Taliban Explores Options To Acquire 'Nuclear Weapons'

Do not ignore the threat, says former Afghan security chief

- ARPAN RAI

The Taliban is exploring ways in which it can obtain a tactical nuclear weapon as it seeks to cement its grip on power in Afghanistan, the country's former spy chief has claimed. Rahmatullah Nabil, the former head of Afghanistan's national security service, said the Taliban had ambitions to follow in the footsteps of the likes of North Korea, Iran, China and Russia in acquiring a nuclear weapon as the emblem of a modern military power.

The Islamist militant group is desperate for international recognition after seizing control of Kabul following the withdrawal of Western allied forces in August 2021. It has gone on to implement a brutal misogynist regime in the country, and the group has still not been recognised by the UN as Afghanistan’s legitimate government.

“I have reports indicating that a group of the Taliban is looking into how to access tactical nuclear weapons. Whether they can get them from Pakistan or pay engineers to get them. That is going to be a disaster,” Mr Nabil told the Herat Security Dialogue, an annual conference on the situation in Afghanistan that was held this week in Dushanbe, Tajikistan and attended by The Independent.

Experts at the conference voiced scepticism about the Taliban having the capabilities, connections or indeed motivation to acquire a tactical nuclear weapon, but in an interview on the sidelines of the conference, Mr Nabil told The Independent that the possibility was too dangerous to ignore.