Sultan Bashiruddin Mahmood
Having spent a distinguished career in the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC), he founded the Ummah Tameer-e-Nau (UTN) in 1999 – a right-wing organisation that was banned and sanctioned by the United States in 2001.
[2] He was also sanctioned as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist by the United States' Office of Foreign Assets Control, with an address lisiting of the Al-Qaeda Wazir Akbar Khan safe house, Kabul.
[1] After graduating with distinctions from a local high school standing at top of his class, Mahmood was awarded a scholarship and enrolled at the Government College University to study electrical engineering.
[1] While in Manchester, Mahmood was an expert on the Manhattan Project and was reportedly in contact with South African scientists in discussing the jet-nozzle method for uranium enrichment.
[10] He gained notability and publicity in the Pakistan Physics Society for inventing a scientific instrument, the 'SBM probe', to detect leaks in steam pipes, a problem that was affecting nuclear plants all over the world and is still used worldwide.
[1] After witnessing the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971, which saw the unconditional surrender of Pakistan in 1971, Mahmood attended the winter seminar at Multan and delivered a speech on atomic science.
[11] On 20 January 1972, the President of Pakistan, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, approved a crash atomic weapon programme, under Munir Ahmad Khan, for the sake of "national survival.
[16] In 1975, his proposal was approved and the work on uranium enrichment started with Mahmood as its director, a move that irked the more qualified but more difficult to manage Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan, who had coveted the job for himself.
[18] Eventually, Munir Ahmad removed Mahmood from other classified works and posted him back to the Karachi Nuclear Power Plant (KANUPP-I) with no reason given as a principal engineer.
[18][19] In the 1980s, Munir Ahmad secured Mahmood a job as project manager for the construction of the Khushab Reactor (Khushab-I) where he served as chief engineer and aided with designing the coolant systems.
[1] Though publicly endorsing the 1998 decision to carry out the Chagai-I nuclear tests by Prime Minister Sharif, Mahmood began appearing on news channels as an outspoken opponent of Sharif, as Mahmood vehemently opposed Pakistan becoming a signatory state of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) and Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) just like down south neighbour India.
[20] Through UTN, Mahmood stepped into more radical politics, and began visiting Afghanistan where he wanted to be focused on rebuilding educational institutions, hospitals, and relief work.
[21] In August 2001, Mahmood and his colleague Chaudhry Abdul Majeed at the UTN met with Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri in Kandahar, Afghanistan.
Describing the meeting, the New York Times editorial quoted:"There is little doubt that Mahmood talked to the two al-Qaeda leaders about nuclear weapons, or that Al Qaeda desperately wanted the bomb".
Since his release, Mahmood has been out of the public eye and lives a quiet life in Islamabad, devoting most of his time to writing books and doing research work on Islam and science.
[28] In his writings and speeches, Mahmood has advocated for nuclear sharing with other Islamic nations which he believed would give rise to Muslim dominance in the world.
Mahmood is reported to be fascinated "with the role sunspots played in triggering the French and Russian Revolutions, World War II and assorted anti-colonial uprisings.
