General Pervez Musharraf placed him under house arrest in 2004 following global outcry over revelations about the latter’s clandestine activities. Intriguingly, for a crime as grave as this, Khan received a presidential pardon, raising suspicion that he was acting with the consent of Pakistan’s rulers. Even Mohamed ElBaradei, the chief of IAEA, described Khan as “the tip of the iceberg” who “was not working alone”.

Secondly, the book narrates that two leading Pakistani nuclear scientists — Dr Sultan Bashiruddin Mahmood, the ex-chief of Pakistan’s Atomic Energy Commission, and Chaudry Abdul Majeed — were in contact with Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan, advising him how to make or acquire nuclear arms. Liaising with them, and also with al-Qaeda’s leadership, was General Hamid Gul, the former ISI chief and a well-known initiator of cross-border terrorism in India.

Thirdly, with Pakistan in turmoil, not just the US, but India, too, is worried about the spectre of nuclear terrorism. Last week, army chief General Deepak Kapoor said, “Nuclear bombs falling in the hands of jihadis is definitely a worry for all stable countries and democracies . . . they can be used for anything, even to start an international conflict.”

The book is an explosive account of the jihadi-military nexus in Pakistan. The two share a common ideology that underpinned both Islamabad’s covert pursuit of nuclear weapons and its policy of supporting the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. The authors show how Musharraf himself belonged, at least partly, to this nexus, until the Bush administration forced him to do a U-turn after 9/11.

... contd.