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Fears of terrorist nuclear jihad, following Taliban raid on Pakistan naval base

Signalling the launch of nuclear jihad!, The Pioneer , May 30, 2011  Kanchan Gupta After the Taliban’s daring raid on PNS Mehran, a heavily guarded naval base in Karachi, the world, and not only the US, has reason to worry, if not be alarmed. This is not just another incident of radical Islamists demonstrating their ability to strike terror with the help of brainwashed young men desperate to die in the hope of frolicking with 72 nubile nymphets in the other world; it signals enhanced capability on part of Pakistan’s terrorists to attack high security targets.

As Prof Shaun Gregory, director of the Pakistan Security Research Unit at Bradford University (we shall return to him later) says, “This is a blueprint for an attack on nuclear facilities.”……
Prof Shaun Gregory. In August 2009 he had written an article, “The terrorist threat to Pakistan’s nuclear weapons”, in the monthly journal of the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, the well-known military college in the US, warning, “The risk of the transfer of nuclear weapons, weapons components or nuclear expertise to terrorists in Pakistan is genuine.” (See Coffee Break, August 16, 2009.) He had then gone on to explain how empirical evidence shows the claims of foolproof security and safeguards at nuclear establishments in Pakistan were over-hyped and unreliable. He had listed at least three attempts by jihadis to storm nuclear weapons storage facilities.

“Civilian nuclear weapons sites — those sites where Pakistan’s nuclear weapons are manufactured, assembled or taken for refurbishment — are typically less protected than military sites where nuclear weapons are stored, deployed and operated,” Prof Gregory wrote, adding, “The attacks at the Wah cantonment highlight the vulnerability of nuclear weapons infrastructure sites to at least three forms of terrorist assault: a) an attack to cause a fire at a nuclear weapons facility, which would create a radiological hazard; b) an attack to cause an explosion at a nuclear weapons facility involving a nuclear weapon or components, which would create a radiological hazard; or c) an attack with the objective of seizing control of nuclear weapons components or possibly a nuclear weapon. On the latter point, Pakistan’s usual separation of nuclear weapons components is compromised to a degree by the need to assemble weapons at certain points in the manufacture and refurbishment cycle at civilian sites, and by the requirement for co-location of the separate components at military sites so that they can be mated quickly if necessary in crises.”

Everybody thought Prof Gregory was exaggerating unfounded fears. He was not. The raid on PNS Mehran tells us so!…….The Pioneer :: Home : >> Signalling the launch of nuclear jihad!..

May 30, 2011 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Pakistan, safety