Bomber strikes Pak air base believed to store nukes; secure arsenal,says India

Eighteen people died after a landmine went off under a bus ferrying a marriage party in Lakaro subdivision in the restive Mohmand tribal region. In Peshawar,suspected Taliban militants detonated a car bomb outside a popular restaurant,leaving at least 15 injured.

The bicycle bomber who had packed 5 kg of explosives and pellets in his suicide jacket blew himself up after he was stopped at the first checkpoint outside the maximum security Pakistan Aeronautical Complex within the military cantonment in Kamra,50 km from Islamabad,police said. Two air force guards were among the dead,Attock district police chief Fakhar Sultan said.

Kamra is the Pakistan Air Forces largest maintenance and research base,reportedly housing combat jets equipped to carry nuclear warheads. The US intelligence think tank Stratfor said this was the second attack on the base the first having come two years ago in December 2007. A little over two weeks ago,the Taliban had stormed the armys General Headquarters in the garrison town of Rawalpindi nearby,killing 22.

In the wake of the attack,India said it hoped that Pakistans government will effectively secure its nuclear arsenal. We have seen reports of what happened today at Kamra. We hope the Pakistan government will continue to take steps to effectively secure their nuclear assets, Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao told reporters in New Delhi.

Experts in the Indian military establishment,however,said the attack was not necessarily a matter of great concern. It did not indicate a serious attempt to breach the base rather,its purpose had been symbolic,to send out the signal to the Pakistani state that the Taliban now had the ability to strike anywhere with impunity.

Even if terrorists did manage to enter the base,they were unlikely to get hold of a ready-to-fire nuclear weapon,the experts said. It is believed that like India,Pakistan too does not keep a fully assembled nuclear warhead at any location during peacetime.

Earlier too there was an attack outside Wah,which is also rumoured to have nuclear weapon parts. It shouldnt be read as nuclear terrorism. A suicide bombing would not be the way to get at a nuclear weapon, said Brig. Gurmeet Kanwal,who heads the premier army think tank,Centre for Land Warfare Studies CLAWS.

The general understanding within the Indian military establishment is that the Pakistan army is a professional organization that would be able to withstand bomb attacks,suicide missions and even a concerted quasi-military attack on nuclear facilities.

It is also believed that adequate safeguards like separating the different parts of the weapon and a multilayered security network set up with American help have been put in place by Pakistan.

The big worry is the infiltration of the Pak army by jehadi elements. The way to acquire nuclear weapons would be to infiltrate the security detail and get into the system. Then nuclear weapons could be acquired, Brig. Kanwal said. But these kinds of bomb attacks will only ensure that the Army keeps its guard up.

Kamras Air Weapons Complex AWC is widely assumed to house at least a part of Pakistans nuclear armoury. The AWC is engaged in developing aerial bombs and is believed to be the central agency that has modified and rigged Pakistani F-16 fighters with nuclear weapons.