Saudi Arabia is clandestinely developing nuclear weapons, according to a report appearing Wednesday on a Saudi Arabic-language news website.

Pakistani nuclear scientists who secretly entered Saudi Arabia during the annual Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca in 2003 have been the driving force behind the covert nuclear program, reported the Sawt Al-Salam website. Iraqi nuclear scientists were also said to have been recruited.

The Pakistanis reportedly instructed their Saudi hosts to construct their nuclear facilities under prisons to avoid detection. The website cited intelligence reports that indicated the Saudis are constructing a massive underground nuclear center and missile base south of the capital of Riyadh.

Saudi Arabia was widely believed to be a major financier of Pakistan's nuclear weapons program in the 1990s.