Real threat of an Islamist takeover of Pakistan’s WMD comes from jihadists within the military, not the Taliban, Radical Islamism and Jihad

Radical Islamism and Jihad

Real threat of an Islamist takeover of Pakistan’s WMD comes from jihadists within the military, not the Taliban

Insider threat to Pakistan’s ‘crown jewels’

By Brahma Chellaney

25 May 2009

Pakistan’s nuclear-stockpile security is handled by the so-called Strategic Plans Division, with a special, 1,000-troop unit. But as Ms Clinton acknowledged, the Pakistani nukes are “widely dispersed,” with the storage sites extending beyond the Punjab heartland to the Sind and Baluchistan provinces. Add to that America’s admittedly limited knowledge on the location of these sites. The U.S. may thus have few good options to pre-emptively seize the nuclear arms before an Islamist takeover of Pakistan.

To be sure, the Strategic Plans Division — the keeper of the country’s nuclear secrets — is headed by a U.S.-backed general, Khalid Kidwai, who was held in India as a prisoner of the 1971 war and released following the 1972 Shimla Agreement. Mr. Kidwai has headed the SPD ever since it was created after the 1998 nuclear tests.

It was on Mr. Kidwai’s watch that the infamous A.Q. Khan-led nuclear-smuggling ring remained in operation. How reassuring is that fact? Indeed, it was Mr. Kidwai whom military ruler Pervez Musharraf used to extract a tutored confession from Khan so that the entire blame for the illicit nuclear ring could fall on a single individual, sparing the military establishment — a charade the Bush administration readily went along with.

To tamp down growing international concerns over the safety of Pakistan’s “crown jewels” and to win congressional passage of his record-level aid package for Pakistan, U.S. President Barack Obama said on April 29: “I’m confident we can make sure that Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal is secure, primarily, initially, because the Pakistani army, I think, recognizes the hazards of those weapons falling into the wrong hands.” Mr. Obama’s confidence is rooted unbelievably in his belief that the jihadist-penetrated Pakistani army is taking cognizance of such perils. In fact, he suggested Washington still trusts the Pakistani army with custodial control of nuclear assets, thereby compounding the simultaneous insult he hurled at President Asif Ali Zardari’s elected government in calling it “very fragile,” ineffectual and unable “to gain the support and loyalty” of the Pakistani people.

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