“One of the scientists [arrested in Pakistan who had been in contact with Osama bin Laden] was Sultan Bashiruddin Mahmood, a former chairman of the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission and an open admirer of the Taliban. Mahmood had met twice with bin Laden, who grilled him on how to build a bomb. Mahmood was an expert in enriching uranium but had no experience creating a weapon, so bin Laden pressed him to connect him with other Pakistani scientists who did. Bin Laden hinted he had already obtained black-market fissile material from the former Soviet Union with the help of an allied radical group, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan. [According to a Washington Post article on March 3, 2002] Mahmood told interrogators he had not helped bin Laden, but he failed half a dozen lie detector tests.”
– Peter Baker, Days of Fire, Page 178