On June 6th, Shahram Amiri - an Iranian nuclear scientist -- appeared on a YouTube video claiming he was abducted by US and Saudi authorities in Medina, drugged and flown to the US. On June 7th, a second video on Youtube appeared where he, or someone claiming to be him, said he was fine, studying in the US. (The U.S. government has no official comment but cited him as a source on Iran's nuclear program.) A 3rd video backed the first. Now Pakistan says Amiri is in hiding in its Washington embassy's Iranian interests section under asylum and making arrangements to get back to Iran. How he got there, and why, is a mystery. [more inside]
posted by msalt on Jul 13, 2010 - 25 comments

Defending the Arsenal: In an unstable Pakistan, can nuclear warheads be kept safe?
posted by homunculus on Nov 10, 2009 - 21 comments

One of the kings of nuclear proliferation has his own website. No mention of house arrest though.
posted by brookeb on Jan 29, 2009 - 10 comments

Why He Went Nuclear. Before he was the infamous father of the "Islamic bomb," A.Q. Khan was just another midlevel scientist working at a research job in Amsterdam. Here, the story of how he betrayed his employer and set out to create a worldwide bazaar in lethal weapons.
posted by chunking express on Nov 20, 2007 - 19 comments

The man who knew too much. "He was the CIA's expert on Pakistan's nuclear secrets, but Rich Barlow was thrown out and disgraced when he blew the whistle on a US cover-up. Now he's to have his day in court."
posted by homunculus on Oct 13, 2007 - 21 comments

Who else has Khan worked with? As far back as 2003, there have been strong indications of Pakistan and Saudi Arabia building a strategic alliance based upon an exchange of nuclear technology, funding and natural resources, after a worsening post-9/11 relationship between the United States and the Saud family. Concerns deepened after Saudi Arabia requested a change in its relationship with the IAEA in May.
posted by Rothko on Jul 19, 2005 - 12 comments

The Deal. Why is Washington going easy on Pakistan's nuclear black marketers and supporting the pardon of Abdul Qadeer Khan? According to Seymour Hersh, it's in exchange for Pervez Musharraf allowing U.S. troops into Pakistan to hunt for Osama bin Laden. [Via The Argus.]
posted by homunculus on Mar 1, 2004 - 37 comments

What the Administration knew about Pakistan and the North Korean nuclear program. An excellent article by Seymour Hersh on how the current situation came to be.
posted by homunculus on Jan 21, 2003 - 8 comments

Nuclear War, India and Pakistan - a Tutorial. Blogging at its best! Fallout patterns, strategy, and more. Additional bonus: 4GW (Fourth Generation Warfare).
posted by sheauga on Jun 10, 2002 - 4 comments

J. Robert Oppenheimer, watching the first mushroom cloud rise above the American nuclear test heartbreakingly codenamed Trinity, said: "Now I am become Death, the Destroyer of Worlds." Today, a half century after the first use of atomic weapons, in the birthland of the sacred text Oppenheimer quoted, 12 million people could die at once in a nuclear exchange.

Ah, Shiva as each of us...one hand on The Button, the other writing: "The only way to live humanly - still - is in resistance to war. The prevention of war, in the nuclear age, must be a central purpose of every person's life."
posted by fold_and_mutilate on May 28, 2002 - 58 comments

Is Terrorists For Nukes the 2001 version of Arms For Hostages? President Bush has lifted the sanctions on India and Pakistan imposed by the U.S. in 1998 to protest their "tit-for-tat" nuclear tests. In a memorandum just released by the White House, he states that keeping those sanctions in place "would not be in the national security interests of the United States". Is this an acceptable exchange? Just how far should the U.S. go in appeasing Pakistan, not to mention further fuelling its already explosive confrontation with India?
posted by MiguelCardoso on Sep 23, 2001 - 8 comments