Editor's note: Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin is an online, subscription intelligence news service from the creator of WorldNetDaily.com – a journalist who has been developing sources around the world for the last 25 years.

WASHINGTON – As the Pakistani nuclear proliferation story widens, U.S. intelligence officials say top atomic scientists from that country met with Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar in Afghanistan.

Osama bin Laden

Two former senior Pakistani nuclear scientists who were based in the Afghan town of Kandahar met Mullah Omar and Osama bin Laden several times before the fall of the Taliban. They were later detained and questioned on their return to Pakistan.

Last week, after it became clear that Pakistan was the center of what has become known internationally as the "nuclear bazaar," President Pervez Musharraf agreed to pardon nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan for selling the country's nuclear secrets to Libya, North Korea and Iran.

Because Pakistan is perceived to be central to the U.S. war on terror, the reaction in Washington has been low-key.

"This is a matter between Dr. Khan, who is a Pakistani citizen, and his government," said Secretary of State Colin Powell to reporters outside the United Nations. "But it is a matter also that I'll be talking to President Musharraf about."

Bush administration officials have expressed satisfaction with Musharraf's guarantees that the country's nuclear proliferation will now come to an end.

A top defector from North Korea says that country's uranium-based nuclear weapons program was launched in 1996 under a deal with Pakistan. In addition, Pakistan stationed other nuclear scientists in Iran to help that country develop its nuclear weapons program.

Pakistan says the presidential pardon to the top nuclear scientist over his admission to have proliferated nuclear technology to three foreign countries is subject to a set of "comprehensive conditions" – but those conditions have not been revealed publicly.

The pardon even allows Khan to keep the vast wealth he accumulated by developing Pakistan's nuclear weapons and from selling the technology to other countries – including several rogue nations. Khan is believed to have earned millions of dollars from his sale of nuclear know-how, beginning in the late 1980s. Much of the money was funneled through bank accounts in the Middle East. His assets include four houses in Islamabad worth an estimated $2.8 million, a villa on the Caspian Sea, a luxury hotel in Mali and a valuable collection of vintage cars.

Khan, 69, last week made a televised confession of his wrongdoing after government investigators confronted him. Despite being granted a pardon, he is under house arrest and forbidden to give interviews.

In addition to selling nuclear technology to Iran and North Korea, Khan also offered Saddam Hussein a design for a nuclear weapon in 1990, according to a document seized by U.N. weapons inspectors. Later he made a deal with Libya.

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