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Robertson: Pakistan scientists detained



ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (CNN) – Pakistani authorities have interrogated two leading nuclear scientists over possible contacts with the Taliban.

CNN's Nic Robertson has been following the story. He filed this report.

ROBERTSON: Two scientists that had formerly worked for Pakistan's Atomic Energy Commission have been detained here in Pakistan because of their contacts with the Taliban. Sources who know these two former employees of the Atomic Energy Commission say that they were both deeply religious.

One of them was a very skilled electronic engineer, we understand, and he had received an award in Pakistan for his work at the Atomic Energy Commission. The sources tell us that these two scientists had gone to Afghanistan after the Taliban took power and that they'd been advising the Taliban on scientific issues.

But Pakistani officials say they are sure these two scientists have not passed any nuclear details onto the Taliban at this time.

Meanwhile, inside Afghanistan, in Kandahar, our staff attended a demonstration today. Several hundred people showed up. They were all civilians, and these people were coming out and demonstrating, our staff says, because they wanted to protest against the ongoing air strikes, against the fact that they say civilians are being killed in those air strikes.

And our staff also says that in that demonstration there were people holding up banners supporting Osama bin Laden. Recently, the Taliban have been against people gathering out in public in large numbers. They have told our staff recently that they couldn't go and film a helicopter crash site because going out on the streets in a large group would attract the possibility of air strikes.

But we do know in the last three weeks of the air campaign, that Fridays have typically have been a very, very slow day as far as allied bombing goes around and above cities. And certainly that appears to be the case in Kandahar today.



 
 
 
 


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