Monday, July 06, 2009
Officials in Pakistan tried downplaying a suicide attack last Thursday that targeted employees of the country’s nuclear weapons program. The attack involved a single bomber riding atop an explosives-packed motorcycle that rammed into a bus carrying dozens of workers from the Kahuta Research Laboratories, where weapons-grade uranium is produced.
Government representatives claimed the employees were from a non-military plant, but analysts insisted that was untrue and Pakistan’s government was trying to avoid embarrassment over its poor security for those helping building the nation’s nuclear weapons. Thirty people aboard the bus were injured in the blast, but the only person killed was the suicide bomber.
The United States has spent nearly $100 million to train Pakistani security forces to secure the country’s nuclear warheads, including keeping missiles separate from trigger devices.
The Nation, a conservative English-language newspaper in Pakistan, lashed out in an editorial over the apparent lack of security for nuclear complex workers. “The fact that the employees of one of the major nuclear facilities are not provided proper security is a serious comment on the working of our law enforcement apparatus.”
-Noel Brinkerhoff
Attack in Pakistani Garrison City Raises Anxiety About Safety of Nuclear Labs and Staff (by Salmon Masood, New York Times)
The Deadly Attack (editorial, The Nation-Pakistan
Chur Chowk Blast: FIA Experts to Draw Bomber’s Identikit (by Imran Asghar, Daily Times- Lahore, Pakistan)
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