"Taliban strategy could threaten Pakistan’s nukes"

"Administration officials see a sinister new shift in Taliban strategy in the latest attacks on Pakistani nuclear scientists and engineers, key players in developing Islamabad’s strategic weaponry. ...

Former U.S. intelligence officials believe the Tehrik-e-Taliban were also responsible for a May 27 attack on a Lahore police station and the local office of Pakistan’s ISI intelligence service, killing 15 police officers, one ISI lt. colonel and 10 other persons.

Other Tehrik-e-Taliban targets include the Kahuta Research Laboratories which built Pakistan’s nuclear bombs, weapons grade uranium and long-range missiles, along with the Army-run Mechanical Complex at Taxila, both built with Chinese assistance.

“The terrorists are sending a clear message:
they can strike where they want, what they want, and when they want,” said an
administration official.

John Nagl, president of the Center for New American Security, said recently: that the “brew” of the growing strength of the Pakistan terror group Tehrik-e-Taliban and its “potential to damage the Pakistan government and to seize control of at least some of Islamabad’s nuclear weapons” is the “most dangerous brew in the world today.”...

According to U.S. and Indian intelligence officials, the TTP are perhaps the most formidable of the jihadi groups because it contains a growing number of ex-servicemen from the Pakistani army. Members of the Pashtun tribe contributed a large number of trained and experienced soldiers and officers to the Pakistan army when Pakistan was established in 1947.

According to recent statements by Bahukutumbi Raman, a former senior Indian intelligence expert, the Pakistani government neglected these servicemen after their terms of service were up, and the TTP was quick to utilize them, not only for the training of new recruits but also for conducting operations....

But the latest attack is clear evidence that the TTP has devised a new strategy that focuses more of its power in attacking key, highly sensitive military facilities, acting on its vow to topple the Pakistan government and seize its nuclear weapons. ...

For several former CIA officials the strike demonstrated the excellent and timely intelligence possessed by TTP operatives. “The attackers had very exact information,” said one. Part of the TTP’s excellence is due to its gifted leader, Baitullah Mehsud from the Shubi Khel branch of the Mehsud tribe in Pakistan’s South Waziristan region. ...His career has been colorful. After the U.S.-invasion of Afghanistan, Baitullah fled Afghanistan and went to South Waziristan....

Some of the American technicians have had direct access to the nuclear weapons themselves, these sources said.

In any case, Pakistan’s nukes are currently secure, in the opinion of several former and serving U.S. officials. “They are for now,” said one.Yet doubt still lingers.

Asked if Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal was safe, former senior CIA official Milt Bearden was skeptical. “We don’t even know where it all is,” he said.

But South Asia expert Anthony Cordesman replied, “If the Pakistanis thought we knew where it all was, they’d move it.”

Richard Sale