The United States has issued sanctions targeting Abdul Qadeer Khan as well as 12 other people and three private firms believed to have participated in a nuclear smuggling ring once led by the former top Pakistani nuclear scientist, the State Department announced yesterday (see GSN, Aug. 22, 2007).
The Khan network provided uranium enrichment centrifuge design specifications and components to Iran, Libya and possibly North Korea. The proliferators were also known to offer entire complete versions of the machines, which can refine uranium to produce nuclear power plant fuel as well as weapons material. Libya opted to abandon its WMD programs in 2003 and subsequently surrendered equipment it obtained through the smuggling ring (see GSN, Nov. 24, 2008).
The penalties -- enacted under the Nuclear Proliferation Prevention Act, Export-Import Bank Act and two executive orders -- are aimed at discouraging other potential nuclear smugglers, the department said in a statement.
"We believe these sanctions will help prevent future proliferation-related activities by these private entities, provide a warning to other would-be proliferators, and demonstrate our ongoing commitment to using all available tools to address proliferation-related activities," the statement says.
While the Khan network has probably been shut down, the release states, countries should "remain vigilant to ensure that Khan network associates, or others seeking to pursue similar proliferation activities, will not become a future source for sensitive nuclear information or equipment" (U.S. State Department release, Jan. 12).
"This is a positive step. This seems to be related to tying up loose ends involving members of the Khan network who have until now possibly avoided prosecution or legal accountability for their actions," said
Jacqueline Shire, a nonproliferation specialist at the Institute for Science and International Security (Kirit Radia, ABC News, Jan. 12).
ISIS President David Albright also expressed support for the penalties, Agence France-Presse reported. "It's a slap in the face of Khan. The U.S. is saying 'you can't deny what you did and expect people to believe you,'" he said.
Albright said the sanctions would help to "stigmatize" Khan and his targeted collaborators, but he expressed concern that dozens of individuals could be continuing the network's proliferation activities in nations such as the United Arab Emirates and Malaysia, which he said have few regulations on such trade (Agence France-Presse/Khaleej Times, Jan. 13).
The State Drepartment did not explain the timing of the new penalties, applied years after Khan was placed under house arrest in Pakistan, but one official said that "information continued to become available as other countries concluded their investigations or prosecutions and we believed in this case that it was important to sanction the group at one time" (Radia, ABC News).
The International Atomic Energy Agency has long been aware of the individuals targeted by the sanctions, the London Guardian reported. Peter Griffin, who was penalized along with his son Paul, was declared in a German court three years ago to be among Khan's top confidants (see GSN, Jan. 14, 2008).
Notably, the new penalties do not name any of the three Tinner family members suspected to have collaborated in the smuggling ring (see GSN, Jan. 5; Ian Traynor, London Guardian, Jan. 13).
U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Howard Berman (D-Calif.) cautioned that the new penalties "do not put an end to the matter; equipment and technology from this network may still be circulating, and new suppliers could well spring up to take Khan's place."
President-elect Barack Obama "inherits a complex situation, in which he must redouble U.S. efforts against international black markets in weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles," Berman said in statement. "Congress should be ready to provide new funds and the legal authorities that he may need to end the activities of these merchants of mass destruction" (Agence France-Presse).