Jihadis attacked Pakistan Nukes 3 times already!

[Warrior-Mentor]

WASHINGTON: Pakistan's nuclear facilities have already been attacked at least three times by its home-grown extremists and terrorists in little reported incidents over the last two years, even as the world remains divided over the safety and security of the nuclear weapons in the troubled country, according to western analysts.

FULL STORY:
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/n...ow/4879235.cms

[Richard]

The newest FAIL SAFE option - with Spirits and Predators in overwatch.

Richard's $.02

[Quartz_MJC]

I wonder are these just random terrorist acts or probing attacks that will be part of a larger assault. The Pakistan military and intelligence community have members that sympathize with the Taliban and Al'Queda. It will be interesting to see if the terrorist had some inside Info. Either way this should be a wake up call.

[glebo]

That is correct. It's only a matter of time before some unruley lot gets hold of one/some of them. I wonder what our invervention or action will be....

[Richard]

I wonder what our invervention or action will be....

"Fire in the hole!"

Richard's $.02

[glebo]

Originally Posted by Richard

"Fire in the hole!"

Richard's $.02

HAAA, works for me

[Richard]

From today's Pravda on the Hudson - interactive map of facilities located at link - use satellite function to explore AO - one located next to rail line and one located next to AFB.

Richard's $.02

Have Pakistani Nuclear Facilities Already Been Attacked?
Robert Mackey, NYT, 11 Aug 2009

In a little-noticed article published last month in a West Point counterterrorism journal, a British academic pointed out that while the world waits for the kind of global public announcement of doomsday that would come from a Bond villain, Islamist militants in Pakistan have quietly launched at least three attacks in the past two years on military bases that may contain nuclear weapons.

As Peter Bergen noted on Monday in a post on Foreign Policy’s AfPak Channel blog, Shaun Gregory, an expert on Pakistani security at Bradford University in England, wrote in the July issue of a West Point publication called The CTC Sentinel that while Pakistan’s military shrouds the location of their nuclear facilities in secrecy, Islamist militants with ties to the country’s intelligence community have demonstrated that “they have good intelligence about the movement of security personnel,” including military, intelligence and police forces, “all of whom have been routinely targeted.” Mr. Gregory adds:

A series of attacks on nuclear weapons facilities has also occurred. These have included an attack on the nuclear missile storage facility at Sargodha on November 1, 2007, an attack on Pakistan’s nuclear airbase at Kamra by a suicide bomber on December 10, 2007, and perhaps most significantly the August 20, 2008 attack when Pakistani Taliban suicide bombers blew up several entry points to one of the armament complexes at the Wah cantonment, considered one of Pakistan’s main nuclear weapons assembly sites.

While the attacks on the bases in Sargodha, Kamra and Wah all took place, the fact that they were all suicide bombings suggests that the militants may have been more interested in striking Pakistan’s military than seizing any nuclear material.

In response to questions about Mr. Gregory’s article, which was also the basis for a report on Tuesday in The Times of India, an American intelligence official told The Times that those attacks did not necessarily suggest that militants were necessarily singling out nuclear sites. The official, who asked not to be identified due to the sensitivity of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program, told my colleague Eric Schmitt:

These are large facilities. It’s not clear that the attackers knew what these bases might have contained. In addition, the mode of attack was curious. If they were after something specific, or were truly seeking entry, you’d think they might use a different tactic, one that’s been employed elsewhere *– such as a bomb followed by a small-arms assault. Simply touching off an explosive outside the gate of a base –* with no follow-up — doesn’t get you inside. For those reasons, I wouldn’t extrapolate from these incidents any kind of downgrade in the security of the Pakistani nuclear arsenal.


At a news conference on Tuesday, a Pentagon spokesman, Geoff Morrell, was asked about Mr. Gregory’s article and reminded reporters that Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, have repeatedly said that Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal is secure. Mr. Morrell said:

I can just repeat what you’ve heard time and time again from Chairman Mullen and from Secretary Gates, that they are comfortable with the security measures the Pakistani government, the Pakistani military have in place to ensure that their nuclear arsenal is safeguarded.

Even if these attacks were not launched to help militants seize nuclear material, Mr. Gregory’s article does underscore that Pakistan’s nuclear sites do tend to be located in uncomfortable proximity to the part of the country Islamists now control.

As Mr. Gregory writes, the fact that Pakistan was primarily concerned, in the 1970s and 1980s, with the threat of an invasion by India, rather than Islamic militancy spreading from Afghanistan, the military “chose to locate much of its nuclear weapons infrastructure to the north and west of the country,” which means that today, “most of Pakistan’s nuclear sites are close to or even within areas dominated by Pakistani Taliban militants and home to Al Qaeda.”

http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/200...ked/?ref=world