In a startling revelation, a former CIA officer has claimed that Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal is effectively under the command of an American general — a move he said has forced India to recalibrate its strategy, even as fresh disclosures emerge about a major Indian strike on a Pakistani airbase dangerously close to the country’s nuclear nerve centre.
John Kiriakou, a former CIA counterterrorism operative who served in Pakistan, claimed that Pakistan’s government has placed its nuclear weapons under the command of an American general. “The command and control of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal has been placed under an American general by the Pakistani government,” he claimed in a viral video clip, adding that this has reduced the nuclear threat and led India to “back off” in recent years.
Separately, a top Pakistani official has admitted that India’s BrahMos missile attack on Pakistan’s strategic Nur Khan airbase left Islamabad deeply rattled. Rana Sanaullah, special assistant to Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, recently confirmed that the Nur Khan airbase was hit and said Islamabad was thrown into “panic mode,” uncertain whether the missile carried a nuclear payload.
Satellite images released by the Indian Armed Forces show that Pakistan’s Nur Khan airbase sustained significant damage after India’s Operation Sindoor. The strikes reportedly caused substantial damage to the base’s infrastructure, including hangars, runways, and radar sites.
The base is considered a strategic asset for the Pakistan Air Force, serving as “one of the central transport hubs” and hosting the air refueling capability of No. 10 Squadron. It sits barely over a mile from the headquarters of Pakistan’s Strategic Plans Division, which oversees a nuclear arsenal of more than 170 warheads.
Kiriakou is known as a CIA whistleblower who exposed the agency’s use of waterboarding and other enhanced interrogation techniques. In 2007, he became the first government official to publicly confirm waterboarding on al-Qaeda prisoners, describing it as torture. In 2012, he was convicted for leaking classified information to a journalist and served a 30-month prison sentence.
India is believed to have avoided striking terror infrastructure inside Pakistan for decades due to the nuclear threat. However, Prime Minister Narendra Modi declared, “No nuclear blackmail will be tolerated by India.”
“After surgical strike (2016) and air strike (2019), Operation Sindoor is defining our strategy against terrorism. A new line has been drawn. We will retaliate and target the roots of terrorism. India will target terrorist centres hiding behind nuclear threat,” Modi said.
He further asserted that India would not differentiate between governments supporting terrorism and terrorist leaders, highlighting the presence of Pakistan Army officers at the funerals of terrorists as proof of “state-sponsored terrorism.”
