Washington: The US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was aware of the nuclear proliferation activities of Pakistan's top nuclear scientist, A Q Khan, a former American defence official has claimed.
F Michael Maloof, a former senior security policy analyst in the Office of the Defence Secretary, was quoted by the Daily Times as saying that his office frequently monitored Khan’s worldwide network to divert technology to Pakistan’s nuclear weapons development programme.
"We also sought Central Intelligence Agency assistance. The CIA has close ties with Pakistan’s Directorate for Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI), which helped create Afghanistan’s Taliban and still maintains ties with al Qaeda. Indeed, my office would often work with US Customs to track down some of Khan’s US technology acquisitions to halt them before they were exported to Pakistan," Maloof said.
Maloof also claims in a Washington Post article that by refusing access to Khan, Pakistan President General Musharraf was assisting state sponsors of terrorists in targeting the US.
He described Musharraf as Khan's accomplice.
"During this entire period of trying to halt Khan’s activities, the CIA worked with the Pakistani ISI to recruit Mujahideen to fight against the Serbs in the Balkans. This was done with the cooperation of the Pakistani government even before Musharraf became president," Maloof said.
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