'Crack unit' being trained by US to seal off Pakistan's N-facilities

Alarmed by a slew of terror attacks on sensitive military instalations in Pakistan, the US is putting in place "a crack unit" of its elite troops to seal off that country's nuclear weapons and ensure they do not fall into the hands of militants, a media report claimed today.

Alarmed by a slew of terror attacks on sensitive military instalations in Pakistan, the US is putting in place "a crack unit" of its elite troops to seal off that country's nuclear weapons and ensure they do not fall into the hands of militants, a media report claimed today.

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The US army is training the crack unit so that it could seal off and snatch back Pakistani nuclear weapons in the
event of militants, "possibly from inside the country's security apparatus," getting their hands on a nuclear device
or materials that could make one, The Sunday Times reported.

It said the specialised unit would be charged with recovering the nuclear materials and securing them.

"The move follows a series of attacks on sensitive military instalations over the past two years, several of
which housed nuclear facilities, and rising tension that has seen a series of official complaints by the US authorities to
Islamabad in the past fortnight," the report said.

Citing Rolf Mowatt-Larssen, a former CIA officer who used to run the US energy department's intelligence unit, it said: "What you have in Pakistan is nuclear weapons mixed with the highest density of extremists in the world, so we have a right to be concerned."

"There have been attacks on army bases which stored nuclear weapons and there have been breaches and infiltrations
by terrorists into military facilities."

Pakistan is thought to possess about 80 nuclear warheads.