Nuclear deals traced to Sudan

Clandestine nuclear deals traced to Sudan

The Guardian

Thursday 5 January 2006.

By Ian Traynor and Ian Cobain



Jan 5, 2005 (LONDON) - International investigators and western intelligence

have for the first time named Sudan as a major conduit for sophisticated

engineering equipment that could be used in nuclear weapons programmes.

Hundreds of millions of pounds of equipment was imported into the African

country over a three-year period before the 9/11 attacks in New York and

Washington in 2001 and has since disappeared, according to Guardian sources.



Western governments, UN detectives and international analysts trying to stem

the illicit trade in weapons of mass destruction technology are alarmed by

the black market trade.



A European intelligence assessment obtained by the Guardian says Sudan has

been using front companies and third countries to import machine tools,

gauges and hi-tech processing equipment from western Europe for its military

industries in recent years. But it says that Sudan is also being used as a

conduit, as much of the equipment is too sophisticated for use in the

country itself.



"The suspicion arises that at least some of the machinery was not destined

for or not only destined for Sudan," the assessment says. "Among the

equipment purchased by Sudan there are dual-use goods whose use in Sudan

appears implausible because of their high technological standard."



Western analysts and intelligence agencies suspect the equipment has been or

is being traded by the nuclear proliferation racket headed by the Pakistani

scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan, who admitted nuclear trading two years ago and

is under house arrest in Islamabad.



Khan is known to have visited Sudan at least once between 1998 and 2002, and

the suspicion is he may have used the country as a warehouse for the hi-tech

engineering equipment he was selling to Libya, Iran and North Korea for the

assembly of centrifuges for enriching uranium, the most common way of

building a nuclear bomb.



Sudan has been ravaged by internal conflicts for decades, and has until

recently been governed by an Islamist regime.



Analysts point out that a "failing state" such as Sudan is an ideal

candidate for the illicit trading.



David Albright, who is investigating the various players in the Khan network

and tracks nuclear proliferation for the Washington-based Institute for

Science and International Security, said about £20m worth of dual-use

engineering equipment was imported by Sudan between 1999 and 2001.



The purchases were denominated in German marks (before the introduction of

the euro), suggesting that at least some of the equipment came from Germany.



Investigators say the machinery has not been found in Sudan. Nor has it been

found in Libya, since Tripoli gave up its secret nuclear bomb project in

December 2003. Given Osama bin Laden's long relationship with Sudan, where

he lived before moving to Afghanistan, there had been suspicions of al-Qaida

involvement. But the goods have not been found in Afghanistan either.



"A huge amount of dual-use equipment was bought by Sudan and people don't

know where it went to," Mr Albright said. "It's a big mystery. The equipment

has not been found anywhere."



A senior international investigator confirmed that Sudan had been importing

the material and that the transports had ceased in 2001.



"No one now seems to be buying to that extent," he said. "Perhaps the

activity stopped because they got all that they needed."



While the Khan operation is a main suspect, Iran is also suspected of being

behind the Sudanese dealings.



"There is the Khan network and then there is a much bigger network in this,

and that is the Iranian network," the investigator said.



Yesterday, the Guardian reported that the same European intelligence

assessment - which draws on material gathered by British, French, German and

Belgian agencies - concluded that the Iranian government had been

successfully scouring Europe for the sophisticated equipment needed to build

a nuclear bomb.



Western intelligence and Mr Albright identified a state-owned firm in

Khartoum as a "pivotal organisation" in Sudan's procurement of weapons and

dual-use technology in eastern and western Europe and Russia.



The named company has offices in Tehran, Moscow, Sofia, Istanbul and

Beijing. According to the European intelligence assessment, the company "is

cooperating intensively with Iran".



"It is striking," says the document, "that [the company's] partners are

enterprises subordinate to Iran's Defence Industries Organisation.

Technology transfer between these two states and links between their

programmes cannot be ruled out."



While the machinery was dual-use, meaning that it could be used in civil or

military applications, Mr Albright said he understood the equipment was

"nuclear-related".



"For the people following this, the interest is whether it's nuclear. The

assumption is it is."



The likelihood that the machinery was for Sudan is slim, say experts and

investigators.



"The idea that Sudan could buy and make use of extremely sophisticated

nuclear technology is obviously a question mark," said Jon Wolfsthal, a

nuclear proliferation expert at Washington's Centre for Strategic and

International Studies.



Sudan is known to have a small civilian nuclear programme, researching

nuclear medicine, radiological safety and food irradiation techniques.



Never before has it been suspected of involvement in nuclear weapons

research, however. It signed the nuclear non-proliferation treaty in 2004.



(The Guardian )