Targeting Pakistan's Nukes?

Remnants of the car used in yesterday's suicide bombing against a bus carrying the children of Pakistani Air Force personnel, assigned to the Karma weapons complex. The Karma facility is believed associated with Pakistan's nuclear weapons complex; the attack was the second near a Pakistani nuclear site in the past two months. raising new concerns about terrorist intentions and facility security (AP photo via The Long War Journal)

A hat tip to the ever-vigilant Bill Roggio, who was among the first to recognize this disturbing trend among recent terrorist attacks in Pakistan. Since 1 November, insurgents have staged at least two strikes at facilities associated with the Pakistan's nuclear program. The latest attack, which occurred yesterday, targeted a bus carrying the children of Pakistani Air Force personnel. According to AFP, a suicide car bomber plowed into a bus in Karma (about 60 kilometers northwest of Islamabad, killing the terrorist and wounding five children and three adults on the bus.

It would be easy to dismiss the attack in Karma as a pure terror strike, designed to frighten Pakistani military personnel and make them re-think their support for the government. But Mr. Roggio found some insightful information at GlobalSecurity.org, which highlight the importance of the Karma complex:

The Wah Cantonment Ordnance Complex consists of three nearby armament facilities in Wah (Pakistan Ordnance Factories - POF), Kamra (Air Weapon Complex - AWC), and Taxilia (Heavy Industries Taxila -HIT). One or more of these facilities is probably associated with the weaponization of Pakistan's nuclear devices. According to some reports, the main storage and maintenance site of the Pakistani nuclear weapons, particularly the weapons at a 'screwdriver level', is located at the 'ordnance complex' in Wah.

The Air Weapon Complex at Kamra is devoted to air-to-surface munitions, among other activities, and would probably have at least some connection with the development of air-delivered nuclear weapons. ... The Pakistan Aeronautical Complex (PAC) was almost certainly responsible for the modification of Pakistani aircraft, probably including F-16 fighters, to a configuration capable of delivering air-dropped nuclear weapons.

From our own experience, we can confirm that the AWC is actively involved in Pakistan's nuclear program. And, as evidenced by the GlobalSecurity.org report, you don't need an intel background to learn the mission of the Air Weapons Complex, or its probable ties to Islamabad's nuclear efforts. That information is readily available on the internet, and is almost certainly known to Pakistan's Al-Qaida-linked terrorists.

The attack at Karma came barely a month after a similar strike at Sargodha Air Base, located west-northwest of Lahore. In that attack, which occurred on 1 November, a suicide bomber killed eight people outside the base perimeter, targeting a bus which was carrying Air Force personnel to a nearby training center.

Like the AWC complex at Karma, Sargodha is also closely linked to Pakistan's nuclear program. The base houses two squadrons of F-16 fighters, which have reportedly been modified for a nuclear strike mission. Additionally, as many as 80 solid-fueled, nuclear-capable Hataf/M-11 short-range missiles are believed to be stored at the Central Ammunition Depot on Kirana Hills in Sargodha. The ammunition depot is believed to hold nuclear weapons for both the F-16s and the missiles.

Some analysts intially believed the Sargodha attack was in retaliation for F-16 strikes against terrorist targets in Pakistan's western tribal lands--and that may have been a motivating factor. But the more recent strike in Karma casts both events in a slightly different light; while militants have a score to settle with Pakistan's military, suicide attacks outside two key nuclear facilities--barely a month apart--are more than a mere coincidence. The strikes were likely aimed at testing perimeter security, along with inflicting casualties and fear among military personnel and their families.

After staging successful, high-profile attacks near two of Pakistan's major nuclear sites, the terrorists may set their sights on more spectacular operations, by attempting to penetrate key bases and the facilities they house. Obviously, that sort of operation would represent a quantum leap for the insurgents; it would take far more personnel--and firepower--to execute that sort of attack. Pakistan's nuclear facilities, like those in other countries, have multiple layers of security and access is strictly controlled.

Still, that sort of bold strike is not out of the question. The Singapore-based International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research (PVTR) recently noted that despite its nuclear mission, Sargodha had less security than other Pakistan Air Force (PAF) bases, apparently due to its location in the middle of the country. According to the PVTR, Pakistan apparently viewed Sargodha as "out of the reach" of militants. That perception likely changed in early November.

Over the past three months, Taliban terrorist elements have struck three key military targets in Pakistan: Karma, Sargodha and the garrison city of Rawalpindi, which was attacked in early September. Those strikes underscore the ability of insurgents to operate throughout Pakistan, and carry out bombings near supposedly secure facilities.

Now, the question is: do the terrorists want to up the ante and attempt larger-scale operations, possibly aimed at penetrating a military base that supports Pakistan's nuclear program? While they have little chance of storming a weapons storage facility and hauling away a nuke, a bloody attack against a nuclear base would further embarass the Musharraf government, and raise new concerns about his ability to secure the country--and safeguard Pakistan's weapons stockpile.

Today's Reading Assignment

...from the pages of the Los Angeles Times. In an op-ed published today, Pakistani poet and writer Fatima Bhutto makes the case that her aunt, former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, is not the woman who can restore democracy in her native land. Quite the opposite; Fatima Bhutto makes the case that her aunt is actually profiting from the recent declaration of emergency rule:

The reality, however, is that there is no one better placed to benefit from emergency rule than she is. Along with the leaders of prominent Islamic parties, she has been spared the violent retributions of emergency law. Yes, she now appears to be facing seven days of house arrest, but what does that really mean? While she was supposedly under house arrest at her Islamabad residence last week, 50 or so of her party members were comfortably allowed to join her. She addressed the media twice from her garden, protected by police given to her by the state, and was not reprimanded for holding a news conference. (By contrast, the very suggestion that they might hold a news conference has placed hundreds of other political activists under real arrest, in real jails.)

Ms. Bhutto's political posturing is sheer pantomime. Her negotiations with the military and her unseemly willingness until just a few days ago to take part in Musharraf's regime have signaled once and for all to the growing legions of fundamentalists across South Asia that democracy is just a guise for dictatorship.

She also reminds us that the former Prime Minister is no stranger to corruption--the same charges leveled against Pakistan's current leader, General Pervez Musharraf.

It is widely believed that Ms. Bhutto lost both her governments on grounds of massive corruption. She and her husband, a man who came to be known in Pakistan as "Mr. 10%," have been accused of stealing more than $1 billion from Pakistan's treasury. She is appealing a money-laundering conviction by the Swiss courts involving about $11 million. Corruption cases in Britain and Spain are ongoing.

It was particularly unappealing of Ms. Bhutto to ask Musharraf to bypass the courts and drop the many corruption cases that still face her in Pakistan. He agreed, creating the odiously titled National Reconciliation Ordinance in order to do so. Her collaboration with him was so unsubtle that people on the streets are now calling her party, the Pakistan People's Party, the Pervez People's Party. Now she might like to distance herself, but it's too late.

And, lest we forget, Benazir Bhutto has her own tied to Islamic radicals:

Ms. Bhutto's repeated promises to end fundamentalism and terrorism in Pakistan strain credulity because, after all, the Taliban government that ran Afghanistan was recognized by Pakistan under her last government -- making Pakistan one of only three governments in the world to do so.

Obviously, Fatima Bhutto has reasons to be angry with the former Prime Minister. Her father --Benazir Bhutto's younger brother--was killed in 1996, in what was described as a carefully-planned police assassination. Benazir Bhutto's role in the murder has never been explained, but a three-judge Pakistani panel concluded that the killing could not have occurred without approval from a "much higher" political authority.

While Benazir Bhutto often receives fawning coverage from the western press, it is clear that she is less popular at home that we would believe. Which leads to an obvious question: if Musharraf goes down the tubes--and Ms. Bhutto can't muster enough support--who does the U.S. support?

As with many elements of the Pakistan "problem" there are few easy answers, or palatable choices.