Iran is creating an arsenal of nukes in secret facilities with the help of North Korean scientists, according to a new report. The reports emphasizes that the Iranian government has not halted its nuclear programme despite the 2015 agreement with the U.S. and five other international powers, Daily Mail reports.
The Iranian Resistance has been monitoring the IRGC -controlled entity tasked with building the nuclear bomb, the Organization of Defensive Innovation and Research (Sazman-e Pazhouheshhaye Novin-e Defa’i), known by its Persian acronym SPND, for nearly two decades. SPND is comprised of 7 subdivisions, each of which carries out a certain portion of nuclear weapons research.
The unit responsible for conducting research and building a trigger for a nuclear weapon is called the Center for Research and Expansion of Technologies for Explosion and Impact (Markaz-e Tahghighat va Tose’e Fanavari-e Enfejar va Zarbeh), known by its acronym METFAZ.
Since April 2017, when the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) found out about a new military location being used by SPND, the coalition has focused its attention on all the potential SPND sites that we suspected were tasked with building the bomb. The NCRI’s investigation inside Iran was conducted by the network associated with the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK), which was responsible for blowing the cover off the program, particularly since 2002.
The 52-page report titled ‘Iran’s Nuclear Core: Uninspected Military Site’,slated for release Wednesday, contradicts the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency, which insists Iran has halted nuclear research.
The report released today claims there are four major sites that ‘with high degrees of certainty’ have been used for ongoing nuclear operations. The Iranian Resistance claims to have found this out by infiltrating and gathering intelligence on the research centres.
The group’s deputy director Alireza Jafarzadeh told Fox News:
“It has been known for years that Iran has two nuclear programs – one is civilian and the other, the military, has the goal of giving Iran its first nuclear bomb.The civilian sector of the nuclear program has systematically provided a plausible logistical cover for the military sector, and acts as a conduit for it. The military aspect of the program has been and remains at the heart of Iran’s nuclear activities.”
One of the centers it believes is being used to create nukes is the Parchin military complex 30 miles southeast Tehran, According the report, the complex has in recent times become the main center for METFAZ’s tests. This is the HQ of the country’s military Research Academy and is split into areas known as Plans. One of the Plans – Plan 6 – is 500 acres large and fenced off. It is officially a chemical industries complex but the NCRI believes this is front for nuclear weapons building.
“To conceal the true nature of its work, the Research Academy conducts its research and activities under the cover of conventional research. However, the Research Academy itself is completely independent and closed off,” the group’s report reads.
The NCRI also suspects weapons building at the Nouri Industrial site at the Khojir military complex, a 75-mile complex southeast of Tehran.
“The project to actively pursue production of nuclear warheads is conducted in Khojir by the Hemmat Missile Industries Group. Due to the extreme sensitivity of manufacturing nuclear warheads, Nouri Industry has its own security and military police; individuals who have clearance to other parts of Khojir site are not allowed to go to this section,” the report says.
It adds that the complex has lots of large underground tunnels for “the possibility and flexibility of covering up the activities of the warhead project, or transferring it to a different location in the complex.” The other sites the report mentions are the Hafte Tir site near Isfahan and the Sanjarian site east of Tehran which it believes was until recently the central testing site but is now only “semi active”.
It also claims that North Korean experts are working with the regime and have helped with “designing the aerodynamics aspects, the shape of the warhead, and have also provided the design for the Hemmat site, its tunnels, and underground centers.”
Shahin Gobadi who sits on the NCRI’s foreign affairs committee said the revelations show Iran is refusing to take its part in the nuclear deal seriously and demanded the IRGC, which runs the country, be “designated as a terrorist entity” and hit with severe sanctions for continuing to build weapons of mass destruction despite the agreement’s restrictions on doing so.
“Tehran’s stonewalling and hesitancy on this very basic necessity and lack of transparency points toward one conclusion and that is the fact that Tehran has a big skeleton in the closet,” he said.