WASHINGTON — Four years after Abdul Qadeer Khan, the leader of the world’s largest atomic black market, was put under house arrest and his operation declared over, international inspectors and Western officials were confronting a new mystery left by him, this time over who might have received blueprints for a sophisticated and compact nuclear weapon found on his network’s computers.
Working in secret for two years, investigators have tracked the digitized blueprints to Khan computers in Switzerland, Dubai, Malaysia and Thailand. The blueprints are electronic and could be rapidly reproducible for creating a weapon that is relatively small and easy to hide, making it attractive to terrorists.
The revelation this weekend that the Khan operation even had such a blueprint underscores the questions that remain about what Khan, a Pakistani metallurgist and the father of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program, was selling and to whom. It also raises the possibility that he may still have sensitive material in his possession. Yet even as inspectors and intelligence officials press their investigation of Khan, officials in Pakistan have declared the scandal over and have discussed the possibility of setting him free.
American officials and inspectors at the International Atomic Energy Agency say they have been unable to determine whether the weapon blueprints were sold to Iran or the smuggling ring’s other customers.
