Pakistan Calls Nuke Program Security 'Foolproof'

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Jan. 26, 2008— -- Pakistan's nuclear program has "foolproof" and "second to none" security, the head of the program insisted today, calling doubts about the safety of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal "inaccurate" and "based on a lack of understanding."

Retired Lt. Gen. Khalid Kidwai, the director-general of Pakistan's Strategic Plans Division, did acknowledge that as militants have increased their attacks in the last six months "the state of alert has gone up," but insisted there were no specific threats to the nuclear program.

His assertions come as politicians in the United States and the head of the United Nations' nuclear watchdog have questioned the safety of Pakistan's nuclear weapons. Mohammed ElBaradei, director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, told the pan-Arab newspaper Al-Hayat that he feared "nuclear weapons could fall into the hands of extremist groups in Pakistan or Afghanistan."

Today Kidwai said that ElBaradei had "no business to talk like that. If you open and shoot your mouth without any information -- that is very bad."

"The security mechanism in place is functioning efficiently and we are capable of thwarting all types of threats -- whether these be insider, outsider, or a combination," he told a group of mostly foreign journalists.

In the last year militants based along the volatile border with Afghanistan have launched a string of assaults aimed mostly at the military and the police, but also politicians and civilians. That has fueled fears that the militants may have their eyes on a larger goal: nuclear sabotage.

But the man who Pakistan blames for masterminding the attacks, most notably the one that killed former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, said on Friday that he had no intention of attacking the nation's nuclear institutions.

"We are afraid on the American bomb, not the Pakistani bomb. At least the Paksitani bombs are in the hands of Muslims," Baitullah Mehsud, the head of a coalition of militant groups known as the united Taliban of Paksitan group, told Al-Jazeera in his first television interview.