How Safe Is Pakistan’s Nuclear Arsenal
June 23, 2009 by national
Filed under World Report
The safety of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal is a cause for international concern. Even as the Zardari regime is waging a war against Taliban in the Swat valley with support of the US, Taliban has made known its resolve to seize control of the nuclear arsenal of Pakistan and use it to fight the US. The US won’t allow Pakistan’s nuclear arms to pass into the hands of Taliban.
To checkmate that possibility, US has enough safeguards in place to take over Pak’s nuclear weapons in case Islamist fighters came close to doing so. US President Barack Obama recently expressed the confidence that Pakistani government has safeguarded its nuclear arsenal. However, no one has been able to ascertain the validity of Pakistan’s assurances about their nuclear weapons security.
Al Qaeda Says They Would Use Pakistani Nuclear Weapons
If it were in a position to do so, Al Qaeda would use Pakistan’s nuclear weapons in its fight against the United States, a top leader of the group said in remarks aired on Sunday.
Pakistan has been battling al Qaeda’s Taliban allies in the Swat Valley since April after their thrust into a district 100 km 60 miles northwest of the capital raised fears the nuclear-armed country could slowly slip into militant hands.
“God willing, the nuclear weapons will not fall into the hands of the Americans and the mujahideen would take them and use them against the Americans,” Mustafa Abu al-Yazid, the leader of al Qaeda’s in Afghanistan, said in an interview with Al Jazeera television.
Abu al-Yazid was responding to a question about U.S. safeguards to seize control over Pakistan’s nuclear weapons in case Islamist fighters came close to doing so.
“We expect that the Pakistani army would be defeated in Swat … and that would be its end everywhere, God willing.”
Why You Should Worry About Pakistans Nukes
May 19, 2009 by national
Filed under World Report
Few who lived through the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962 will forget the fear and apprehension they felt. The world stood on the brink of a nuclear holocaust as U.S. ships imposed a blockade to force Soviet missiles out of Cuba. Everyone heaved a sigh of relief as the Soviets agreed to remove their missiles in exchange for an American pledge not to invade Cuba, but all agreed a cataclysmic nuclear war had been only narrowly averted. Of the lessons that came from this episode, the one that stands out is that never again should the United States be put in a position where its cities are so close to nuclear destruction. Many assumed that lesson had been learned as decades of arms control, détente, and the end of the Cold War seemingly removed the specter of nuclear attack from our collective consciousness.
Well, just when you thought it was safe not to worry about nuclear annihilation, a new crisis has emerged that actually poses a greater threat of an American city being obliterated by a nuclear weapon than anything that occurred during the Cold War: As Pakistan becomes engulfed in chaos, there is a real chance that its nuclear weapons will fall into the hands of extremists determined to kill as many Americans as they can. Although the public has yet to pay much attention to what is happening in Pakistan and there is nowhere near the level of hysteria that gripped the United States nearly 50 years ago, the prospect of a nuclear weapon from Pakistan exploding on American soil is much higher than a Soviet attack from Cuba ever was. If anything can make one nostalgic for the bad old days of the Cold War, what is happening in Pakistan today is surely it.
It helps to first look back at the Cold War to see why the current nuclear threat from Pakistan is so much worse. To be sure, during the Cold War the United States and the Soviet Union each had some 10,000 nuclear warheads ready to strike each other. Neither the United States nor the Soviet Union could prevent the other from launching a devastating attack, nor could either country defend itself once a strike had been launched. The conflict between communism and capitalism, a series of regional confrontations, and the natural competition between the two strongest states in a bipolar system all threatened to turn the Cold War hot. And yet, a superpower nuclear war never happened. The reason the Soviet Union and the United States never came to nuclear blows is crystal clear: Deterrence worked. The leaders of the Soviet Union and the United States recognized that launching a nuclear attack would be suicidal, and neither leadership embraced death for their countries or themselves.
U.S. Has Plan to Secure Pakistan Nukes if Country Falls to Taliban
May 14, 2009 by national
Filed under World Report
The United States has a detailed plan for infiltrating Pakistan and securing its mobile arsenal of nuclear warheads if it appears the country is about to fall under the control of the Taliban, Al Qaeda or other Islamic extremists.
American intelligence sources say the operation would be conducted by Joint Special Operations Command, the super-secret commando unit headquartered at Fort Bragg, N.C.
JSOC is the military’s chief terrorists hunting squad and has units now operating in Afghanistan on Pakistan’s western border. But a secondary mission is to secure foreign nuclear arsenals — a role for which JSOC operatives have trained in Nevada.
The mission has taken on added importance in recent months, as Islamic extremists have taken territory close to the capital of Islamabad and could destabilize Pakistan’s shaky democracy.
“We have plans to secure them ourselves if things get out of hand,” said a U.S. intelligence source who has deployed to Afghanistan. “That is a big secondary mission for JSOC in Afghanistan.”
The source said JSOC has been updating its mission plan for the day President Obama gives the order to infiltrate Pakistan.
“Small units could seize them, disable them and then centralize them in a secure location,” the source said.
A secret Defense Intelligence Agency document first disclosed in 2004 said Pakistan has a nuclear arsenal of 35 weapons. The document said it plans to more than double the arsenal by 2020.
Pakistan Most Dangerous Country In The World
May 12, 2009 by national
Filed under World Report
Extremist attacks across nuclear-armed Pakistan in recent years have made it “the most dangerous country in the world,” Canada’s Defense Minister Peter MacKay said Monday.
“I’m extremely concerned,” MacKay told a press conference. “The instability in Pakistan in my view makes Pakistan the most dangerous country in the world.”
Around 12,000 to 15,000 Pakistan security forces are battling Islamist fighters in three northwest districts in what Islamabad says is a fight to eliminate militants — branded by Washington as the greatest terror threat to the West.
Extremist attacks have killed at least 1,800 people across Pakistan in less than two years and around Pakistani 2,000 soldiers have died in battles with Islamist militants since 2002.
MacKay said the Taliban’s recruiting and rearming in Pakistan is also harming NATO efforts to rout insurgents in neighboring Afghanistan, where Canada has deployed some 2,800 troops.
“As long as insurgency is allowed to foster and to incubate inside Pakistan, the problem remains very real, very difficult,” he said.
via AFP: Pakistan ‘most dangerous country in the world’.
Pakistan Won’t Disclose Location of Nuclear Weapons To US
May 10, 2009 by national
Filed under World Report
Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari said his country isn’t adding to its nuclear arsenal and doesn’t have to disclose the location of its weapons to the U.S.
Pakistan is “not adding to our stockpile as such,” Zardari said today on NBC’s “Meet the Press” program. “Why do we need more?”
Asked whether Pakistan would tell U.S. intelligence officials where all its nuclear weapons are located, to allow for a joint strategy to keep them secure, Zardari said Pakistan is a sovereign country.
“Why don’t you do the same with other countries yourself?” Zardari said in the interview taped May 7. “I think this is a sovereignty issue, and we have a right to our own sovereignty.”
President Barack Obama said last month that, while Pakistan’s civilian government is “very fragile,” he is confident that the country’s nuclear arsenal is secure. He also said that Pakistan’s military is taking the threat of internal enemies seriously and recognizes the hazard of nuclear weapons “falling into the wrong hands.”
“We have confidence in their security procedures and elements and believe that the security of those sites is adequate,” General David Petraeus, the head of U.S. Central Command, said today on “Fox News Sunday
Pakistan’s Vows To Eliminate Taliban
May 10, 2009 by national
Filed under World Report
Pakistan’s Prime Minister used a late-night, nationally televised address to officially announce a military operation to “eliminate” the Taliban in the country’s volatile northwest, where the largest human exodus in South Asia since the partition of India and Pakistan continued for the twelfth straight day.
And in response…
Angered by Pakistan government’s decision to launch an all out war against them, the Taliban has vowed to “eliminate” country’s top leadership including President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani and their close family members.
“We thought that being a member of a religious family, Gilani will support our demand of implementing Sharia in the Malakand division but instead he has announced an all-out war against us, which has angered our commanders as well as fighters,” an unnamed Taliban commander told The News daily.
The militant commander, who spoke to the newspaper by phone, said after Gilani declared during an address to the nation on Thursday that the Taliban would be wiped out from the Swat Valley and adjoining areas, the militants had started planning to “eliminate the top leaders of the ruling alliance, including President, Prime Minister and their close family members and aides”.
The commander said Gilani’s hometown of Multan and tomb of former premier Benazir Bhutto might also be targeted by the militants.
“Besides, the personnel and installations of security forces, we have now also included civilian rulers in our hit list. We will definitely need some time to plan our actions but it is not impossible for us and we have all the means to implement our plan of attack anywhere in Pakistan,” he claimed.
The militant commander confirmed that the chief of the outlawed Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, Baitullah Mehsud, was advising militants in Swat in their fight against the security forces. He said Mehsud had advised the Swat chapter of his group to plan attacks on civilian leaders.
Pakistan Troops Bomb Taliban, Govt Says No More Dialogue
May 7, 2009 by national
Filed under World Report
Unleashing an all-out war on the Taliban, Pakistani fighter jets today pounded militant positions in the restive tribal belt, where a son of a pro-Taliban cleric who negotiated a controversial peace deal in Swat was killed in shelling by troops.
As the government said there will be no more negotiations with the Taliban in Swat and they will be dealt with sternly, security forces targeted militants holed up in Malam Jabba, Matta and Khawaza Khela of the valley.
Thousands of panic-stricken civilians streamed out of the area as fighting intensified. Pakistan government estimates that about 500,000 people could be displaced due to the escalating military operations in the troubled region. About 40,000 people have already fled the valley.
Chairing a meeting of his cabinet yesterday, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani sent out a “clear message” that the militants will be “crushed with full force” and not given any relaxation as peace had not been restored even after the government implemented Shariah or Islamic law in Swat.
“The writ of the government will be established without listening to these elements from now onwards,” he said.
Taliban Islamists Nearing Pakistani Nukes
May 7, 2009 by national
Filed under World Report
Israel and the US should be focusing more on the Taliban’s rise in nuclear Pakistan than on Iran’s nuclear aims, more and more experts are saying.
“Pakistan must move to the top of our strategic agenda,” writes former US Ambassador to the UN John Bolton. Similarly, “Nuclear Taliban/Al Qaida is a far more ominous threat than nuclear Iran could ever be,” writes Byron Ellis, who heads the international Jethro Project consulting company.
Bolton, writing in The Wall Street Journal on Monday, warns that the U.S. must take “hard steps” to prevent Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal from falling into the hands of Taliban. U.S. President Barack Obama’s statement of confidence last week that the nuclear arsenal will not fall to the terrorists is “not reassuring,” Bolton writes, “in light of the Taliban’s military and political gains throughout Pakistan.”
There is a “tangible risk that several weapons could slip out of military control,” Bolton warns. “Such weapons could then find their way to Al Qaeda or other terrorists, with obvious global implications.”
Even graver is the possibility that Pakistan’s government could collapse entirely, enabling “a well-organized, tightly disciplined group to seize control of the entire Pakistani government.”
“To prevent either scenario, Pakistan must move to the top of our strategic agenda, albeit closely related to Afghanistan,” he wrote. “Neither greater economic assistance, nor more civilian advisers upcountry, nor stronger democratic institutions will eliminate the strategic threat nearly soon enough… We must strengthen pro-American elements in Pakistan’s military so they can purge dangerous Islamicists from their ranks; roll back Taliban advances; and, together with our increased efforts in Afghanistan, decisively defeat the militants on either side of the border.”
Pakistan Continues To Spiral Into Chaos
May 5, 2009 by national
Filed under World Report
When neither a society nor its military can muster the will to identify and fight, as a nation, a lethal enemy among them, it’s over. Such is the condition in Pakistan. Pakistan, as a nation-state, is on a rapid path to implosion, disintegration and then explosion.
In short, it matters little what we do with them, what we do for them, what we give them, or what kinds of support we lend Islamabad. Unless and until the fragmented Pakistani society can uniformly identify the Taliban and al-Qaeda terrorists, no matter their heritage, as mortal enemies; and unless and until the Pakistani military can acknowledge this and muster the will to fight them and fight for the diverse society as a Pakistani nation, neither will survive.
And the above conditions seem not in the cards. And anointing Nawaz Sharif (ahem) Prime Minister once again may forestall or delay the al-Qaeda-induced and self-enabled fall of Pakistan, but it most certainly will not prevent it.
I could write a lengthy and heady analysis of the myriad conditions and complexities defining the dismal state of affairs and bleak outlook. But there you have it in a nutshell. For another succinct nutshell with the same conclusions, see John Robb.
A nation that will not save itself cannot be saved. We will simply have to adjust. And with much alacrity and urgency.
Pakistan Nuclear Scenarios
As the Pakistani military launched a new offensive against the Taliban in the country’s Swat valley, officials in Washington continued to debate what the American response should be to the heightened conflict. Of particular concern is the security of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons sites. We asked several experts to describe the consequences of the worsening situation there and how the United States should respond to it.
500,000 Flee Swat Valley
Fighting between Taliban militants and troops in a northwestern valley triggered an exodus the government said Tuesday could see 500,000 people flee and signaled the end of a peace deal in the area widely criticized as a surrender to the extremists.
Hundreds have already fled the Swat Valley, adding to the hundreds of thousands of existing refugees driven from other regions in the northwest over the last year by fighting between soldiers and insurgents, witnesses said.
The deteriorating situation in the valley came as Pakistan’s leader prepared for talks in Washington with President Barack Obama on how to sharpen his country’s fight against Al Qaeda and the Taliban, which are blamed for attacks in both Pakistan and Afghanistan.
U.S. officials said Obama would seek assurances from President Asif Ali Zardari that his country’s nuclear arsenal was safe and that the military intended to face down extremists in coordination with Afghanistan and the United States.
Growing Concern Over Taliban Advances In Pakistan
May 4, 2009 by national
Filed under World Report
Advances by the Taliban Sharpen U.S. Concerns
The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, said Monday that he was “gravely concerned” about Taliban advances in Pakistan and Afghanistan, as President Obama prepared for meetings here this week with President Asif Ali Zardari of Pakistan in an atmosphere of crisis.
Recent militant gains in Pakistan have so alarmed the White House that the national security adviser, Gen. James L. Jones, described the situation as “one of the very most serious problems we face.” Pakistan, he said Monday, “has to survive as a democratic nation.”
There were new signs of uneasiness on Capitol Hill about United States involvement in the region. The Democratic chairman of the House Appropriations Committee pronounced himself as “very doubtful” that Mr. Obama’s plan for Afghanistan and Pakistan could succeed. The chairman, Representative David Obey, of Wisconsin, said he would allow only one year for the White House to show concrete results, and repeatedly likened Mr. Obama’s approach to President Richard Nixon’s plans for Vietnam in 1969.
US fears grow over theft of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons
As the insurgency of the Taleban and al-Qaeda spreads in Pakistan, senior American officials have said they are increasingly concerned about Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal, including the potential for militants to snatch a weapon in transit or to insert sympathisers into laboratories or fuel-production facilities.
The United States officials have emphasised there was no reason to believe that the arsenal, most of which is south of the capital, Islamabad, faced an imminent threat. But the US still does not know where all of Pakistan’s nuclear sites are, and the concerns have intensified since the Taleban recently flooded into Buner, a district just 60 miles from the capital.
Pakistani officials have continued to rebuff requests from Washington for more specifics about the location and security of the country’s nuclear sites.
Some of the Pakistani reluctance, the US officials said, stemmed from concern that the US might be tempted to seize or destroy Pakistan’s arsenal if the insurgency appeared about to engulf areas near the sites.
But US officials said they had not yet engaged the most senior officials of the Pakistani government on the issue, a process that may begin this week with President Asif Ali Zardari scheduled to visit Barack Obama in Washington tomorrow.
West Warned on Nuclear Terrorist Threat From Pakistan
April 12, 2009 by national
Filed under Homeland Security News
The next few months will be crucial in defusing a global terrorist threat that would be even deadlier than the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, a leading Washington counter-terrorism expert warns.
David Kilcullen — a former Australian army lieutenant colonel who helped devise the US troop surge that revitalised the American campaign in Iraq — fears Pakistan is at risk of falling under al-Qaeda control.
If that were to happen, the terrorist group could end up controlling what Dr Kilcullen calls “Talibanistan”. “Pakistan is what keeps me awake at night,” said Dr Kilcullen, who was a specialist adviser for the Bush administration and is now a consultant to the Obama White House.
“Pakistan has 173 million people and 100 nuclear weapons, an army which is bigger than the American army, and the headquarters of al-Qaeda sitting in two-thirds of the country which the Government does not control.”
Compounding that threat, the Pakistani security establishment ignored direction from the elected Government in Islamabad as waves of extremist violence spread across the whole country — not just in the tribal wilds of the Afghan border region.
“We have to face the fact that if Pakistan collapses it will dwarf anything we have seen so far in whatever we’re calling the war on terror now,” Dr Kilcullen told The Age during an interview at his Washington office. Late last month, when US President Barack Obama unveiled his new policy on Afghanistan and Pakistan, he warned that al-Qaeda would fill the vacuum if Afghanistan collapsed, and that the terror group was already rooted in Pakistan, plotting more attacks on the US.
As the US implements its new strategy in Central Asia, Dr Kilcullen warned that time was running out for international efforts to pull both countries back from the brink.
