New Delhi: Earlier than the world ever noticed satellite tv for pc photos of buried centrifuges at Natanz, earlier than the Worldwide Atomic Power Company (IAEA) dispatched groups to examine suspicious websites in Fordow and lengthy earlier than Israeli missiles lit up Iranian skies this month, the seeds of Tehran’s nuclear functionality had been already sown. But it surely occurred in Pakistan, Dubai and Kuala Lumpur.
On the middle of this shadowy nuclear internet was Abdul Qadeer Khan – Pakistani metallurgist who, many years in the past, stole blueprints from Europe and constructed Pakistan’s atomic bomb. What few may think about then was that Khan would go on to export that know-how in secret, creating the world’s most harmful underground marketplace for nuclear know-how – one that might arm Iran with extra than simply ambition.
Khan started his nuclear journey within the laboratories of Europe within the early Nineteen Seventies, working for Urenco Group – a Dutch-German-British nuclear consortium. It was there that he accessed and copied delicate centrifuge designs. By 1975, he returned to Pakistan with a suitcase stuffed with secrets and techniques.
His position in growing Pakistan’s uranium enrichment programme at Kahuta earned him celeb standing at residence. However whereas the world celebrated non-proliferation treaties, he quietly flipped the script.
Within the Nineteen Eighties and Nineties, he constructed a secret pipeline that bypassed governments and treaties. Working by way of shell firms, pleasant states and keen middlemen, Khan’s community smuggled important nuclear gear, blueprints and even bomb designs to a number of international locations. Iran was one amongst them.
Probably the most consequential sale got here in 1987. Iranian officers met intermediaries of Khan’s community in Dubai and secured an preliminary package deal: centrifuge blueprints, meeting manuals and a roadmap to enrichment. These had been based mostly on the P1 and P2 centrifuges – the identical fashions Pakistan used to develop its bomb.
Within the Nineties, complete units of parts – bellows, rotors, vacuum pumps and high-speed motors – made their option to Iran. A lot of the {hardware} was in-built Malaysian factories below Khan’s supervision after which disguised and routed by way of Dubai to keep away from detection.
By the early 2000s, Iran had a pilot enrichment facility working. The world watched, surprised, as Tehran’s capabilities grew quicker than intelligence companies had predicted. However the acceleration was not magic – it was the Khan blueprint at work.
Khan’s operation was not run out of basements or again alleys. It seemed like legit enterprise. Precision elements got here from Europe and Southeast Asia. Companies like Scomi Precision Engineering in Malaysia manufactured rotors and pipes below the radar. Dubai-based logistics corporations repackaged them for discreet supply to Iran.
One of many greatest exposes got here in 2003, when U.S. and British forces intercepted a ship certain for Libya. Onboard had been centrifuge elements matching Khan’s designs. That led to Libya giving up its nuclear program and to the unraveling of your complete community.
Investigations by the IAEA and Western intelligence revealed that Khan had bought comparable supplies to North Korea and Iran. Technical paperwork recovered from Iranian services bore unmistakable Pakistani signatures – even Chinese language-style bomb schematics that Khan had allegedly handed alongside.
What Did Iran Actually Get?
Centrifuge designs: Detailed plans for P1 and P2 centrifuges – blueprints, machining tolerances and meeting procedures.
Manufactured elements: From rotors to hoover techniques, hundreds of parts had been delivered over years.
Weaponisation docs: Maybe probably the most alarming had been paperwork on methods to construct an implosion-style nuclear weapon. These weren’t primary ideas, they included measurements, set off designs and engineering drawings.
Technical assist: Although no direct proof exists of Pakistani scientists bodily working in Iran, declassified information recommend constant technical communication and assist by way of intermediaries.
The Lasting Affect
Even as we speak, Iran’s centrifuge fashions – IR-1 and IR-2 – intently mirror Khan’s P1s and P2s. Whereas Iran insists its programme is peaceable, the technological DNA traces straight again to Khan’s black-market empire.
In 2022, Israeli intelligence leaked paperwork suggesting that Iran’s ‘AMAD Plan’, an alleged nuclear weapons programme halted in 2003, used Khan-provided blueprints to mannequin bomb designs.
The warfare now raging between Israel and Iran has reignited fears that Tehran’s decades-long accumulation of nuclear information should carry a weapons-grade potential. And whereas Iran denies any intent to construct a bomb, its potential to take action was by no means solely homegrown.
It was purchased, smuggled and constructed – piece by piece – within the shadows of Abdul Qadeer Khan’s legacy.