Drawings of a nuclear warhead that Libya surrendered as part of its decision to renounce weapons of mass destruction are of 1960s Chinese design, but likely came from Pakistan, diplomats and experts told reporters on Sunday.
China is widely assumed to have been Pakistan's key supplier of much of the clandestine nuclear technology used to establish Islamabad as a nuclear power in 1998 and resold to rogue regimes through the black market network headed by Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan.
The drawings appeared to be of a design never used by Pakistan, which went on to develop more modern nuclear weapons, said the diplomats and experts, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Still, they said, they were likely supplied by China as part of the decades-long transfer of technology that Khan used to develop Pakistan's nuclear weapons.
One of them called the drawings "dramatic evidence" of the Chinese-Pakistani nuclear link.
Libya surrendered the drawings in December after its leader, Muammar Qaddafi, volunteered to scrap all research into developing weapons of mass destruction. The blueprints and accompanying documents are now in the US under the seal of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
One of the experts said the drawing detailed how to build a warhead for a large ballistic missile, using technology developed by the Chinese in the 1960s that triggers a nuclear blast by a small conventional explosion.
While the instructions on the drawing were in English, some other documents surrendered by Libya along with the blueprints were in Chinese, he said.
He said that if built, the warhead would have weighed more than 450kg. That's too bulky for any delivery system the Libyans possessed but not for the ballistic missiles developed by North Korea and Iran, the other nations said to have been supplied by Khan's network.
While there is no evidence either of those countries were supplied with the same or a similar drawing, "it would be a very nice warhead for those countries," the expert said.
North Korea runs a nuclear weapons program using plutonium. But US officials also believe it has a separate program based on enriched uranium, possibly using technology imported from Pakistan. Pyongyang has denied the allegation.
Iran denies trying to develop nuclear weapons but suspicions persist because it kept secret attempts to enrich uranium for nearly two decades. Although it agreed to open all aspects of its nuclear activities to IAEA perusal late last year, the agency's inspectors recently found designs of advanced enriching equipment the Iranians had kept from them.
Critics say that Iran is not fully honoring an agreement to suspend uranium enrichment, something denied by Tehran, which says it is interested in the process not to make weapons-grade uranium but to generate nuclear power.
Pakistan -- and Khan -- became the focus of an international investigation on the basis of information Libya and Iran gave the Vienna-based IAEA about where they covertly bought nuclear technology that can be used to make weapons.
In the nuclear procurement chain that Khan has confessed to heading, hundreds of millions of dollars was thought to have changed hands over the past 15 years with key middlemen positioned in Europe, Asia, Africa and the Middle East.
Former nuclear weapons inspector David Albright said it was his understanding that the drawings found in Libya were "way beyond anything in the public domain" as far as building a warhead were concerned.
US President George W. Bush called the leaders of Russia and Italy on the weekend to discuss how to check the spread of dangerous weapons and keep them away from terrorists.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of