Suleiman Asad and Mohammed Ali Mukhtar, two Pakistani scientists with experience working at secret nuclear facilities, have emerged as the latest focus in investigations into the possibility that Pakistani scientists assisted al-Qaeda or the Taliban in developing weapons of mass destruction capability, according to yesterday’s New York Times. 

The United States has asked Pakistani authorities to question Asad and Mukhtar, according to Pakistani reports.  The two scientists were unavailable for questioning, Pakistani officials said, because they were working on a research project in Myanmar and were not expected to return in the near future.  A spokesman said Pakistan’s Atomic Energy Commission did not want to interrupt the scientists’ work.  Other reports said that Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf had asked Myanmar to provide temporary asylum to the two scientists after the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States (see GSN, Nov. 26).

In the last several weeks, Pakistani authorities have questioned several scientists, including two nuclear scientists—Sultan Bashiru-din Mehmood and Chaudry Abdul Majid—concerning their contacts with al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders (see GSN, Dec. 6).  None of the scientists had experience producing actual nuclear weapons, said U.S. officials.  Without such knowledge, they were not likely to have been useful to potential terrorists.  “If [al-Qaeda] had been handed the plans for a nuclear bomb, the worst they could have done is use them as kindling to start a fire,” said a U.S. official.

One of the two scientists, however, said during interrogation that he knew a Pakistani who had close contact with the Taliban, and U.S. officials thought the man was a weapons expert who was assisting the Taliban, said a U.S. official  (David Sanger, New York Times, Dec. 9).

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