Abdul Qadir Khan: The story of the man who is the father of "Pakistani nuclear bomb"

توفي الدكتور عبد القدير خان، الرجل الذي يعتبر "أبا للقنبلة النووية الباكستانية"، عن عمر يناهز 85 عاما بعد نقله إلى المستشفى جراء إصابته بفيروس كورونا.

Dr. Khan was built as a national hero to turn his country into the first Islamic nuclear force in the world.

But he was also famous for smuggling nuclear secrets into countries, including North Korea and Iran.

Prime Minister Imran Khan said that Pakistan had lost a "national icon".

The Prime Minister wrote on his account on the social networking site Twitter saying: "He was loved by our nation because of his decisive contribution to making us a nuclear state.".

Topics that may interest you end

The scientist known as AQ Khan had a key role in establishing the first Pakistani nuclear fertilization station in Kahota near Islamabad.

By 1998, the country conducted its first nuclear experiences.

Soon after the similar tests conducted by India, Dr. Khan's work helped to preserve the position of Pakistan as the seventh nuclear force in the world, which sparked the national joy..

But he was arrested in 2004 for the participation of nuclear technology illegally with Iran, Libya and North Korea.

Pakistan was shocked by the disclosure of the transfer of nuclear secrets to other countries.

In a television speech, Dr. Khan made "deep regret and unconditional apologies".

Facts about Pakistan

Dr. Khan was amputated by the then Pakistani President, Paris Musharraf, but he remained at home residence until 2009.

The indulgence in his treatment has angered many in the West, as he was called "the greatest nuclear publisher of all ages".

But he remained in Pakistan a symbol of pride in its role in enhancing its national security.

President Aref Alwi said: "We have helped develop nuclear deterrence to save the nation, and the grateful state will not forget its services.".

From India to Pakistan

The British Knowledge Department says that Dr. Khan was born on April 1, 1936 for a modest family in Bulbal, India, a Pakistani engineer and a major figure in the Pakistani nuclear weapons program, and he also participated for decades on the black market for nuclear technology and the sale of designs, missiles and expertise or circulationWith Iran, North Korea, Libya, and possibly other countries.

Teenage taps, from the presentation of a dignity as a vehicle and prepared by Mays Baqi.

Episodes

Podcast End

During the childhood of Khan, specifically on August 14, 1947, Pakistan celebrated its independence from Britain, and the next day India also celebrated independence from the British crown, after Britain withdrew from a country that was considered Dora its imperial crown, and left behind two independent states, secular India with itselfThe Hindu and Islamic majority.

Before the Second World War, the British were not ready to give India its independence, and many Muslims, Sikhs and others did not support the vision of India's Indian leader as a unified country, and they did not believe that he was speaking on behalf of all Indians.

Gandhi then submitted his resignation from the Congress Party and retired from politics, but he continued his campaign for social equality in favor of "Dalit", a class known as "the outbreaks".

He forced his ability to mobilize the masses and his fixed peaceful approach, the British authorities to negotiate.

He was weaving his socks and not changing his turban, even though he was the richest in the world

Gandhi's goals were achieved when World War II weakened Britain's grip on its empire, which decided to end its presence in the Indian subcontinent and hand over power to an Indian administration..

But the differences were dominant at the time between the two largest political leaders in the country, namely the jewels of Lal Nehru and Muhammad Ali Jinnah.

Nehru, the leader of the Congress Party and the first prime minister in India independent, was an opposition to the principle of dividing the country on religious foundations.

But Muhammad Ali Janah, the leader of the League of India, who became the general governor of Pakistan after the division, was insisting that India had the right to establish their own state..

The wing of himself was one of the advocates of unity between Hindus and Muslims, and a member of the Congress Party initially before changing his position and cut off his relationship with the party, who doubted that he was seeking to marginalize Muslims, and after his departure from the conference he presided over the wing of the Great of the Great of the Muslims of India.

The British Minister of State for India and Burma, Pittik Lawrence, in 1946, led a ministerial delegation to New Delhi in the hope of resolving the crisis between the Congress Party and the League and thus transferring the British authority to one Indian administration, but the differences were exacerbated.

A bloody civil war began in India, where riots and killing between Hindus and Muslims that started in Kalkhta began to send deadly sparks of anger, madness and fear to every corner of the Indian subcontinent, where restraint seemed to have disappeared.

Lord Montbattin, one of the pillars of the British royal family and was killed in 1979 with a bomb explosion planted in his yacht, the Irish Republican Army, on the task of taking out Britain from its largest colonies..

Shortly after his arrival in Delhi, Montbatten decided that the situation is very dangerous and necessitates resorting to the option of division rather than risking more political negotiations, and he decided that it is better for the British forces to withdraw from India quickly..

Facts and basic information about India

In July 1947, the British Parliament passed the India Independence Act, and ordered the demarcation of the borders of India and Pakistan by midnight 14-15 August of 1947.

Therefore, the drawing of the semi -continent's division line was completed into two countries in only five weeks, and India and Pakistan announced their independence in mid -August of 1947.

After that, the Hindu -majority states of India, and its Muslim -majority counterpart joined Pakistan, while the differences around Kashmir continued to this day..

The population of India at the time was approximately 400 million, the majority of whom are Hindus, and Muslims constituted approximately 25 percent of the total population of the country.

A British official who knows the interior of matters at the time said: "The division and independence came together.One of them was a price for the other..

When the division decision announced, at least 12 million refugees were displaced from one of the two countries to the other country, and at least half a million people were killed in sectarian violence, and tens of thousands of women were kidnapped..

The pain of dividing India continues despite the passage of 70 years

Why do Pakistan and India fight on Kashmir?

Learn about the disputed Kashmir region between India and Pakistan

After five years of division, Khan immigrated to Pakistan in 1952, and in 1960 he graduated from the University of Karachi with a scientific degree in mineral science, before moving to Europe for more studies.

in Europe

Throughout the next decade, he continued his higher studies abroad, first in West Berlin and then in Delft in the Netherlands, where in 1967 he obtained a master’s degree in metal science.

In 1972 he obtained a doctorate in mineral engineering from the Catholic University in Louvin, Belgium.

In 1964, he married Hendina Retranek, a British citizen who was born to Dutch parents in South Africa and grew up in what was then known as Brodisia (Zimbabwe now) before moving to the Netherlands..

In the seventies of the last century, Abdul Qadir Khan took over a job in an uranium enrichment factory managed by a British -German Dutch consortium "Orino".

Khan has obtained a low -level security permit, but through the relaxed supervision he was able to access a full set of information about the technology of the high centrifuges and visited the Dutch factory in Almelo several times.

One of its functions was the translation of German documents for advanced centrifuges into the Dutch language.

The effect of defeat

The British Knowledge Department says that Khan was severely affected by the events in the homeland, especially the degrading defeat of Pakistan in a short war with India in 1971, and the subsequent loss of East Pakistan through the establishment of a new independent state, Bangladesh, and India's test of a nuclear bombing device in May 1974.

On September 17, 1974, Khan wrote a letter to Pakistani Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, offering his help in preparing a atomic bomb.

In the letter, he offered his opinion that the uranium road to the bomb, using the centrifugation devices for fertilization, is better than the Plloonium path (already in Pakistan), which depends on nuclear reactors and re -processing.

The British District of Knowledge says that Bhutto met Khan in December 1974 and encouraged him to do everything in his power to help Pakistan reach the bomb..

Throughout the following year, Khan stole the drawings of the centrifuges and mainly collected a list of European suppliers so that he could buy the component parts of them.

Return to Pakistan

On December 15, 1975, the Netherlands left for Pakistan accompanied by his wife and two daughters, carrying the copies of his plan and his list of suppliers.

Khan initially worked with the Pakistani Atomic Energy Authority, but disagreements with its president, Munir Ahmed Khan.

In mid -1976, under the direction of Bhutto, Khan established the engineering research laboratory for the purpose of developing uranium enrichment capacity.

In May 1981, the name of the laboratory was changed to the Khan Research Laboratory.

The Khan operations base was in Kahota, 50 km southeast of Islamabad.

Khan has developed preliminary models for centrifuges based on German designs and used his list of suppliers to import the basic components of Swiss, Dutch, British and German companies, among others.

In the early eighties, Pakistan from China obtained plans for a nuclear weapon that used the Chinese explosion design successfully in 1966.

It is generally believed that the Chinese tested a derived design for the Pakistanis on May 26, 1990.

"Nuclear Trade"

After Khan fulfilled Pakistan's needs of its uranium weapon, it began in the mid -eighties of the last century the establishment of interface companies in Dubai, Malaysia and other places, and through these entities he sold or traded centrifugal devices, components, designs and experience in secret.According to the British Knowledge Department.

Among the clients were Iran, which continued to build an uranium enrichment complex on the basis of the Pakistani model.

North Korea has visited North Korea at least 13 times and is suspected of transferring enrichment technology to that country.

His laboratory also developed the Pakistani Gori Gori missile with the help of the North Koreans.

Khan was also a resource for Libya's nuclear program until the United States arrested him in 2003.

During his work, Dr. Khan insisted that the program had no military purpose, but after the 1998 tests he admitted, "I had no doubt that I was making a bomb, we had to do that.".

He continued the work on successful launch tests of the first and second Gori missiles capable of carrying a nuclear head.

During the implementation of his program, Dr. Khan was also under the implementation of the Netherlands for the transfer of enrichment technology during his period in the country.

In 1983, the Amsterdam Court sentenced him to 4 years in prison on charges of attempting to espionage, and then the verdict was canceled at a later time at appeal..

US sanctions

Dr. Khan's facility, Khan Research Laboratory in Kahota, has become the main nuclear weapons laboratory in Pakistan where uranium is fertilized.

The facility continued to raise American doubts, and in 2003 Washington imposed sanctions due to its alleged transfer of missile technology from North Korea.

On January 31, 2004, Khan was arrested to transfer nuclear technology to other countries.

On February 4, he read a statement on Pakistani television announcing full responsibility for its operations, and the army and the government are absolved of any involvement, a claim that many nuclear experts found that it is difficult to believe..

Pakistani President Bruise described the supervisor of this position as one day as the most embarrassing moments throughout his presidency.

The next day, a supervisor issued a pardon for him, but he remained in house arrest until 2009.

The release of Khan

One of the main electoral promises launched by the former Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, the Islamic League-Nawaz Party in 2008 was to release the scientist Khan and return him to his "appropriate position".

Civil war, division and chronic problems, the story of India and Pakistan independence

The Islamic League-Nawaz Pavilion has been ranked second in terms of the number of seats he obtained in the parliamentary elections in the country at the time..

Khan's support was not limited to the Islamic League-Nawaz Pavilion, but was echoed and supported by the Pakistani people.It is in the eyes of many of them, who transformed an agricultural country from the third world into a member of the elite club from the nuclear countries.

Khan had been placed in house arrest after his television confessing in 2004 that he was responsible for the transfer of Pakistani nuclear weapons designs to North Korea, Libya and Iran..

Since the issuance of amnesty, the authorities went out to announce more than once to the fullness, that they conducted in -depth and effective investigations into the Khan case, and concluded that the result that his network in Pakistan had been dismantled..

The authorities also announced that Khan's confession was a presentation "in which he said everything he had" and there is no longer new information that can be revealed regarding the case.

However, the International Atomic Energy Agency and investigators by Western governments continued to request the Pakistani authorities to be able to reach the world Khan in order to speak to him.

The result was that neither the Pakistani government nor Dr. Khan presented full details of the latter's project in spreading nuclear weapons.

Local and international observers believed that prominent members of the military and bureaucratic elite in Pakistan were also involved in the issue of the spread of nuclear weapons to North Korea, Libya and Iran..

Zardari delivers his "nuclear powers" to the Prime Minister

Some even believed that the "Abdul Qadir Khan Network" was actually managed as part of the government's policy and by senior officers in the strong Pakistani army, which was always the shepherd and the preservative of the country's nuclear arsenal and its secrets.

As some observers believed that the "Khan Network" was part of the army's way to exchange nuclear technology with other countries.

The army's supervision of each part of the country's nuclear program has become a secret and well -known in Pakistan.This means that it was not possible to maintain the network of Dr. Khan Tay Al -Kamman without knowledge and knowledge of the Pakistani army officers.

"The matter was imposed on me"

The British Guardian newspaper quoted Abdul Qadir Khan in 2008 as saying that the confessions he made 4 years ago about selling nuclear secrets imposed on him..

"I did not do so at the absolute freedom of my freedom.It was imposed on me..

Khan refused to reveal whether he was taken as a scapegoat for Pakistan generals involved in nuclear trade.Western diplomats, local commentators, and some politicians question the possibility of Khan's work alone.

"I do not want to talk about that, these things should be forgotten," Khan said, adding that he will not cooperate with the investigators of the United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency..

Khan told the Guardian that the nuclear technology sold to Iran and North Korea was freely available in the West.

The newspaper quoted him as saying: "They were a source of supply to us and a source of supply to them...And for everyone who can pay ".

Horror scenario: What if a nuclear bomb was stolen from Pakistan?

For his part, the Pakistani army denied a report quoted by the nuclear scientist Abdul Qudair Khan as saying that the army and the intelligence service affiliated with it and President Bruise Musharraf were knew about the sale of central expelling pumps to North Korea..

A military spokesman said: "I would like to say in a conclusive basis that it is (a report) is wrong and false.".

He added that Khan is falsely seeking to implicate the supervisor, intelligence services and the army in nuclear deployment.

However, in February of 2009, the Pakistani authorities eased the restrictions on Khan, and the wife of Abdul Qadir Khan said then that the authorities had eased the restrictions on the nuclear world and allowed him to meet his friends outside the home where he set his stay 4 years ago.

"There is a mitigation to the extent that he was allowed to go to the Academy of Sciences.".

"But we do not know and we have to wait to find out if (mitigation) is just once or they will allow this as a general rule.".

In August of 2009, the Supreme Court in the Pakistani city of Lahore ordered the government to raise the latest punitive measures against the Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadir Khan, who was accused of claiming a network for deploying nuclear technology.

Before the ruling was issued, Abd al -Qadir Khan had to inform the authorities in advance of his moves.

"This is excellent," Khan said in statements to reporters..

The nuclear scientist Abdul Qudair Khan added, then, that his lawyer informed him that the court judges announced frankly his freedom as a citizen in moving without any restrictions..

Washington had criticized the previous decision to ease the restrictions imposed on Abdul Qadir Khan.

Pakistan warns India about any attack that violates its sovereignty

Why did the Indians fascinate the pilot who released Pakistan?

Pakistan will release the captive Indian pilot in a "peace initiative"

In subsequent years, Dr. Khan launched a campaign against illiteracy and established educational institutions in Mianwali and Crachi.

He told Yuskistan.com: "I am proud of my work for my country.The Pakistanis gave a feeling of pride and security and was a great scientific achievement..

Khan's critics, especially in the West, expressed their dissatisfaction with this lenient treatment of a man who described one of the observers as "the largest nuclear publisher of all ages".

But for many Pakistanis, Khan remains a symbol of pride, and a hero has strengthened his contribution to Pakistani national security against India.