NEW DELHI : Top-secret U.S. Intelligence files show new levels of distrust of Pakistan’s nuclear arms and ‘previously undisclosed’ concerns over its biological and chemical sites.
The distrust is related to the fear that Islamists could seize materials from government-run laboratories, The Washington Post reported today.
No other nation draws as much scrutiny as Pakistan across so many categories of national security concern, the report said.
Quoting a 178-page summary of the US intelligence community’s ‘black budget,’ the American daily said Pakistan appeared at the top of charts listing critical US intelligence gaps.
Fears about the security of Pakistan’s nuclear programme are so pervasive that a budget section on containing the spread of illicit weapons divides the world into two categories: Pakistan and everybody else, the Post said.
The disclosures based on documents provided to The Washington Post by former intelligence whistle blower Edward Snowden expose broad new levels of US distrust in an already unsteady security partnership with Pakistan.
They also reveal a more expansive effort to gather intelligence on Pakistan than US officials have disclosed.
Other classified documents which pertain to the period 2010 to 2012 reveal that senior Pakistani military and intelligence leaders were ‘orchestrating a wave of extrajudicial killings’ of terrorism suspects and other militants. The American agencies were aware of these developments, the daily said.
The stark assessments of Pakistan contained in the budget files seem at odds with the signals that US officials have conveyed in public, The Post said.
The Director of National Intelligence James R Clapper Jr, in an internal overview, had cautioned about most critical set of intelligence gaps that exist despite the creation of a ‘Pakistan WMD Analysis Cell to track movements of nuclear materials.’
These blind spots were especially worrisome ‘given the political instability, terrorist threat and expanding inventory [of nuclear weapons] in that country.’
According to The Washington Post, the US intelligence agencies are focused on two particularly worrisome scenarios.
One, the possibility that Pakistan’s nuclear facilities might come under attack by Islamist militants, as its army headquarters in Rawalpindi did in 2009.
Two, the possibility that Islamist militants might have penetrated the ranks of Pakistan’s military or intelligence services, putting them in a position to launch an insider attack or smuggle out nuclear material.
Concerns persist that extremists could seize components of the stockpile or trigger a war with neighbouring India, the daily said pointing out that Pakistan also has a track record of exporting nuclear technology to countries that are on Washington’s blacklist.
US anxiety over Pakistan’s nuclear programme appears to be driven more by uncertainty about how it is run than specific intelligence indicating that its systems are vulnerable, according to the budget documents.
US surveillance of Pakistan extends far beyond its nuclear programme. There are several references in the black budget to expanding US scrutiny of chemical and biological laboratories.
The country is not thought to be running a rogue chemical or biological weapons program, but US intelligence officials fear that Islamists could seize materials from government-run laboratories, the American daily said in its exclusive report. (AGENCIES)
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