Frontline Pakistan : The Struggle With Militant Islam - Arz-e-Pak
Frontline Pakistan : The Struggle With Militant Islam - Arz-e-Pak
Frontline Pakistan : The Struggle With Militant Islam - Arz-e-Pak
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1 <strong>Frontline</strong> <strong><strong>Pak</strong>istan</strong><br />
approved a long-standing request from the Iranian government for<br />
unpublicized cooperation in its ‘peaceful’ nuclear programme. But<br />
the cooperation was limited to non-military spheres. <strong>The</strong> transfer of<br />
technology is believed to have occurred in 1989. This was the period<br />
when General Aslam Beg propounded his doctrine of ‘strategic<br />
defiance’, which envisaged an anti-American alliance of <strong><strong>Pak</strong>istan</strong>, Iran<br />
and Afghanistan. <strong>The</strong> nuclear-related sanctions imposed on <strong><strong>Pak</strong>istan</strong><br />
by the US administration in August 1990 provoked intense anti-<br />
American sentiments among the <strong><strong>Pak</strong>istan</strong>i generals, who felt betrayed<br />
by the American actions.<br />
General Beg, who was the Chief of Army Staff from 1988 to 1991,<br />
may not have been a doctrinaire <strong>Islam</strong>ist like General Zia, but he<br />
followed many of his policies. He was a highly controversial figure,<br />
both in the army and outside. A migrant from the Indian state of Uttar<br />
Pradesh, he provoked intense controversy by publicly criticizing Prime<br />
Minister Nawaz Sharif’s decision to join the US-led coalition forces in<br />
the 1990–1991 Gulf War. On a visit to Tehran during the same period,<br />
he promised the Iranian leadership that the <strong><strong>Pak</strong>istan</strong>i leadership<br />
would be willing to provide nuclear technology. Ishaq Dar, a senior<br />
member of the Sharif cabinet, confirmed that Beg came back with an<br />
offer from Tehran of $5 billion in return for nuclear know-how, but<br />
Sharif rejected the offer. 34<br />
In his confession to <strong><strong>Pak</strong>istan</strong>i investigators, Dr Khan had implicated<br />
General Beg, among others, in the deal. <strong>The</strong> allegation was rejected<br />
by the former army chief as malicious but, in the same breath, he<br />
defended Dr Khan, saying there was nothing wrong with passing on<br />
nuclear technology to other countries. 35 General Beg retired in August<br />
1991 and was replaced by a moderate pro-West officer, General Asif<br />
Nawaz, who stopped the deal with Iran. Consequently, <strong><strong>Pak</strong>istan</strong>-Iran<br />
relations were adversely affected and any cooperation in the nuclear<br />
field would have been completely ruled out.<br />
Dr Khan was believed to have travelled to Iran several times in<br />
the late 1980s and early 1990s. He claimed that centrifugal uranium<br />
enrichment plants were exported to Iran through a middleman and<br />
that <strong><strong>Pak</strong>istan</strong> air force planes were used to ferry the goods to Dubai,<br />
from where they were taken to their final destination. Drawings and<br />
other nuclear materials were also transferred abroad secretly. 36 Most<br />
of the transactions took place through a Dubai-based Sri Lankan<br />
middleman, Buhary Syed Abu Tahir, who was arrested by Malaysian<br />
police in February 2004. Tahir, who also lived in Malaysia, told the