Posted by NEWS on 6/7/2005, 18:21:34, in reply to "Where terror and the bomb could meet - Pt-1" While the aspirations of a few Islamic countries to acquire nuclear weapons are wedded to the idea of the "Islamic bomb", al-Qaeda's quest for components and know-how relating to weapons of mass destruction reflect on the potential rise of nuclear terror throughout the world. The role of wealthy and politically connected Saudi Arabian families in secretly funding al-Qaeda and other Islamist terror organizations has, until now, been kept deliberately in the background by Washington, largely out of sensitivity to the precarious internal situation in Saudi Arabia itself. King Fahd is near death, and his designated successor, Crown Prince Abdullah, is known to be more actively hostile to American foreign policy, and more sympathetic to militant Wahhabi Sunni currents in the Islamic world. Washington knows well that a head-on clash with the Saudi royal house at present would serve the interests only of the radical faction inside the Royal family. A major strategic goal of al-Qaeda's terror attacks within Saudi Arabia in recent years has been to escalate pressure on what are regarded as Westernized corrupt elements of the Saudi royal house, with the aim of replacing them with fanatical feudal Wahhabi elements - a kind of Talibanization of the Saudi Kingdom. The internal Saudi situation is complicated by the fact that many powerful Saudi families financially support the al-Qaeda effort as part of a strategy to purge the kingdom of "infidels and Western corruption". In many cases these influential Saudis reach into the extended royal family, including the murky figure of the former Saudi intelligence chief, Turki al-Faisal, son of the late King Faisal. The Americans had accused Turki's Faisal Islamic Bank of involvement in running accounts for bin Laden and his associates. Turki himself maintained ongoing ties with bin Laden even after the latter fled Saudi Arabia in the mid-1990s, after imprisonment by order of the king. Considered close to both bin Laden as well as Khan, it was Turki who had persuaded King Fahd to grant diplomatic recognition to the Taliban. The possibility of Turki having played a role in a nuclear deal between bin Laden and Khan cannot, consequently, be ruled out, especially when many members of the Pakistani military and nuclear establishments have been found involved in holding meetings with the al-Qaeda leader. The first indications of the presence of pro-jihadi scientists in Pakistan's nuclear establishment came to notice during the US-led allied forces' military operations in Afghanistan against al-Qaeda and the Taliban, when documents recovered by troops reportedly spoke of the visits of Pakistani nuclear scientist, Sultan Bashiruddin Mahmood, to Kandahar when bin Laden was operating from there before September 11. Bashiruddin was the first head of the Kahuta uranium enrichment project before Khan, who replaced Bashiruddin in the 1970s. Subsequent investigations carried out by American intelligence discovered that bin Laden had contacted these scientists for assistance in making a small nuclear device. On February 12, 2004, Khan appeared on Pakistan's state-run television after holding a lengthy meeting with Musharraf and confessed to having been "solely responsible" for operating an international black market in nuclear-weapon materials. The next day, on television again, Musharraf, who claimed to be shocked by Khan's misdeeds, nonetheless pardoned him, citing his service to Pakistan (he called Khan "my hero"). For two decades, the Western media and their intelligence agencies have linked Khan and the Pakistani Inter Services Intelligence to nuclear-technology transfers, and it was hard to credit the idea that the successive governments Khan served had been oblivious of these activities. In the post-September 11 period, analysts continue to express fears about the possibility of extremist Islamic groups like al-Qaeda gaining access to Pakistan's nuclear weapons or fissile or radioactive materials. Secret deals with Saudi Arabia can only aggravate such risks and concerns.
Following the departure of American troops from its soil, the biggest problem for the Saudi Kingdom is how to deal with such nuclear contingencies. More recently, Saudi officials have discussed the procurement of new Pakistani intermediate-range missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads. Some concern remains that Saudi Arabia, like its neighbors, might be seeking to acquire nuclear weapons, apparently by purchase rather than indigenous development. The 2,700-kilometer range CSS-2 missiles the kingdom obtained from China in 1987 are useless if fitted only with conventional warheads. One cannot, therefore, avoid the inference that, like the Pakistan-North Korean "nukes for missiles deal", Khan might have struck an "oil for nukes" deal with Saudi Arabia on behalf of Islamabad at a time when there was a growing homogeneity of strong pan-Islamic affiliations worldwide. If Khan's interaction with the scientists of Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Libya were similar to those during his reported visits to North Korea, norms of the non-proliferation regimes can be expected to have been more brazenly violated.
Amir Mir is a senior Pakistani journalist affiliated with the Karachi-based monthly, Newsline.
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