More details are coming out about the story that may have a direct bearing on the future of life on planet Earth—the Pakistani nuclear proliferation conspiracy, which now involves at least seven nations.

Three days after Khan confessed on television to selling his country’s nuclear secrets, Western diplomats and intelligence officials said they were just beginning to understand the scale of the network, a global enterprise that supplied nuclear technology and parts to Libya, Iran, North Korea and possibly others.

“Dr. Khan was not working alone. Dr. Khan was part of a process,” said Mohamed ElBaradei, director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the Vienna-based U.N. agency that is conducting the probe along with U.S. and other Western intelligence agencies. “There were items that were manufactured in other countries. There were items that were assembled in a different country.”

Meanwhile, Pakistani officials disclosed that they had launched their own probe of Khan’s activities in October after the Bush administration presented what one senior official described as “mind-boggling” evidence that Khan was peddling nuclear technology and expertise to Iran, Libya and North Korea, and had attempted to do the same with Iraq and Syria.