tee.rex

http://www.dawn.com/2001/10/29/latest.htm

US commandos train with Israelis to take Pakistan nukes
if Musharraf falls: New Yorker magazine Report

Some Pakistani military officers suspect of placing loyalty
to religious cause above country.
----------------------------------

WASHINGTON, Oct 29, 2001: A special US unit is training with Israeli
commandos to take out Pakistan's nuclear weapons in case of a coup
against President Pervez Musharraf, the New Yorker magazine reported
today, citing past and present government officials.

The US force is training in the United States with members of Israel's
Unit 262, a commando team that has engaged in behind-the-lines
operations including theft and assasinations, according to the New
Yorker.

The US unit, operating under Pentagon control with CIA assistance,
specializes in slipping undetected into foreign countries to find, and
if necessary disarm, nuclear weapons, the magazine reports.

US sources told the magazine that Pakistan has at least 24 nuclear
warheads that can be delivered by intermediate-range missiles and F-16
airplanes. However US intelligence cannot be sure of the precise
location of all of the Pakistani warheads, officials said.

US regional experts quoted by the magazine say they doubt Musharraf's
ability to control the military and Pakistan's nuclear arsenal if
there is a coup -- and say dissident fundamentalists within the
military might try to seize a nuclear warhead.

One US intelligence officer expressed alarm over the recent
questioning in Pakistan of two retired Pakistani nuclear scientists
with reported Taliban connections, describing it as "the tip of a very
serious iceberg."

The incident shows that pro-Taliban sentiment has overcome state
loyalty among Pakistani nuclear scientists, thought to be fiercely
patriotic.

Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI, has also had close ties with the
Taliban in the past and might still include many pro-Taliban elements,
according to experts interviewed by New Yorker reporter Seymour Hersh.

A senior US military official told Hersh he was concerned about an
uprising of dissident ISI officers with access to nuclear storage
sites.

A former US diplomat described the ISI as "a parallel government of
its own," and a US intelligence officer said that allowing the ISI to
be the US "eyes and ears" in the region is "our biggest mistake." -
AFP

-- - - -
* " The Islamic World is the poorest, the most illiterate, the most
* backward, the most unhealthy, the most un-enlightened, the most
* deprived, and the weakest of all the human race."
* --- Pakistan President Perves Musharraf
*
* http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/1824455.stm