ISLAMABAD, February 3 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - Attempts to prosecute the disgraced father of Pakistan's nuclear program Abdul Qadeer Khan for allegedly selling nuclear secrets could backfire by placing the military's reported role under scrutiny, according to analysts.

Khan confessed in an 11-page statement at the weekend to selling nuclear expertise to Iran, Libya and North Korea from 1988 to at least 1997, according to the government.

The government is now weighing up whether to prosecute Khan, one of Pakistan's most revered national heroes, Agence France-Presse (AFP) said.

The government has already sacked him as special adviser on strategic affairs.

But analysts like Riffat Hussain, head of the Strategic Studies Department at Islamabad's Quaid-e-Azam University, said trying Khan would open a "Pandora's box".

"Pushed to the wall, A.Q. Khan can spill the beans, which can complicate matters - especially Islamabad's claims that technology leakage was done without official sanction," Hussain said.

Khan's daughter left Pakistan last month carrying a cassette recording of Khan "in which he defends himself and levels charges against certain people," The News daily reported Monday, February 2.

It said officials were trying to retrieve the tape "fearing it might damage the country if it fell into the hands of the anti-Pakistan lobby."

In his statement, Khan accused former army chiefs Aslam Beg and Jehangir Karamat of "indirectly instructing" him to proliferate, a senior military official told AFP.

"He named two gentlemen, (retired) generals Beg and Karamat, who were then questioned," the official said, requesting anonymity.

Beg, who denied in interviews last week approving or being aware that nuclear secrets were being sold off, was army chief from 1988 to 1991, and Karamat was army chief until 1998.

"(Khan) said they were in the know. In one case he said he did it on their instructions, but not directly. They asked someone else and that fellow instructed A.Q. Khan and that man is now dead."

The middleman was the late brigadier Imtiaz, defense adviser to Benazir Bhutto during her first tenure as Prime Minister from 1988 to 1990.

"There was no evidence found of what A.Q. Khan was saying, so it could not be sustained," the official said.

But Beg and Karamat were questioned thoroughly, he added.

"If there is any more evidence of involvement of anyone else they will be questioned, no one is above the law," he said.

President Pervez Musharraf has adamantly denied that the military or former governments encouraged or approved the transfers of nuclear technology and expertise, blaming civilian scientists and the world black market.

Pakistan's military was "not at all" concerned about possible scrutiny if Khan is put to trial, the military official said.

Officials also insist that no proliferation occurred after 2000, when the military established the National Command Authority (NCA) and command and control structures to secure the country's nuclear program.

"Certainly nothing happened after the NCA was established in 2000," a government official said Monday.

Observers, however, are skeptical that Khan could have proliferated so widely without military approval.

"What is rather clear to me is that it was not just personal profit that was involved, nor was the action of mere individuals possible," Pervez Hoodbhoy, a physics professor who campaigns for nuclear disarmament, said.

"Rather it has to be something much deeper than that and which involved state apparatus, because the transfer of such materials is impossible without explicit permission from the security apparatus that constantly surrounds the nuclear establishment, installations and personnel," he said.

On a deeper layer, the ongoing investigations into the alleged leakage have exposed Pakistan’s otherwise reticent nuclear program out to “dangerous” limits.

Over the past one month, government agencies have picked up for questioning more than a dozen scientists and engineers who have been associated with the country's nuclear program.

Some of them were later released but at least six members of the community are still under what the government insists was “debriefing” of these most senior scientists.

In a memorandum sent to Pakistan by IAEA directorate, the Agency alleged without naming any scientists that evidence found during its inspections in Iran has suggested that Pakistan was a source of technology transfer to Iran during its alleged quest for nuclear weapons development in late eighties and early nineties.

Pakistan immediately launched an investigation into the allegations and within days a Foreign Ministry spokesman announced that evidence was found that some scientists had privately been involved in the nuclear transfers in the past.

“There are indications that some individuals might have been motivated by personal ambitions or greed. But let me also add that we have not made a final determination” Masood Khan, foreign office spokesman said on December 23.

This statement kicked off a media trial of the scientists who once had been godly figures in the eyes and hearts of the countrymen who were told that these scientists saved Pakistan from Indian hegemonic designs and diverted a direct Indian threat by gifting the country with the nuclear deterrent.

The smear media campaign was spearheaded by the government. General Musharraf himself said in a television interview last week that if found guilty, these scientists would be dealt with as “national enemies” and would reward no mercy.

Special media reports based on selective leaks have appeared in the local newspapers since the questioning started last month which labeled these scientists everything from womanizers to money launderers.

A similar report appeared in local newspapers Wednesday, January 28 said Khan spent 50 million rupees on personal image building as head of Pakistan’s nuclear program.

The government claimed that these scientists acted individually and no government institution was involved in these transactions.

The scientists deny these allegations, accusing army officials or ordering the leakage.

Pakistan’s nuclear program has been center of controversy for many years. At least twice it became a potential target of a military strike.

In 1991 Pakistan issued warnings to the United States and other foreign countries that it was all prepared to launch attack on nuclear installations in India, which the Pakistani government said was planning a similar attack on Pakistani installations with the help of Israel.

Similarly, midnight of December 22, 2001, Pakistani chief of army rang up the world capitals to tell them of a similar design by India.

Pakistan assured of retaliation and thus was able to attract attention of the world community and the Indian plans were thwarted.

But many Pakistani leaders now believe that the so-called investigation and interrogation of the nuclear scientists was the actual threat to country’s nuclear assets.

“Pakistan’s nuclear program faces the gravest threat ever,” Nisar Ali Khan, Parliamentary leader of Pakistan Muslim League (N) told IslamOnline.net.

He said the process of investigation was being carried out to please the Americans and other countries that are opposed to Pakistan being a nuclear power.

Though Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, former Pakistani President and Prime Minister was the founder of Pakistan's Nuclear Program, Dr. Khan is credited with the technical development of the Bomb and hence called “father” of the nuclear program.

Pakistan's nuclear program was launched in earnest shortly after the loss of East Pakistan in the 1971 war with India, when Bhutto initiated a program to develop nuclear weapons with a meeting of physicists and engineers at Multan in January 1972.

In 1974, India successfully tested a nuclear "device". Bhutto reacted strongly to this test and said Pakistan must develop its own "Islamic bomb".

Pakistan lacks an extensive civil nuclear power infrastructure, and its weapons program is not as broad as India's. Much of its nuclear program is focused on weapons applications.

Initially, Pakistan focused on the plutonium path for building a nuclear weapon. Plutonium can be obtained from fuel that has been reprocessed from nuclear power plants, and in October 1974, Pakistan signed a contract with France for the design of a reprocessing facility for the fuel from its power plant at Karachi and other planned facilities.

However, over the next two years Pakistan's international nuclear collaborators withdrew as Pakistan's nuclear ambitions became more apparent. The French were among the last to withdraw at the end of 1976, following sustained pressure from the United States.

A major advance jump to Pakistan's nuclear program was the arrival of Dr. Khan in 1975, who brought with him the plans for uranium enrichment centrifuges, and lists of sources of the necessary technology.

On this basis, Pakistan initially focused its development efforts on highly enriched uranium (HEU), and exploited an extensive clandestine procurement network to support these efforts.

Khan evidently persuaded Pakistan to work with Uranium (as compared to Plutonium) because Plutonium involves more arduous and hazardous procedures and cumbersome and expensive processes.

Pakistan's activities were initially centered in a few facilities. Khan founded the Engineering Research Laboratories at Kahuta in 1976, which later to became the Dr. A. Q. Khan Research Laboratories (KRL).