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Golra Sharif

Golra Sharif is reportedly the location of an un-safeguarded uranium centrifuge enrichment facility, which was initially designed to contain as many as several thousand centrifuges. The current status of this facility is uncertain based on open sources, though activities at this site may include test of advanced centrifuge designs for use at Kahuta. One account claims that two pilot centrifuge plants were set up in Golra and Sihala before the actual uranium enrichment facility was established at Kahuta, but most accounts suggest that the Golra facility post-dates Kahuta.

Western intelligence sources reportedly first claimed in 1987 that a uranium enrichment facility was being constructed at Golra, supposedly based on satellite imagery. A December 11, 1987, Financial Times article identified a military camp at Golra, between Rawalpindi and Islamabad, as a site suspected as a second uranium enrichment plant. The article included a denial by A.Q. Khan.

In March 1993 Seymour M. Hersh reported that "Pakistan, apparently in response to India?s Brass Tacks exercise, aggressively expanded its efforts in 1987. American satellites watched that year as a thick concrete floor was poured for what would become a second uranium-enrichment site at Golra, also near Islamabad."

Simon Henderson later wrote: "Khan dismissed the notion of it being a nuclear site. He did say that part of KRL functioned there, manufacturing a Chinese-designed anti-tank missile; 25 Chinese live in Islamabad and commute daily. No sign of this KRL operation is visible from the road. The Golra military base is ostensibly the Pakistan army's central mechanical and transport storage center, although security at Golra, which includes watchtowers, is noticeably tighter than at some other facilities." [SOURCE]

As of mid-1988, information available publicly available indicated that Pakistan had obtained clandestine assistance for the expansion of its enrichment capabilities at Golra from firms in Canada, Great Britain, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and the United States. The assistance included: design technology for the gas centrifuges that are the heart of the Kahuta plant; essential electronic components and measuring equipment; special `maraging' steel for the construction of the centrifuges; and vacuum pumps and other equipment for handling uranium hexafluoride gas within the facility, some of which hardware was specifically designed to handle weapons-grade material.

The Chinese sale of the sophisticated samarium-cobalt ring magnets to Pakistan was believed by some to be for use in the uranium enrichment facility [allegedly being built with Chinese assistance] at Golra Sharif.

Golra Sharif, a prominent village noted for the Shrine of Syed Meher Ali Shah, is located 18 km west of Rawalpindi in sector E-11 of the Islamabad Federal Capital administrative district.

Sources and Resources

• Pakistan's bomb: Out of the closet. By David Albright and Mark Hibbs. Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists July/August 1992.
• Pakistan's Nuclear-Related Facilities Monitoring Proliferation Threats Project