Excerpts from AQ Khan's Letter

About China: "We put up a centrifuge plant at Hanzhong (250 km southwest of Xian). The Chinese gave us drawings of the nuclear weapon, gave us 50 kg of enriched uranium, gave us 10 tons of UF6 (natural) and 5 tons of UF6 (3%)."

About Iran: "Probably with the blessings of BB [Benazir Bhutto, who became prime minister in 1988] and [a now-retired general]… General Imtiaz [Benazir’s defence adviser, now dead] asked… me to give a set of drawings and some components to the Iranians…The names and addresses of suppliers were also given to the Iranians."

About North Korea: "[A now-retired general] took $3 million through me from the N. Koreans and asked me to give some drawings and machines."

Investigation: Nuclear scandal - Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan by Simon Henderson

September 20, 2009

Musharraf admits: US aid used against India

"Wherever there is a threat to Pakistan, we will use it [equipment provided by the US] there. If the threat comes from al-Qaeda or Taliban, it will be used there. If the threat comes from India, we will most surely use it there," Mr Musharraf told Pakistan's Express News television channel.

"There is nothing like this equipment has come from the US and must only be used against Taliban, or that equipment has come from China and must be used against this or that," he added.

Mr Musharraf confirmed that the weapons were indeed used against India.

Musharraf admits US aid diverted, BBC News
September 14, 2009

Terrorist Sanctuaries in Pakistan

A Candid Confession

The threat from the militants, the former intelligence officials warned, is one that Pakistan is unable to contain. "We could not control them," said one former senior intelligence official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "We indoctrinated them and told them, 'You will go to heaven.' You cannot turn it around so suddenly."

Militant groups slip from Pakistan's control by Carlotta Gall and David Rohde
15 January 2008

The Weasel Paki Army

"None of us wants war with India," says one officer. "It is very damaging for Pakistan's economy, and we feel it will be difficult to sustain." A soldier adds: "The capture of these mountains has given us extra advantage, but I doubt that the Indians will forget this."

Not many of the men expect to come down from the mountains alive. At base camp in Skardu, 150 km from the frontline, phone-booth attendant Yawar Shah says the men weep when they call home to bid good-bye to their families. "You can see them crying in the cubicles," he says. "It is very sad."

Under Cover of Night by Ghulam Hasnain

The Wrong War - 1965

“The performance of the Army did not match that of the PAF mainly because the army leadership was not as professional. They had planned ‘Operation Gibraltar’ for self-glory rather than in the national interest. It was a wrong war. And they misled the nation with a big lie that India rather than Pakistan had provoked the war and that we were the victims of Indian aggression.” , Pakistan’s ex-air chief, Air Marshal (Retd) Nur Khan.

Lessons of the 1965 war - Daily Times, Pakistan
07 September 2005

Pakistan fooling the World

From terror to politics

"Just before I left for India, there was a ferocious showdown over the course of events, with an ISI officer whom we knew as General Liaqat Ali. I was then the vice-chairman of the council of 15 groups active in Jammu and Kashmir. At a meeting in Rawalpindi, I asked him point-blank what Pakistan wanted to do about this aimless war of attrition. He replied that our job was to prick India just enough to make it bleed, but not enough to make it bite back. I became very angry, since we were the ones who were doing the bleeding, not India. Nine of us walked out, and came back only after a great deal of persuasion. I now knew that we were fighting a war for Pakistan, not for Jammu and Kashmir.", Usman Majid, once a key member of the Jammu and Kashmir Students' Liberation Front

From terror to politics by Praveen Swami. Frontline, Volume 19 - Issue 04. Feb. 16 - Mar. 1, 2002

Pakistan a Militant State

"Even if by some act of miraculous diplomacy the territorial issues [with India] were to be resolved, Pakistan would remain an insecure state. Given the realities of the subcontinent (e.g., India's rise and its more effective foreign relations with all of Pakistan's near and far neighbors), these fears are bound to grow, not lessen. This suggests that without some means of compelling Pakistan to abandon its reliance upon militancy, it will become ever more interested in using it -- and the militants will likely continue to proliferate beyond Pakistan's control.", Christine Fair.

What's the Problem With Pakistan? - A Foreign Affairs roundtable discussion on the causes of instability in Pakistan.

Taliban is Pakistan's Strategic Assest

In his new book, The Inheritance, New York Times correspondent David Sanger reveals that "several" key U.S. intelligence officials told him of National Security Agency telephone intercepts in which Pakistan's army chief of staff, Gen. Ashfaq Kayani, referred to a key Taliban warlord, Jalaluddin Haqqani, as a "strategic asset." According to Sanger, another Pakistani general, in a meeting with the visiting U.S. director of national intelligence, Mike McConnell, explained that "we must sustain contact with the Taliban and support them" to make sure that in the future, the Afghan government" is a government friendly to Pakistan."

Face down Pakistani army by Selig S. Harrison

Pakistan an International Migraine

Kashmiri Freedom Fighters are 'Terrorists': Zardari

WSJ: When I [Bret Stephens] ask whether he would consider a free-trade agreement with traditional archenemy India, Mr. Zardari responds with a string of welcome, perhaps even historic, surprises. “India has never been a threat to Pakistan,” he says, adding that “I, for one, and our democratic government is not scared of Indian influence abroad.” He speaks of the militant Islamic groups operating in Kashmir as “terrorists” — former President Musharraf would more likely have called them “freedom fighters” — and allows that he has no objection to the India-U.S. nuclear cooperation pact, so long as Pakistan is treated “at par.” “Why would we begrudge the largest democracy in the world getting friendly with one of the oldest democracies in the world?”

The Most Difficult Job in the World, The Wall Street Journal, page A13

04 October 2008

Pakistan 'created, nurtured' terrorism

"Let us be truthful to ourselves and make a candid admission of the realities... Militancy and extremism emerged on the national scene and challenged the state not because the civil bureaucracy was weakened and demoralised, but because they were deliberately created and nurtured as a policy to achieve some short-term tactical objectives", Zardari.

Yes, Pakistan nurtured terrorism, says Zardari, MSN News
08 July 2009