Two retired nuclear scientists who were instrumental in the development of Pakistan's atom bomb have admitted to investigators that they have met Osama bin Laden at least twice this year, it was revealed Sunday.
Sultan Bashiruddin Mahmoud and Abdul Majid were held by Pakistani police for questioning in the past two weeks. Both left senior positions at the Pakistan atomic energy commission about two years ago and established a relief organization in Afghanistan.
The two men are known to have had sympathies with the ruling Taliban regime and Mahmoud had in the past advocated the production of surplus weapons-grade plutonium to help arm other Islamic countries.
Sunday a Pakistani official said that the two men met bin Laden at least twice during visits to Afghanistan's southern city of Kandahar in connection with the construction of a flour mill.
Neither has been charged with any offense, and Pakistani officials said there was nothing to suggest they passed on nuclear information or materials to anyone in Afghanistan.
Those assurances were backed up by Pakistan's president, Pervez Musharraf, who told the UN general assembly on Saturday that the country's nuclear weapons were well guarded in safe hands.
It was revealed by the Washington Post that Pakistani President Musharraf moved his nuclear arsenal to six secret sites within 48 hours of the Sept. 11 attacks out of fear that extremists would try to seize the warheads.
Quoting sources in Islamabad, the paper reported that President Musharraf had also restructured the chain of command controlling Pakistan's nuclear missiles, to isolate them from Taliban sympathizers inside his own security forces, and to prevent them falling them into the hands of rogue elements if he was assassinated or toppled.
Pakistan is thought to have up to 40 nuclear warheads. The general now in charge of guarding them, Khalid Kidwai, answers only to the president. Extra troops and anti-aircraft batteries have been established around the six new sites.
The Washington Post also quotes a retired Pakistani official as saying that at one point of high tension with India in 1999, Islamabad asked the Taliban if it could shift some of its nuclear arsenal to Afghanistan.
"The Taliban accepted the requests with open arms," the official said, but the talks were exploratory and no missiles were ever moved across the border.
A British official said several Pakistani nuclear scientists had crossed into Afghanistan to hold talks with al-Qaeda about developing a terrorist bomb. "It's Osama bin Laden they're working with, not the Taliban. We're certain that there is direct contact."
US and British officials think it very unlikely that bin Laden has been able to build an atomic bomb. However, they are concerned that he might have a "dirty bomb" in which explosives are used to spray uranium or other radioactive matter over a wide area, potentially killing or poisoning large numbers of people by radiation.
The British source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that hundreds of Pakistani scientists had been involved in the country's nuclear program, and that some of them had gone missing.
"It takes a lot of talent to put one of these program together. There are a lot of scientists involved, and we know a number of them have been talking to al-Qaeda," he said. "It's not the Taliban. They wouldn't know what to do with this. The only people there who have the education and the intelligence to see the big picture are in al-Qaeda."
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