Islamabad: Pakistan has stepped up security around all its nuclear installations and planned for "all contingencies" including militant threats and any attempt by foreign forces to secure its nuclear arsenal, a top official said today.

The official however said there are no specific terrorist threat yet against the nuclear sites and that its atomic assets are safe from Taliban and al-Qaida elements. Lt Gen (retired) Khalid Kidwai, the chief of the Strategic Plans Division (SPD) that is responsible for the security and development of the nuclear arsenal, said Pakistan has become more alert in the last six months but did not give details how security was stepped up.

The country's institutionalised command and control systems includes 10,000 soldiers who are guarding storage and production facilities for nuclear weapons, he said in a rare briefing for the international media at Chaklala garrison near Rawalpindi.

Asked if the government had increased the security for the weapons in the past six months, Kidwai said "the state of alertness has gone up, most certainly." At the same time, he made it clear that the SPD's intelligence had uncovered "no plots or conspiracies" to gain control of the nuclear weapons or to make a "dirty bomb" containing radioactive material.

"There is no conceivable scenario, political or violent, in which Pakistan will fall to the extremist of the al-Qaida or Taliban type." Noting that the armed forces are "always responding to threats", Kidwai said the SPD and military had planned for "all contingencies", including militant threats and any attempt by foreign forces to secure Pakistan s nuclear arsenal.

Source : PTI