The FCO’s Joint Nuclear Unit (JNU) assessed the Panorama documentary as correct in broad terms, but speculative and inaccurate in most details. Analysts contended that the most significant allegation was that of the Libyan/‘Islamic’ bomb, but that there was still no substantive evidence that Libya had provided finance or that Pakistan had agreed to proliferate. Anonymous allegations in the documentary were said to be ‘sensational’ but carried ‘little conviction’.

From early 1979 onwards, media coverage of the "Islamic bomb" became ever more prominent. In Mid-June 1980, the BBC's prestigious Panorama investigative strand aired "Project 706: The Islamic Bomb," that seemingly underscored alleged Pakistani-Libyan connections, uranium supplied by Niger, the complicity of British, German, Italian, and Swiss industry, and the threat of pan-Islamic nuclear proliferation. Reporter Philip Tibenham opened by alarmingly informing viewers that: "This convoy grinding across the empty Sahara is carrying what could be the raw material for the world’s first nuclear war …. It’s been mined in the Islamic state of Niger. It’ll be flown on to Islamic Libya; then on to Islamic Pakistan. Tonight, Panorama reports exclusively on payments of millions of pounds by Libya’s Colonel Gaddafi to finance Pakistan’s efforts to build the ‘Islamic bomb’."

This report, created in March 1979 by the Ministerial Group on Nuclear Non-Proliferation, explores the state of Pakistan’s nuclear program. The document also explores topics like Pakistan’s political status among its neighbors in the Arab world, as well as possible ways Pakistan could be induced to terminate its nuclear activities.

In the face of alarmists such as Arthur Hummel in the US and Anthony Parsons in the UK, the influential British analysts on the Ministerial Group on Nuclear Non-proliferation thought it unlikely that Arab countries would knowingly fund Pakistan's nuclear programme, even though it was suggested many Muslim states might welcome a co-religionist achieving the ‘ultimate technological feat’. For nations such as Saudi Arabia, relations with the West were situated as far more significant than connections with Islamabad, despite Pakistan's position as a bulwark between the Muslim world and the USSR. The group suggested enlisting Arab governments in order to put pan-Islamic pressure on Pakistan, arguing that security concerns related to India – and not a desire to equip the Muslim world with a ‘nuclear sword’ – were the nuclear programme's main drivers. Addressing Islamabad’s security issues – a constant in British and American discussions about Pakistan – represented the surest way of achieving positive results. Where the pan-Islamic issue might come into play – analysts suggested – was after any Pakistani nuclear test, where Islamabad might enlist Muslim countries to help resist Western pressure to give up ‘the first nuclear weapon to be developed in a Moslem country.'