The case of the missing nukes

last updated 8 January 2015

Tripoli, Libya

Sophisticated nuclear weapons equipment that Pakistani smugglers sold to Libya was instead delivered to an unknown buyer, the Los Angeles Times reported this week. The missing equipment, which includes centrifuges that can enrich uranium to bomb-grade, was intended for the bomb factory that Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan was helping Libya build. But when the U.S. and Britain busted Khan’s smuggling ring in 2003, the shipment was diverted, and international investigators cannot determine whether it went to Iran, North Korea, or elsewhere. “For sure there were other customers,” one investigator said. “We just don’t know who, and we don’t know how far along they might be.”