Pak. denies link between scientists, Al-Qaeda

By B. Muralidhar Reddy

ISLAMABAD, NOV. 28. Pakistan today denied any link between two of its retired nuclear scientists and the Al-Qaeda terrorist network. Reacting to a report published by the New York Times that the scientists, Sultan Bashiruddin Mahmood and Chaudhry Abdul Majeed, were arrested after the recent discovery of documents about applications of anthrax in the offices used by them in Kabul, the Press Secretary to the Pakistan President, Maj. Gen. Rashid Qureshi, said no links were established between them and attempts by Al-Qaeda to acquire anthrax capability .

He said the two continued to be detained for questioning. However he was not aware of the status of investigations, as he was not privy to them. At a separate briefing the U.S. coalition spokesman declined to answer a question whether Washington had sought extradition of the two for questioning.

Maj. Gen. Quereshi insisted that the two were being questioned for violation of the code of conduct. As retired scientists they were not supposed to make statements and visit other countries or work for foreign organisations. He however said that they were being interviewed and questioned by Pakistani officials but the information was shared with the U.S. officials. ``I am sure the information is shared if it is of any value', he told a reporter.

The New York Times said today that the information about application of anthrax and other biological warfare material was found in the Kabul office of the humanitarian organisation set up by the two. Documents describing the history of anthrax and a Pentagon programme to immunise all members of the U.S. military against anthrax attacks were also discovered. ``Also found were a box of gas masks, a diagram showing a plane shooting down a weather balloon and promotional material from militant Islamic groups'', the report said. Plans for building a balloon and what appeared to be a rocket were found on a piece of paper along with empty steel tubes and parts of a rocket-propelled grenade. A container of helium was also found in the same place. The diagrams of the balloons seem to show a possible method for slowly dispersing some type of biological or chemical agent from the air. Words scribbled in the diagram appear to say cyanide, the paper said. ``One diagram found in the Kabul office show four balloons flying together in tandem with a box around them. The box appears to show how the agent would be dispersed across a wide area''.

The building appeared to have been hastily abandoned when the Taliban fled Kabul two weeks ago. It is not clear who may have been there since then, the paper said.

The two scientists, who retired from the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission, formed a humanitarian organisation called Ummah Tameer Nau and used it as front for assisting Taliban and Osama bin Laden with some of the programmes, the report said.

Pakistan also denied that its top nuclear scientist, Dr. A.Q. Khan, had in any way assisted Iran develop its nuclear weapons programme. The Foreign Office spokesman, Mr. Aziz Khan, told correspondents that the scientist had never visited Iran.

Dr. Khan retired as chairman of the prestigious A.Q. Khan Laboratories, connected with the nuclear weapons programme, much against his wishes a few months ago. He was made Scientific Adviser to the President, Gen. Pervez Musharraf. Religious parties had accused Gen. Musharraf of retiring Dr. Khan under pressure from the west.

Maj Gen. Qureshi said it was unfortunate that ``responsible channels and newspapers'' carried false news stories. ``It is absolutely false. These reports originated from New Delhi. One is not surprised why they are doing it. They have been trying for the last two and half months to implicate us some way or the other that Pakistan supplied arms, ammunition and personnel to Afghanistan. It is absolutely false'', he said. He also castigated the Northern Alliance for saying that its men had seen Pakistani planes arriving to evacuate Pakistani personnel. He said the Alliance made out such stories as ``Indian military advisers assisted it''.

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