September 1980: Reporter Finds Equipment for Pakistani Nuclear Weapons Program outside Office of A. Q. Khan Associate in Dubai

Times of London reporter Simon Henderson finds equipment needed for Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program outside the office of a supplier in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. The equipment, found in a hallway outside the office of Khalid Jassim General Trading, is in four boxes labelled “Mikron infrared thermometers.” The manufacturer, Mikron Instruments of New Jersey, had been told the instruments were for a cement factory in Sharjah, near Dubai. However, Mikron says the instruments can be used to measure the temperature of “moving objects without making contact and in conditions of extreme radiation,” which Henderson thinks makes them “ideal” for use in uranium enrichment centrifuges. Khalid Jassim General Trading and one of its owners, Abdus Salam, have been shipping parts to A. Q. Khan, head of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program, for some time (see Summer 1976). [Armstrong and Trento, 2007, pp. 106-7]