After a US magazine reported that the Obama administration wants Pakistan to let Washington help secure its weapons in a crisis, Islamabad angrily defended the security of its nuclear arsenal Sunday.

Washington has serious fears about Pakistan,s arsenal and has a covert team ready to fly to Pakistan at short notice, an article published in the new issue of The New Yorker states. The Obama administration has been working on “highly sensitive understandings” with Pakistan’s military that would let the US military to provide “added security for the Pakistani arsenal in case of a crisis,” according to the article written by veteran investigative journalist Seymour Hersh.

A “highly classified” emergency response team was activated within the past few months in response to a report that a Pakistani nuclear component had “gone astray,” the article added. Citing an unnamed Pentagon consultant, Hersh reported that the team was already in Dubai by the time the report turned out to be a false alarm.

(article and photo source: CNN)