Mossad may have bombed and threatened German and Swiss companies supporting Pakistan: report
The organization for the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons in South Asia had committed itself to the explosions in Switzerland and Germany
Jerusalem: Israel’s espionage agency Mossad is suspected of bombing and threatening German and Swiss companies that “vigorously supported” Pakistan in its burgeoning nuclear weapons program in the 1980s when the Jewish state viewed the acquisition of nuclear capabilities in Islamabad as an “existential threat”. said a leading newspaper here on Tuesday.
The Jerusalem Post cited a prominent Swiss daily report that after the three bombings of three of these companies in 1981, following unsuccessful US intervention to cease operations, “it was suspected that the Mossad had carried out the attacks and issued threats”.
“For Israel, the prospect that Pakistan could become an Islamic state for the first time with an atomic bomb was an existential threat,” reported the Swiss daily Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ) on Sunday.
Pakistan conducted five simultaneous underground nuclear tests on May 28, 1998 at Ras Koh Hills, Chagai District, Balochistan Province. Code-named Chagai-I, it was Pakistan’s first public nuclear test. The second Chagai-II nuclear test followed on May 30 of the same year.
Pakistan and the Islamic Republic of Iran worked closely together in the 1980s on the development of nuclear weapons, in which the intensive work of German and Swiss companies in support of their nuclear program was “relatively well researched,” reported the NZZ.
“New, previously unknown documents from archives in Bern and Washington sharpen this picture,” it said.
Swiss historian Adrian Hanni is said to have said that the Mossad was likely involved in the bombings of Swiss and German companies, although there was no “smoking weapon” to prove that the Israeli espionage agency carried out the attacks after the attempts were discovered .
The organization for the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons in South Asia had committed itself to the explosions in Switzerland and Germany.
The NZZ report also mentions the role of the disgraced late Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan, who traveled all over Europe in the 1980s to secure technology and blueprints from Western institutions and companies for the development of an atomic bomb.
Khan is said to have met a delegation from the Iranian Atomic Energy Organization in a Zurich hotel in 1987. The Iranian delegation is said to have been led by engineer Masud Naraghi, head of the Iranian Atomic Energy Commission.
Two German engineers, Gotthard Lerch and Heinz Mebus, together with Naraghi – who did his doctorate. in the USA – Khan’s group is said to have met in Switzerland. Further meetings were reportedly held in Dubai.
In view of Pakistan’s “quick efforts” to get its nuclear weapons program in motion, the US tried to persuade the German and Swiss governments to take action against the helping companies, but were unsuccessful, the report said.
Suspicious Mossad agents are said to have taken action against the companies and engineers who were involved in the aid to Pakistan.
“A few months after the unsuccessful intervention of the American State Department in Bonn and Bern, unknown perpetrators carried out explosive attacks on three of these companies – on February 20, 1981 on the house of a senior employee of Cora Engineering Chur; on May 18, 1981 at the factory building of the Walischmiller company in Markdorf and on November 6, 1981 at the engineering office of Heinz Mebus in Erlangen, ”reports the NZZ.
“All three attacks only resulted in property damage and only Mebus’ dog was killed,” it said.
The explosions are said to have been followed by several phone calls in English and broken German in which strangers threatened other companies.
“The attack that we carried out against the Walischmiller company could also happen to you – this is how the Leybold-Heraeus administrative office was intimidated.
Siegfried Schertler, the owner of VAT at the time, and his head salesman Tinner received private calls several times. Schertler also reported to the Swiss Federal Police that the Israeli secret service had contacted him. This is evident from the investigation files, which the NZZ was able to see for the first time, according to the report.
Scertler was quoted as saying that an employee of the Israeli embassy in Germany, David, had contacted him.
David is said to have urged him to stop “this business” with nuclear weapons and switch to the textile business.
Swiss and German companies made enormous profits from their association with the Khan nuclear weapons network.
Many of these suppliers, above all from Germany and Switzerland, soon made millions in business with Pakistan: Leybold-Heraeus, Wlischmiller, Cora Engineering Chur, Vakuum-Apparate-Technik (VAT, with the main buyer Friedrich Tinner) or the Buchs metal works to a to name a few.
They benefited from an important circumstance: the German and Swiss authorities interpreted their dual-use provisions very generously: most of the components required for uranium enrichment, for example high-precision vacuum valves, are primarily used for civil purposes, reports the NZZ .
The National Security Archive in Washington recently published diplomatic correspondence of the US State Department from Bonn and Bern from 1980 with new information.
The US appears to have resented the “casual handling of the delicate supplies to Pakistan” by these two countries.
Bern’s behavior was described by an employee as a “hands-off approach” and the local authorities were accused of “turning a blind eye” in these communications.
“In the dispatches that have now been published and previously classified as secret, those companies are listed for the first time that the USA has accused of supporting the Pakistani nuclear weapons program with their deliveries.
The list included around half a dozen companies from Germany and Switzerland, the Swiss daily reported.
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