New Delhi: While the aim of Pakistan’s nuclear programme was to counter India, the larger goal was to create an “Islamic Bomb”, former CIA officer Richard Barlow has said in a startling revelation.

Abdul Qadeer Khan, the mastermind behind Pakistan’s nuclear programme was a prolific proliferator and had intentions to extend and accelerate the technology to other Islamic nations, including Iran, Barlow told ANI. ADVERTISEMENT

The officer was part of the CIA’s counterproliferation unit during Pakistan’s clandestine nuclear activities in the 1980s. He detailed how Khan’s network provided critical gas centrifuge technology and possibly nuclear weapons plans to Iran in the early 1990s, accelerating Tehran’s programme by decades.

“Pakistan’s primary motive for developing nuclear weapons was t

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