Still Think Pakistan's Nuclear Arsenal Is Secure?

The Pakistani military and government doesn't want people to realize just how close they've come to having the Islamic terrorists breaking into their secure nuclear facilities.

There were three substantial attacks against nuclear installations in Pakistan. None of the three made much in the way of press, but the fallout could have been devastating if the terrorists succeeded (literally and figuratively).

The incidents, tracked by Shaun Gregory, a professor at Bradford University in UK, include an attack on the nuclear missile storage facility at Sargodha on November 1, 2007, an attack on Pakistan's nuclear airbase at Kamra by a suicide bomber on December 10, 2007, and perhaps most significantly the August 20, 2008 attack when Pakistani Taliban suicide bombers blew up several entry points to one of the armament complexes at the Wah cantonment, considered one of Pakistan's main nuclear weapons assembly.

These attacks have occurred even as Pakistan has taken several steps to secure and fortify its nuclear weapons against potential attacks, particularly by the United States and India, says Gregory.

In fact, the attacks have received so little attention that Peter Bergen, the eminent terrorism expert who reviewed Gregory's paper first published in West Point's Counter Terrorism Center Sentinel, said "he (Gregory) points out something that was news to me (and shouldn't have been) which is that a series of attacks on Pakistan's nuclear weapons facilities have already happened."

Pakistan insists that its nuclear weapons are fully secured and there is no chance of them falling into the hands of the extremists or terrorists.

But Gregory, while detailing the steps Islamabad has taken to protect them against Indian and US attacks, asks if the geographical location of Pakistan's principle nuclear weapons infrastructure, which is mainly in areas dominated by al-Qaida and Taliban, makes it more vulnerable to internal attacks.

I've raised serious questions about Pakistan's nuclear arsenal and its security in the face of the Islamist threat. Al Qaeda, possessing such weapons, could use the threat of nuclear blackmail to have its way with much of South Asia and indeed the rest of the world.

Pakistan's nuclear arsenal is not nearly as secure as the Pakistanis would like the world to believe, and we are only as safe as the least secure nuclear arsenal when it comes to the threat of terrorists gaining access and control of a nuclear weapon.

UPDATE:
I contacted Bill Roggio, who runs the Long War Journal, for his take on the situation, and he came away unsurprised by this revelation. In fact, he noted that he wrote that al Qaeda and the Taliban were specifically targeting nuclear installations back in 2007 and 2008.

He also notes that he doesn't have a feel for whether the Pakistanis have improved security since those attacks.