Taliban: No, we're not going to attack the nukes, we're just going to take over Pakistan

And the nukes would be theirs. They certainly don't have the wherewithal themselves to reinvent the "Islamic bomb." On the other hand, they may change their minds if they decide it suits them -- "replace it with something better," as it were.

"Taliban aims to take over Pakistan, its nukes," from the Press Trust of India, May 28:

Washington: The Taliban has said they have no plans to attack Pakistan's nuclear arsenal, asserting that it is the only Muslim state possessing such weapons and the terror group aims to take over the country as well as its nukes.

Taliban has stepped-up violent campaign to avenge Osama bin Laden's death has renewed fears that the country's warheads could be vulnerable.

And it has made a point of targeting military and police installations since then.

Declaring that "Pakistan is the only Muslim nuclear power state," Taliban Spokesman Ehsanullah Ehsan said that his group had no intention of changing the fact, Wall Street Journal reported. The Taliban, after all, aim to take over Pakistan and its weapons, he said.

A well coordinated Taliban attack on Pakistan key naval airbase at Karachi had triggered fresh global alarm that radical militant groups operating from the country's restive tribal areas bordering Afghanistan might be out to snatch nuclear weapons.

"Restive": Mainstream media-speak for "afflicted with jihad."

Seeking to dismiss these concerns, Ehsan claimed that US was using this as an excuse to pressurise Pakistan government and military into fighting Taliban, whom he portrayed as country's true protectors.

"Isn't it a shame for us to have the Islamic bomb, and even then we are bowing down to the pressures of America?" the Taliban spokesman mocked.

WSJ said Ehsan's remarks appeared tailored to appeal to that increasingly nationalist mainstream, where conspiracy theories flourish about American, Indian and Israeli plots to deprive Pakistan of its atomic arsenal.