Foreign News
Al Qaeda’s Interest In Pak Nukes Grows As War Worsens
“The Afghanistan-Pakistan war is becoming a nuclear security problem,” warns Dr Sara Harmouch, Lebanese origin counterterrorism specialist and the CEO of H9 Defense, a US-based research and advisory consultancy specializing in terrorism, national security, geopolitical risk, threat assessment, and open-source intelligence.
In an analysis in IrregularWarfare.org, Harmouch argued that “For more than twenty years, several barriers kept Pakistan’s nuclear weapons beyond militant groups’ reach. The United States and its allies had troops and intelligence networks in Afghanistan. Washington and Islamabad cooperated on counterterrorism and nuclear security.
“Pakistan also built a serious system to guard its arsenal. Together, these measures made it much harder for al-Qaeda to gain access to Pakistan’s nuclear enterprise.”
Al Qaeda’s Atomic Ambitions
But she believes the current war across the Durand Line has weakened those barriers. Afghanistan is again a sanctuary for Al Qaeda, which is strengthening ties with the Tehreek-e-Taliban (TTP) at a time when the US is no longer in Afghanistan.
“Pakistan, meanwhile, is guarding a larger and more mobile arsenal while fighting terrorism, insurgency, and a cross-border conflict along its western frontier. The war now reaches beyond the border and into the security of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal,” Harmouch writes.
Three years back, Ibrahim al-Qosi, a senior figure of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, signalled renewed interest in weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in the latest update to an earlier book he had written.
Then Saif al-Adel al-Qaeda’s presumed de facto chief, wrote that only WMD could deter the West. Recall that he had helped run al-Qaeda’s original nuclear effort and its early attempts to buy uranium.
The group also retains some of its 9/11 era nuclear experts, including Ali Sayyid Muhammad Mustafa al-Bakri, the chemist Khalid Sheikh Mohammed called al-Qaeda’s “nuclear chief,” who remains at large in Iran alongside al-Adel.
Describing Taliban-run Afghanistan as a “permissive sanctuary”, Harmouch notes that Al Qaeda “is rebuilding training pipelines, deepening regional relationships, and tightening operational ties to the TTP, the Pakistani Taliban insurgency fighting Islamabad.
“It is increasingly acting as a service provider to the TTP, offering guidance, expertise, and operational support, Harmouch warns. “Al-Qaeda brings the nuclear ambition while the TTP brings local access, manpower, and direct pressure on the institutions Pakistan relies on to secure its arsenal.”
Nuclear Infra Threatened
Beset with insurgencies whether along the Afghan frontier or in Balochistan, Pakistan’s military and security resources are stretched with most attacks focused on the north and west of the country. This is where the nuclear infrastructure is located.
All this happening at a time when Pakistan has made changes to its higher defence organisation, making it unclear who coordinates the services, who manages nuclear command, and how authority flows in a crisis.
Its nuclear arsenal has increased to 170 warheads, dispersed across the armed forces, making it more difficult to protect during a crisis.
The danger is not that al-Qaeda will steal a nuke, more likely it will be somebody within the nuclear establishment, maybe a technician, an engineer or even security personnel whose Islamist sympathies have eluded layers of checks.
Recall that Pakistani nuclear scientists had met al-Qaeda’s late leader Ayman Zawahiri to brief him on the infra required for a nuclear weapons programme. In 2014, Pakistani naval officers suborned by al-Qaeda were involved in a plot to seize a frigate and turn its missiles on US vessels in the Arabian Sea.
It’s important therefore that the US resume the nuclear security dialogue with Pakistan and press regional capitals that the Afghanistan-Pakistan war should be of nuclear security concern.
