Father of Times Square car bomb suspect dealt with security at Pakistan's nuclear weapon facility

[kgnu_fan]

Found at http://www.michaelmoore.com/

Pakistan's retired Air Vice Marshall Baharul Haq, father of Times Square car bomb suspect Faisal Shahzad, once dealt with security at Kahuta – Pakistan's main nuclear weapons facility and home of notorious A.Q. Khan Laboratory



http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latest-news/air-force-officer-kahuta-security-exercises

Story originally published by AFP on November 28, 1989. Available via the Foreign Broadcast Information Bulletin (PDF), December 8, 1989, p. 18

Islamabad, Nov 27 (AFP) -- Pakistan has beefed up security at a key nuclear facility to safeguard it from external threats, a top official said here.

Air defenses have been "sufficiently strengthened" around the Kahuta plant near here, said Air Vice Marshall Baharul Haq on Sunday <26 November>.

He said though Pakistan and its traditional rival India had agreed not to attack each other's nuclear installations, "the Air Force was alert around the clock to check any intruder." The Kahuta nuclear facility holds a uranium enrichment plant.

He also briefed reporters on Air Force exercises due to start next month in conjunction with the Army's large-scale "Zarb-e Momin" wargames. He said the exercise would demonstrate the capacities of Pakistan's recently acquired Chinese-made F-7/P aircraft.

The official Associated Press of Pakistan quoted him as saying that Pakistan had acquired 40 such planes out of a total of 100 to be supplied by China over a three-year period.

He said Pakistan was not threatened from the west but that "due to peculiar nature of the border we have combat air patrols to check incidents of air violations from the Kabul regime aircraft."

He said 2,215 sorties were made in 1987 to check such violations. During 1986-89 nine intruding Afghan government planes were shot down by the Pakistan Air Force, he added.

From 1984 to 1989, he said, Kabul regime planes violated Pakistan's air space 1,635 times, killing 327 people and wounding 721.

Between 1985-1989 eight Kabul pilots defected to Pakistan with their aircraft, including two helicopters. Pakistan still kept the aircraft, he said.

He said Pakistan's Air Force would "never catch up" with India's three-to-one advantage in numbers. But he maintained that in skill and training, Pakistan's Air Force was superior.