ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, May 17 (UPI) -- Recent satellite images indicate Pakistan is building a fourth reactor to make plutonium at its Khushab facility, Fox News reported.
The U.S. network said it obtained the satellite images, which were taken April 20, from the aerial imagery company GEOEYE. The Khushab facility is about 100 miles south of the Pakistani capital, Islamabad.
There are reports Pakistan has been expanding its nuclear program in the past two years at the site, which two years ago was reportedly barren.
"They have a telltale sign," Paul Brannon, a nuclear analyst at the Institute for Science and International Security, told Fox News, while explaining the satellite images.
"I mean you can see the square of the reactor building, you can see the inner square of the reactor hall where the actual reactor goes, and if you measure the dimensions of the building it matches up exactly to the second and the third reactors."
Pakistan conducted its first nuclear test in 1998 and it was after the country disclosed the Khushab site and its plutonium production facility, the report said.
That was also when the country turned to plutonium production from its previous enriched uranium program, the report said, noting plutonium weapons are lighter, more mobile and easier to deliver.
Pakistan reportedly has about 100 nuclear weapons but experts, including Brannon, told Fox News the new plutonium model could help it build between eight and 20 nuclear weapons a year.
Brannon said the cost of the new program would be in the billions and the report quoted U.S. officials, who have been observing Khushab, as saying there is no clear explanation how Pakistan is paying for it.
"This is a military reactor. It's outside of the civilian program," Brannon said.
Pakistan has received about $20 billion from the United States since 2001 in military and economic aid.
