Libya and the Khan Network

The relationship between the Libyan regime and Pakistan goes back to the first two decades of Qaddafi’s rule, but more concrete development occurred in the 1990s with what became known as the Khan Network. A Pakistani official, Altaf Abbasi,²⁶⁸ asserted that Salem Bin Amer, an important member of the Revolutionary Command Council (RCC) travelled with him to the Netherlands to meet A Q Khan and discuss the possibility of assisting Libya’s nuclear programme in return for financial assistance. After this meeting Qaddafi agreed to

268Abasi was, at that time, one of the close aids of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto of Pakistan.

extend financial support for Pakistan’s nuclear programme in exchange for co-operation in the development of Libya’s own programme (Solingen, 2007:217).

Libyan officials first met the nuclear scientist A Q Khan in January 1984 (IAEA report) when he briefed them about nuclear production technology. Libya had the option of buying the centrifugal uranium enrichment technology, but this acquisition would have been useless due to the lack of Libyan technical knowledge.²⁶⁹ The contacts with Khan were more frequent between 1989 and 1991, and through these contacts, the Libyan regime was able to gain more information about the centrifuges established by the Pakistani scientist.²⁷⁰ The ready-made centrifuges are rotary cylinders used for uranium enrichment. Eventually, the regime did order some components which turned out to be unsuitable for the implementation of a nuclear programme, and having discovered this, the Libyans bitterly criticised the people who sold them these devices.

Libya was prevented from purchasing an assembled centrifuge by the UN Security Council embargo; it was not possible to get the purchased equipment in storage in Dubai. Despite the early disappointment with the lack of progress with Khan, Libya kept the communication channel open, and in 1995 Pakistan agreed to send 20 assembled P-1 readymade centrifuges to Tripoli, together with the components to assemble at least another 200 centrifuges (Cirincione et al., 2005:463).²⁷¹

Another attempt to revive Libya’s nuclear programme was made in 1995 and that proved to be more rewarding. The link with Khan’s network had introduced Libya to the black market which allowed the country to obtain the required material, components, and technology through Khan. In 1997, Khan’s network managed to sell Libya twenty centrifuges and an additional two hundred parts (relevant for building), amounting to sufficient equipment to establish a research programme. In the same year, Khan and his colleagues met the head of the Libyan nuclear programme, Matoug Mohamed Matoug, in Istanbul. The Libyan official

269 Implementation of the NPT safeguards the agreement of the Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya.

Report by the Director General, GOV/2008/39, September 12, 2008,

http://www.iaea.org/Publications/Documents/Board/2008/gov2008–39.pdf

270 Some of the components of the centrifuges were scheduled for transfer.

271 Implementation of the NPT safeguards agreement of the Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya. Report by the Director General, GOV/2004/12, February 20, 2004,

https://www.iaea.org/Publications/Documents/Board/2004/gov2004-11.pdf

requested a complete centrifuge facility, since Libya did not possess the ability to manufacture its own (Corera, 2006:109).

After several failed attempts, the L-1 test eventually succeeded in October 2000.²⁷² Later that year Libya began the installation of cascades with 9, 19 and 64 centrifuges,²⁷³ and by September 2000, Libya had received two L-2 centrifuges.²⁷⁴ Subsequently, another 5,000 with the appropriate equipment were ordered.²⁷⁵ In reality, Khan was only acting as a mediator in the production and delivery of components and equipment in different countries.

Behind that network, people and companies from at least thirteen countries were involved.²⁷⁶ In terms of costs, the Libyan state paid 100 million dollars to the Khan network (Laufer, 2005). By 2000, Libya had received thousands of P-2 centrifuges from Khan’s network.²⁷⁷ Such a quantity is usually sufficient to produce fissile materials for several bombs. The delivery included all related equipment, design, and twenty tons of UF6 (Corera, 2006:109).²⁷⁸ The Libyans were satisfied with the services of the Khan network, in particular because they were able to evade IAEA safeguards and detection.²⁷⁹

Libya’s former foreign minister, Shalgum, states that the Head of Libya’s nuclear weapons programme Matoug Mohamed Matoug requested that he send some Libyan scientists to Pakistan. Accordingly, Shalgum visited Pakistan and secretly discussed the proposal in a military air base with Pervez Musharraf.²⁸⁰ Accordingly, close co-operation developed between Libya and Pakistan, providing the Libyan trainees with Pakistani ID cards during the

272 The L-1 centrifuge design is an old design of European origin, also referred to as G-1, or P-1.

273 The first order was then increased to 10,000 centrifuges.

274The L-2 is similar to other European designs, being more advanced than the L-1 type centrifuges, and using maraging steel rotors instead of aluminium rotors.

275 Report by the Director General. Implementation of the NPT Safeguards Agreement of the Socialist People’s

Libyan Arab Jamahiriya. Available online at:

http://www.iaea.org/Publications/Documents/Board/2004/gov2004-12.pdf

276Germany, Spain, Italy, Lichtenstein, Malaysia, the United Arab Emirates, Pakistan, South Korea, Singapore, Turkey, Switzerland, South Africa, and Japan. See Laufer M (2005), A Q Khan Nuclear Chronology. Article available online at: http://carnegieendowment.org/2005/09/07/a.-q.-khan-nuclear-chronology/6jq

277The P-2 centrifuge is the same design as the one developed by Germany in the early 1970s and stolen by A Q Khan from Urenco, the uranium enrichment consortium of Britain, Germany, and the Netherlands. In fact, the P-2 uranium enrichment output is about P-2.5 times better than the P-1 centrifuge. For more information, see the article by Albright and Shire (2008) “Iran Installing More Advanced Centrifuges at Natanz Pilot Enrichment Plant: Factsheet on the P-2/IR-2 Centrifuge” and published by the Institute of Science and International Security (ISIS)

278 The Khan network was able to evade the NPT regime for several years.

280 Shalgum interview with Gassan Sharbal of Al hayat newspaper published in June 2011.

phase of their preparation for Libya’s nuclear programme. On the whole, the Libyan official acknowledged that Libya’s nuclear programme suffered from mismanagement and corruption on a massive scale. He also stated that Libya’s decision-makers paid huge amounts of money in the efforts to acquire nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons. Shalgum also argued that in addition to Libya’s mismanagement of the programme, there was also the problem that Libya was not capable of producing the atom bomb, due to lack of expertise and manpower.

Shalgum asserted that the Pakistani Head of State, Pervez Musharraf, knew about the clandestine nuclear activities with states considered as radical, such as Libya. However, when it was discovered that Pakistan was dealing in nuclear components with Libya, the government denied the allegations and maintained that Dr Khan, their chief scientist, had provided Libya with the required equipment, in particular with the weapon design, without the knowledge of the Pakistani government (Campbell et al., 2004:137).

Mohamed Elbaradei, the former head of the IAEA, confirmed Shalgum’s statement.

According to him, Libya had engaged in a uranium enrichment programme for several years, and during this period had received equipment and the design of nuclear weapons from the Pakistani nuclear scientist Khan network as well as from other private firms.²⁸¹ The IAEA official stated that he had been informed that one of the causes of Libya’s nuclear programme was a response to the US attack on Libya in April 1986 (Elbaradei, 2011:149). However, the explanation given by Elbaradei seems inconsistent with the facts since the bombing of Libya did not occur until 1986, and all the evidence shows that Qaddafi’s regime started the process of obtaining nuclear capability in the early 1970s. In fact, the airstrike of the 1986 accelerated Libya’s efforts to acquire nuclear weapons, due to its fears of similar attacks in future.

The black market network, offering nuclear technology and equipment, played an essential role in the transfer of materials and technology to states such as Libya, North Korea, and Iran,²⁸² since it served to reduce the technology barriers for states seeking to acquire a nuclear weapons programme covertly. For instance, the IAEA did not know about Libya’s uranium enrichment prior to Libya’s own announcement of its secret nuclear weapons programme (Campbell et al., 2004:343). Clearly, despite being a signatory to the NPT, Libya

281 Elbaradei stated that Libya had also received nuclear assistance from South Africa regarding its programme.

282 These countries deliberately violated their obligations as members of the NPT.

did not respect its provisions.²⁸³ The acquisition of nuclear weapons was seen as essential for the Qaddafi regime’s survival yet the only way to secure these was by violating international norms concerning nuclearisation. In fact, autocratic countries such as Libya, North Korea, Iran, Iraq, and Syria did not comply with the IAEA safeguards or with the NPT. Had the IAEA been able to coerce these countries into compliance, they would quite likely have had to surrender their nuclear weapons programmes.