An international smuggling ring is said to have shared some
information regarding the manufacturing of a nuclear weapon with Iran, North Korea and
other countries. The Washington Post reported Sunday that the smugglers have
shared nuclear designs with Iran. They allegedly had some blueprints for an
advanced nuclear weapon.
The smuggling ring was led by Abdul Qadeer Khan, a Pakistani
scientist who, allegedly, sold parts of a bomb to Lybia, Iran and North Korea.
According to The Washington Post, David Albright, a former top U.N. arms
inspector said that the smugglers also had designs of a more complicated nuclear
weapon that could be fitted on a type of ballistic missile used by Iran and
other countries.
Apparently, the blueprints were discovered back in 2006 in
the computers of Swiss businessmen and the Swiss government recently
destroyed them. U.N officials could not be sure if the material had already
been shared.
“These advanced nuclear weapons designs may have long ago
been sold off to some of the most treacherous regimes in the world," wrote
Albright.
Nadeem Kiani, a spokesman for the Pakistani Embassy in
Washington said that the government of Pakistan considered the “affair to be
over,” reported the Associated Press. A senior diplomat from Vienna said he was
also aware of the existence of a sophisticated nuclear weapons design. He kept his anonymity.
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