This Pakistani physicist ran a dangerous nuclear black market, but how did he supply stolen blueprints to Iran?

Amid the escalating Israel-Iran conflict when Israel strikes targets Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, the world’s focus returns to Tehran’s decades-old atomic programme. But what’s often overlooked is how that programme began, not with Iranian scientists, but with nuclear secrets smuggled out of Europe by Pakistani physicist Abdul Qadeer Khan. It was, allegedly, Khan’s covert network that armed Iran with the blueprints, parts, and knowledge to start enriching uranium.

Abdul Qadeer Khan was a Pakistani nuclear physicist and metallurgist, best known as the father of Pakistan’s nuclear bomb and the architect of a global nuclear black market. Born in Bhopal, British India, in 1936, Khan migrated to Pakistan after the 1947 Partition. He studied in Europe, eventually earning a degree in metallurgical engineering.

In the 1970s, Khan worked at URENCO, a European nuclear consortium based in the Netherlands. There, he accessed classified designs for Zippe-type gas centrifuges, essential for enriching uranium. In 1975, Khan returned to Pakistan with these stolen plans. His work would not only help build Pakistan’s bomb, but also fuel a global nuclear black market. The Dutch intelligence confirmed his unauthorised access and noted he fled just before prosecution.

Khan founded the Kahuta Research Laboratories, where he led Pakistan’s uranium enrichment using the P-1 and P-2 centrifuge designs, the direct copies of URENCO models, IAEA confirmed. Pakistan successfully tested nuclear weapons in 1998, establishing strategic parity with India. But behind the scenes, Khan had already begun exporting his knowledge to other nations.

Iran’s entry into the black market began in 1987. Iranian officials met Khan’s intermediaries in Dubai and purchased a package of centrifuge blueprints, assembly instructions, and guidance for setting up a programme. The technology, routed via Malaysia and the UAE, formed the core of Iran’s IR-1 and IR-2 centrifuges.

Khan’s network used shell companies, offshore factories, and global shipping routes to move thousands of nuclear parts. High-precision rotors and vacuum systems were built in Southeast Asia, often disguised as industrial goods. Dubai-based firms repackaged and forwarded them to Iran without triggering export red flags. The intercepted shipments and factory records exposed the elaborate logistics trail.

In 2003, a ship bound for Libya carrying centrifuge parts exposed Khan’s network. Investigations linked similar materials to Iran and North Korea. Under pressure, Khan appeared on Pakistani television in 2004 and confessed to nuclear proliferation, though he claimed to have acted independently of the state. Even today, Iran’s nuclear infrastructure carries the signature of Khan’s blueprints. Israeli intelligence suggests that Iran’s now-halted AMAD weapons programme used designs from his network. He later died in Islamabad on Sunday October 10, 2021 of Covid-related complications at the age of 85.