Time is running short on efforts to stop the Iranian regime’s nuclear weapons development before its warheads and missiles are fitted together and ready to deploy and deliver to targets both near and far.
At a January 31 press briefing, Deputy Director of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI)’s Washington, D.C., office, Alireza Jafarzadeh, provided alarming new information about the Iranian regime’s race to fit nuclear warheads to its arsenal of solid-fuel Ghaem-100 ballistic missiles.
Citing information gathered by the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) inside Iran, Jafarzadeh emphasized the accelerated speed with which Tehran is devoting resources to developing nuclear warheads specifically designed for the nose cones of long-range missiles that can reach over 3,000 kilometers.
Under the overall authority of Iran’s Organization for Advanced Defense Research (SPND in the Farsi acronym), Iran is driving to complete development of nuclear warheads and the missiles of North Korean design that they will be fitted to. The overall project has long been camouflaged as a space initiative for developing and launching communications satellites.
Two SPND sites are specifically dedicated to this work: one at Shahrud, which is located about 400 kilometers northeast of Tehran and another on the outskirts of Semnan, about 220 kilometers east of Tehran. Shahrud is a missile launch site that is equipped with mobile launch platforms for the solid-fuel Ghaem-100 missiles.
Work at Semnan focuses on producing liquid-fuel missiles tipped with nuclear warheads. Warhead development work goes on at both the Shahrud and Semnan sites.
At the high-security Shahrud missile site, known locally as the “Imam Reza Base," SPND experts are developing nuclear warheads specifically designed to fit to the nose cones of the long-range Ghaem-100 solid-fuel missile. The Ghaem-100 missile was designed from the start to carry a nuclear warhead.
Shahrud missile site personnel are drawn from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Aerospace Force (or Space Command, officially known as the Salman Farsi Space Command) as well as SPND. The IRGC’s Space Command is led by IRGC Brig. Gen. Ali Jafarabadi, who was added to both the U.S. Treasury Department and the British government sanctions lists in September.
Although initially, according to the AMAD plan (discovered with the 2016 document heist by Mossad out of a Tehran warehouse), the IRGC planned to build a nuclear warhead for the Shahab-3 liquid-fuel missile, more recently the project has focused instead on the Ghaem-100 solid-fuel ballistic missile.
At the Semnan missile site, SPND has intensified its activities that focus on the Simorgh missile, which is a liquid-fuel missile, but also like the Ghaem-100 missile, has a range of over 3,000 kilometers. It is likewise based on original North Korean missile designs.
Expansion at the Semnan missile site now includes eight complexes, all ostensibly concealed under the guise of the Imam Khomeini Space Launch Terminal. Elements of this facility are buried and are connected by underground tunnels.
The Geophysics Group of SPND, also known as the Chamran Group, conducts research on calculations related to the power of nuclear and underground explosions. Some of this research takes place at the Semnan site and in desert areas south of it.
In attempts to conceal all of this clearly nuclear-weapons-related work, the Iranian regime established a unit within SPND called the “Directorate for Nuclear Treaties” whose mission is to feign compliance with the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT).
This unit operates under the direct authority of the Iranian regime’s Supreme National Security Council and is headed by Dr. Mohammad Sabzian, who also leads the Geophysics Group.
With this update on the Iranian regime’s dash to deploy deliverable nuclear weapons, it is clear that diplomatic overtures without stipulated deadlines for accountability will no longer suffice to stop these dangerous developments.
The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) must activate and enforce the snapback sanctions mechanism, and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) must be granted unrestricted access to all of Iran’s nuclear weapons facilities, including those described in this new briefing.
The IAEA, the UNSC, and new leadership in the White House must coordinate to demand the regime verifiably shut down its nuclear weapons program or face severe consequences.
Time is running out.
Clare M. Lopez is the Founder/President of Lopez Liberty LLC. Read More Clare M. Lopez — Here.