Is Saudi Arabia Building a Nuclear Bomb?

Saudi Arabia is developing nuclear weapons with the help of Pakistani scientists who have entered the kingdom disguised as pilgrims, German magazine Cicero reports. These scientists were tracked by Western intelligence between 2003 and 2005, during which some of them disappeared from their hotels. This follows earlier claims that Saudi Arabia has a self-destruct button wired to dirty bombs to blow up all oil facilities.
The House of Saud may be feeling vulnerable since the departure of most U.S. troops and is reportedly turning to nuclear deterrence for protection. Why shouldn’t it have one? Iran wants it badly. Pakistan and India have it. So does Israel (unofficially anyway).

Between October 2004 and January 2005, Pakistani nuclear scientists, who flew in as pilgrims, disappeared from their hotel rooms for almost three weeks, Cicero cites unnamed Western intelligence sources as saying. Saudi nuclear scientists have worked in Pakistan since the 1990s. U.S. military analyst John Pike told the magazine that about half the Pakistani nukes have Saudi bar codes because the kingdom bankrolled Islamabad’s nuclear program. Both the Pakistani and Saudi governments denied Cicero’s claims.

While the magazine appeared to treat the existence of Al-Sulayil underground city and missile base as new information, that has been public information for some time. The massive missile base at Al-Sulayil is believed to house dozens of Chinese rockets capable to carrying nuclear payload, according to Yediot Ahronot.

In 2005, author Gerald Posner claimed in his book “Secrets of the Kingdom: The Inside Story of the Saudi-U.S. Connection” (View in Amazon) that the country has wired all of its oil facilities with Semtex explosives and radioactive materials. That was done to ensure that no one would invade the kingdom or try to bring down the House of Saudi, he claimed.

The information came from conversations intercepted by the National Security Agency [NSA] and was documented in a report titled “Petro SE,” short for petroleum scorched earth, Mr. Posner wrote. He also noted that U.S. intelligence believes the Saudis financed much of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program.

Cicero, a relatively new magazine, got in trouble with the German government last year after citing classified documents in an article revealing that Iran has been shielding the Who’s Who of international terrorists. Then-Interior Minister Otto Schilly ordered the raid on Cicero’s editorial office in Berlin and on the home of reporter Bruno Schirra.