LAHORE, Nov 10: Former army chief Gen Mirza Aslam Beg has cast serious doubts on Osama bin Laden’s claims that he has got nuclear and chemical weapons and may use them in case the US uses them against Afghanistan.

Speaking to Dawn on Saturday, he dismissed it as a bluff.

He said it was highly impossible for an individual to have such weapons in his possession. Similarly, he said, it was impossible for him to use them even if it be assumed for argument’s sake that he had managed to get them.

Replying to a question, the ex-COAS said Pakistan’s nuclear programme was in very safe hands and there was no likelihood of any foreigner having access to it. He said Pakistan had frozen its nuclear programme back in 1989 after attaining certain capability.

Replying to another question, he recalled that after the break up of the Soviet Union, there was a large scale proliferation of nuclear weapons, fissile materials and technical know how.

Russian scientists, specially from the Central Asian Republics, were roaming about to pass on the technology in return for money. It was during this period that the US had spent millions of dollars to purchase the material and expertise, both officially and unofficially.

Gen Beg said know how to manufacture a nuclear device was also available in the world, but to develop such a capability a big infrastructure and a large number of scientists and engineers were required.

“I don’t think the job can be done in a country like Afghanistan (where Osama has been hiding for the last several years)”.

Replying to a question, Gen Beg said, broadly speaking there were two types of devices: the basic device is something like a bomb which was dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan, a large-size device which can be carried by an aircraft or a missile. The other devices were of smaller dimensions and were called tactical nuclear devices. They could be fired from a gun of 155mm calibre or a heavier gun.