Former CIA Officer Reveals India-Israel Secret Plan to Strike Pakistan's Nuclear Facility Could Have "Solved Problems"

Nov 07, 2025 09:19 pm CST

A former CIA counterproliferation officer, Richard Barlow, has revealed that a joint India-Israel covert operation planned in the early 1980s to bomb Pakistan's Kahuta nuclear facility could have prevented significant problems. Barlow expressed regret that then-Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi did not approve the mission, which was allegedly designed to halt Pakistan's nuclear weapons development program before it could mature into the capability demonstrated in their 1998 atomic tests.