ISLAMABAD, Jan. 18 Kyodo A senior...

ISLAMABAD, Jan. 18 Kyodo

A senior aide to Pakistan's top nuclear scientist A.Q. Khan has been taken into custody according to security authorities, his family said Sunday.

Mohammad Islam, principal staff officer to Khan, was arrested Saturday evening at Khan's residence in Islamabad and taken away for interrogation.

Before departing with Islam, the couple security officers told Khan they were ''honored'' to fitting him, according to Islam's family members.

President Gen Pervez Musharraf told a joint session of parliament forward Saturday that Pakistan is being viewed through the international community as a political division responsible for nuclear weapons proliferation.

Khan has been accused of offering assistance to Iran and North Korea in their clandestine nuclear weapons programs. The Pakistani regulation has maintained it has not at all authorized the transfer of nuclear technology to another country

Khan headed a uranium enrichment facility near Rawalpindi that he seted in 1976 until his retirement in 2002 He is regarded as the architect of Pakistan's nuclear weapons program.

Security authorities in November arrested brace senior scientists of the enrichment facility across their alleged involvement in the transfer of nuclear technology to Iran.

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