The shipments were received in June -- weeks after the nuclear tests in the subcontinent -- by Pakistan's nuclear beehive Khan Research Laboratories, the Washington Times reported on Monday, quoting US officials familiar with secret intelligence reports circulated to senior Clinton administration officials last month.

The officials were quoted as saying the shipments appeared to be linked to further production of Ghauri. A storage facility for the missiles was photographed by US spy satellites less than a mile from the Kahuta assembly plant.

According to one intelligence report, satellite spy photographs revealed increased activity at the KRL's missile production and assembly plant. The report concluded that the activity was a sign that ``Pakistan iscurrently producing more Ghauri missiles.

Details of the shipment were gathered from several types of US intelligence collection systems, the Times said. The event had raised new worries among US officials that Pakistan is developing nuclear warheads for the Ghauri missile and also the growing cooperation between Pyongyang and Islamabad.

Washington portrays and treats North Korea as an isolated, maverick, unreliable country which is in the throes of starvation and on the verge of collapse. Pakistan, in contrast, has often been spoken of as a moderate Islamic state and a bulwark against fundamentalism and extremism, although it is on the verge of bankruptcy.

That the two countries are in cahoots has embarrassed Washington. The missile cooperation deal between Pyongyang and Islamabad is believed to date back to November 1995 when a senior official of the North Korean defence commission visited Pakistan to clinch the agreement. The front company which North Korea used for its activities has beenidentified as Changgwang Sinyong Corp, also known as the North Korea Mining Development Trading Corporation/ Bureau.

US intelligence reports say the Changgwang Sinyong Corp obtained special "maraging steel" from Russia last year for Pakistan's missile program. The report, according to the Times, identified Kang Tae-yun, the North Korean economic counselor in Pakistan, as well as the local representative of Changgwang Sinyong, as a key figure in the deal with an unidentified Russian company.

Maraging steel is an ultrastrong corrosion-resistant super alloy that can be easily machined and welded. It is used in sophisticated equipment like centrifuges, high-technology missile fuselages and nose cones.

Islamabad also used a front company to shop for high-tech equipment, the Times reported. Tabani Corp, which has close ties to KRL, sent a delegation to Moscow in February to discuss purchases of mass spectrometers, lasers and carbon fiber -- all high-technology goods with weaponsapplications.

Washington now has clinching evidence of missile cooperation between North Korea and Pakistan. Although both KRL and Changgwang Sinyong Corp have been sanctioned before in separate cases (the former for receiving missile components from China and the latter for supplying high-tech to Iran), they have not been singled out for their transactions with each other.

A recent Congressional report on missile threats to the United States said Ghauri was a Pakistani version of the North Korean Nodong missile with a range of about 800 miles. The committee, headed by former defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld, also said Pakistan's missile infrastructure is ``more advanced than that of North Korea'' and ``developed quite rapidly'' with technical help from China and North Korea.