destroy Pakistan\u2019s nuclear facility at Kahuta in Pakistan\u2019s Rawalpindi district.<\/p>\n

Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi approved the strike. A\u00a0plan<\/a>\u00a0developed for Israeli F-16s and F-15s to take off from the Jamnagar airbase in India\u2019s Gujarat and launch strikes on the facility. But Gandhi later\u00a0backed out<\/a>\u00a0and the plan was shelved.<\/p>\n

In 1987, when her son Rajiv Gandhi was prime minister, the Indian army chief Lieutenant General Krishnaswami Sundarji\u00a0tried<\/a>\u00a0to start a war with Pakistan so India could bomb the nuclear facility at Kahuta.<\/p>\n

He sent half a million troops to the Pakistani border for military drills, along with hundreds of tanks and armored vehicles – an extraordinary provocation. But this attempt at triggering hostilities\u00a0failed<\/a>\u00a0after the Indian prime minister, who had not been properly briefed on Sundarji\u2019s plan, instigated a deescalation with Pakistan.<\/p>\n

Despite Indian and Israeli opposition, both the US and China\u00a0covertly helped<\/a>\u00a0Pakistan. China\u00a0provided<\/a>\u00a0the Pakistanis with enriched uranium, tritium and even scientists. Meanwhile, American support came because Pakistan was an important Cold War ally<\/strong>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

US President Jimmy Carter cut aid to Pakistan in April 1979 in response to Pakistan\u2019s program being exposed, but then\u00a0reversed<\/a>\u00a0the decision months later when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan: America would need the help of neighboring Pakistan<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

In the 1980s, the US\u00a0covertly gave<\/a>\u00a0Pakistani nuclear scientists technical training and turned a blind eye to its program<\/strong>. But everything changed with the end of the Cold War.<\/p>\n

In October 1990 the US\u00a0halted<\/a>\u00a0economic and military aid to Pakistan in protest against the nuclear program. Pakistan then said it would stop developing nuclear weapons.\u00a0AQ Khan later\u00a0revealed<\/a>, though, that the production of highly enriched uranium secretly continued.<\/p>\n

The seventh nuclear power<\/strong><\/p>\n

On 11 May 1998 India\u00a0tested<\/a>\u00a0its nuclear warheads. Pakistan then successfully tested its own in the Balochistan desert later that month. The US responded by sanctioning both India and Pakistan.Pakistan had become the world\u2019s seventh nuclear power.<\/p>\n

And Khan was a national hero. He was driven around in motorcades as large as the prime minister\u2019s and was guarded by army commandos. Streets, schools and multiple cricket teams were\u00a0named<\/a>\u00a0after him. He wasn\u2019t known for playing down his achievements.<\/p>\n

\u201cWho made the atom bomb? I made it,\u201d<\/strong> Khan\u00a0declared<\/a>\u00a0on national television. \u201cWho made the missiles? I made them for you.\u201d But Khan had also organized another, particularly daring, operation.<\/p>\n

From the mid-1980s onwards, he ran an international nuclear network which sent technology and designs to Iran, North Korea and Libya.<\/p>\n

He would\u00a0order<\/a>\u00a0double the number of parts the Pakistani nuclear program required and then secretly sell the excess on.<\/p>\n

In the 1980s the Iranian government – despite Ayatollah Khomeini\u2019s\u00a0opposition<\/a>\u00a0to the bomb on the grounds that it was Islamically prohibited –\u00a0approached<\/a>\u00a0Pakistan\u2019s military dictator, General Zia-ul-Haq, for help. Between 1986 and 2001, Pakistan gave Iran key components needed to make a bomb, although these tended to be secondhand – Khan\u00a0kept<\/a>\u00a0the most advanced technology for Pakistan.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Mossad had Khan\u00a0under surveillance<\/a>\u00a0as he travelled around the Middle East in the 1980s and 1990s, but failed to work out what the scientist was doing.<\/p>\n

Then-Mossad chief\u00a0Shavit<\/a>\u00a0later said that if he had realised Khan\u2019s intentions, he would have considered ordering Khan to be assassinated to \u201cchange the course of history\u201d.<\/p>\n

Gaddafi exposes the operation<\/strong><\/p>\n

In the end, Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi blew Khan\u2019s operation in 2003 while attempting to win support from the US. Gaddafi\u00a0disclosed<\/a>\u00a0to the CIA and MI6 that Khan was building nuclear sites for his government – some of which were disguised as chicken farms.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The CIA\u00a0siezed<\/a>\u00a0machinery bound for Libya as it was being smuggled through the Suez Canal. Investigators found weapons blueprints in bags from an Islamabad dry cleaner<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

When the operation was exposed, the Americans were horrified. \u201cIt was an astounding transformation when you think about it, something we’ve never seen before,” a senior American official told the\u00a0New York Times<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“First, [Khan] exploits a fragmented market and develops a quite advanced nuclear arsenal.\u00a0\u201cThen he throws the switch, reverses the flow and figures out how to sell the whole kit, right down to the bomb designs, to some of the world’s worst governments.”<\/p>\n

In 2004 Khan confessed to running the nuclear proliferation network, saying he had provided Iran, Libya and North Korea with nuclear technology.<\/p>\n

In February, he appeared on television and\u00a0insisted<\/a>\u00a0he had acted alone, with no support from the Pakistani government, which then swiftly pardoned him.\u00a0<\/p>\n

President Musharraf\u00a0called him<\/a>\u00a0\u201cmy hero\u201d. However, reportedly under US pressure,\u00a0he placed Khan under effective house arrest in Islamabad until 2009. Later AQ Khan\u00a0said<\/a>\u00a0that he \u201csaved the country for the first time when I made Pakistan a nuclear nation and saved it again when I confessed and took the whole blame on myself\u201d.<\/p>\n

He was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2006 but recovered after surgery.\u00a0Enormously wealthy, in his later years, Khan funded a community centre in Islamabad and spent his time\u00a0feeding monkeys<\/a>. Those who knew him said Khan firmly believed what he had done was right.<\/p>\n

He wanted to stand up to the west and give nuclear technology to non-western, particularly Muslim, nations.\u00a0\u201cHe also said that giving technology to a Muslim country was not a crime,\u201d one anonymous acquaintance\u00a0recalled<\/a>.<\/p>\n

When Khan died of Covid in 2021, he was\u00a0hailed<\/a>\u00a0as a \u201cnational icon\u201d by then-Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan<\/strong>. And that is how he is still widely remembered today in Pakistan.<\/p>\n

\u201c[The] nation should be rest assured Pakistan is a safe atomic power,\u201d the nuclear scientist had\u00a0declared<\/a>\u00a0in 2019. \u201cNo one can cast an evil eye on it.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Tyler Durden<\/a><\/span>
\nWed, 06\/25\/2025 – 22:10<\/span><\/p>\n

\u200bhttps:\/\/www.zerohedge.com\/geopolitical\/why-not-islamic-bomb-how-israel-planned-failed-stop-pakistan-going-nuclear<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

‘Why Not An Islamic Bomb?’: How Israel Planned & Failed To Stop Pakistan Going Nuclear Via Middle East Eye Former CIA Director George Tenet\u00a0thought\u00a0him “at…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":1543780,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1543779","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","wpcat-1-id"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbimBl-6tBF","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2025\/06\/pkncscientist-JtE0Fn.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1543779","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1543779"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1543779\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1543780"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1543779"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1543779"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1543779"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}