The Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission, headed by Munir Ahmad Khan, focused on the plutonium route to nuclear weapons development using material from the safeguarded Karachi Nuclear Power Plant (KANUPP), but its progress was inefficient due to the constraints of nuclear export controls applied in the wake of India’s nuclear test. Around 1975, A.Q. Khan, a metallurgist working at a subsidiary of the URENCO enrichment corporation in the Netherlands, returned to Pakistan to help his country develop a uranium enrichment program. By the early 1980s, Pakistan had a clandestine uranium enrichment facility, and A.Q. Khan would later assert that the country had acquired the capability to assemble a first-generation nuclear device as early as 1984.. The Khan network was officially dismantled in 2004, although questions remain concerning the extent of the Pakistani political and military establishment’s involvement in the network’s activities.
Pakistan’s Missile System
Pakistan currently has three cruise missiles in development with land, air, and sea launch capabilities. The Babur (Hatf-7) is a mobile land-based missile with a range of 350 km. The Hatf-7 is designed to fly at low altitudes to avoid radar detection and can carry nuclear warheads. An improved version of Babur, The Babur-2/1(B) is being developed with a range of 700 km.
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