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 Electronic
drawings that give comprehensive details of how to build
and test equipment essential for making nuclear bombs
have vanished and could be put up for sale on the international
black market, according to UN investigators.
The blueprints, running to hundreds of
pages, show how to make centrifuges for enriching uranium.
In addition, the investigators have been unable to trace
key components for uranium centrifuge rigs and fear that
drawings for a nuclear warhead have been secreted away
and could be for sale.
Inspectors at the UN's nuclear authority,
the International Atomic Energy Agency, have been investigating
the worst nuclear smuggling racket ever uncovered, headed
by the Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan. The operation
was discovered two years ago to be selling sensitive nuclear
technology to Libya and Iran.
A senior official said several sets of
blueprints for uranium centrifuges - the so-called P-1
and more advanced P-2 systems which were peddled by the
Khan network - have gone missing.
 "We
know there were several sets of them prepared," said
the official. "So who got those electronic drawings?
We have only actually got to the one full set from Libya.
So who got the rest, the copies?
"We have no evidence they were destroyed.
One possibility is another client. We just don't know
where they are."
A European diplomat privy to western intelligence
on the Khan network added: "This is what keeps people
awake at night. It's very sensitive. The fact that there
are [nuclear] proliferation manuals kicking around is
deeply disturbing."
The blueprints detail how to manufacture
the components for a uranium centrifuge, what materials
are needed, how to assemble the machines, and how to test
them. The centrifuges are the main route to producing
bomb-grade uranium. Uranium concentrate is converted into
uranium hexafluoride gas which can be spun through cascades
of centrifuges at super-high speeds to be enriched to
weapons grade.
 "The
big question is who else got this stuff [apart from Iran
and Libya]," the European diplomat said.
Another diplomat pointed out that the
Khan network was based in the Middle East and that Khan
was known as the father of the Islamic bomb. He suggested
that Syria and Egypt could be potential customers for
the materials if they were still being offered.
Khan is a national hero for creating the
Pakistani nuclear bomb but is under house arrest in Islamabad
since confessing to heading the network and being pardoned
in February last year.
 Although
the network's operations extended to Europe, Africa, the
Middle East, and the far east, its headquarters were in
Dubai. Khan maintained a luxury apartment in Dubai.
Following the uncovering of the network
in October 2003, investigators went to the Dubai apartment
only to find that it had been emptied, apparently by Khan's
daughter Dina.
The Libyan leader, Colonel Muammar Gadafy,
confessed to his secret nuclear bomb programme and gave
it up in December 2003. Three months later in Tripoli,
the UN inspectors were given two CD-roms and one computer
hard drive. One CD contained aset of drawings and manuals
for the P-1 centrifuge system, the other for the more
advanced P-2.
 The
instructions are in English, Dutch and German, and the
designs are from Urenco, the Dutch-British-German consortium
which is a leader in centrifuge technology and is the
source of Khan's knowhow from his time working there in
the 1970s. The CDs and hard drive are at IAEA headquarters
in Vienna, where they have been analysed. The investigators
now know that the scanning of the original blueprints
was done in Dubai and when.
In addition to these blueprints, Khan
also supplied Libya with drawings for an old Chinese nuclear
warhead design. The drawings, now in Washington under
IAEA seal, were not complete, say sources, but were adequate
to construct a crude nuclear device.
 Investigators
suspect that the warhead design was also copied into electronic
form and is still available to prospective clients.
"There is reason to believe that
there might even be some drawings related to nuclear weaponisation
in electronic form," said the senior official.
It is now also clear that multiple components
secretly made for Libya's $100m (£54.6m) centrifuge
programme did not reach Libya and have gone missing.
From their investigations of the nuclear
programmes in Libya and Iran, the IAEA has concluded that
pieces of the nuclear jigsaw have not been located.
 "We
are still missing something from the picture in terms
of critical equipment, certain parts of centrifuges ...
There is equipment missing important enough for us to
search, an amount that makes us worried," said the
official.
Around a dozen individuals, including
engineers, businessmen, and middlemen, were key figures
in the Khan network, with dozens of other companies operating
at a secondary level, according to those familiar with
the investigation.
Alleged Khan associates have been arrested
in the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, South Africa,
Dubai, and Malaysia, although none of those cases has
yet come to full trial. British customs is also conducting
an investigation into a British suspect.
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