This is a troubling trend. Since 2007, three attacks have been made against nuclear sites in Pakistan.
The incidents, tracked by Shaun Gregory, a professor at Bradford University in UK, include 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.
These attacks have occurred even as Pakistan has taken several steps to secure and fortify its nuclear weapons against potential attacks, particularly by the United States and India, says Gregory.
Map of major Pakistani Air Force bases, including the nuclear sites of Kamra and Sargodha.
Pakistani air bases are the most likely sites to house nuclear weapons storage and launch facilities.
It’s not that the attacks were rebuffed. They were suicide bombers and there was no follow up attack immediately following the initial blast, so there was not really a test of the overall security of these bases. However:
Detailing the actions taken by Islamabad to safeguard its nuclear assets from external attacks, Gregory writes that Pakistan has established a “robust set of measures to assure the security of its nuclear weapons.” These have been based on copying US practices, procedures and technologies, and comprise: a) physical security; b) personnel reliability programs; c) technical and procedural safeguards; and d) deception and secrecy.
In terms of physical security, Pakistan operates a layered concept of concentric tiers of armed forces personnel to guard nuclear weapons facilities, the use of physical barriers and intrusion detectors to secure nuclear weapons facilities, the physical separation of warhead cores from their detonation components, and the storage of the components in protected underground sites.
And more distressing is the idea of a sympathetic insider allowing some of these subhumans access to vital areas of the sites. Again we are told not to fret:
With respect to personnel reliability, Gregory says the Pakistan Army conducts a tight selection process drawing almost exclusively on officers from Punjab Province who are considered to have fewer links with religious extremism (now increasingly a questionable premise) or with the Pashtun areas of Pakistan from which groups such as the Pakistani Taliban mainly garner their support.
Photo and Caption Credit: The Long War Journal
