Al Qaeda’s Nuclear Ambitions?

This article from Charles McMinn, a leading analyst of South Asian terrorism. Charles challenges Professor Shaun Gregory’s recent assessment that Al Qaeda have attacked Pakistani nuclear weapons assets. Prof Gregory’s assessments have received widespread media attention. Charles posits that the attacks he refers to are by no means clear cut. Thank you Charles, clear and thought provoking.

On 02 July 2009 there was a suicide VBIED attack in Rawalpindi on a bus carrying workers from Pakistan’s weapons grade uranium producing facility at Kahuta. The attacks came at a time of increasing media concerns over the security of Pakistan’s nuclear assets, following reports of the systematic targeting of them by Al Qaeda and its Taliban allies. These concerns are themselves are concerning. Whilst there is no doubt that Al Qaeda would dearly love to get their hands on a nuclear device (bin Laden has already said it is an Islamic duty to try and do so) the possibility of getting one of Pakistan’s is not as easy as some reports suggest. An excellent article in CTC Sentinel by Shaun Gregory [PDF Link], ironically intended to highlight safety fears, is actually quite reassuring in its description of the physical, personnel, procedural and technical safeguards the Pakistanis have in place. It is unfortunate however that due to their fear of India the Pakistanis have placed their nuclear facilities in the west of the country close to the tribal badlands.

So if they cannot get their hands on a weapon would Al Qaeda and their Pakistani Taliban allies see any utility in disrupting or sabotaging any part of Pakistan’s nuclear assets? Possibly not, as these weapons are not going to be used against them. They also probably see Pakistan’s limited nuclear arsenal as an Islamic asset and not the government’s. And any attack on them would be seen by most Pakistanis and the wider Muslim world not as jihad but as helping Hindu India.

The attacks that are alleged to have been carried out against nuclear targets also fail to stand up to scrutiny. Although the July 2009 attack targeted nuclear workers these people are also military employees and there is nothing to suggest that this is anything other than an attack on the security forces in general. Other attacks that have been purported to be directed against nuclear targets have, on examination, turned out to be on buses carrying Air Force personnel, civilian workers and even on the families of air force personnel. These incidents have occurred against a background of frequent attacks on security forces. Even the double suicide IED attack on the munitions factory at Wah, which is cited as the most compelling evidence of deliberate nuclear targeting, was actually on workers leaving the complex and there is no evidence to connect the specific workers to any nuclear activity. The Pakistan Taliban who claimed the attack also stated it was in retaliation for security force operations in the tribal areas.

That is not to say that Al Qaeda does not have a vested interest in the concern being expressed over Pakistan’s nuclear security. They will certainly be aware of it, and see the possible opportunity to aggravate these concerns. According to David Kilcullen’s model of an Al Qaeda conflict life cycle (his accidental guerrilla syndrome), phase 3 is INTERVENTION, ‘when outside forces intervene to deal with the AQ threat’ – in this case the perceived risk of Pakistan losing effective control of its nuclear assets rising so high that the US or an international body is forced take over or appropriate the weapons. If this were to happen then the Pakistani population and large sections of the Islamic world wouldl almost certainly move to phase 4, REJECTION: ‘local population reacts negatively, rejecting outside intervention and allying with AQ’.

So Al Qaeda does not have to have nuclear weapons in order to exploit them.

Comments

[Charles Mcminn]

The Indian media have taken a more alarmist interpretation of Prof Gregory's report with this article from Asian News International 'Pak militants tried to capture country's nuke facilities at least thrice'.

http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/world-news/pak-militants-tried-to-capture-countrys-nuke-facilities-at-least-thrice-report_100230975.html