You have commented 339 times on Rantburg.

Your Name
Your e-mail (optional)
Website (optional)
My Original Nic        Pic-a-Nic        Sorry. Comments have been closed on this article.
Bold Italic Underline Strike Bullet Blockquote Small Big Link Squish Foto Photo
Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Iran Opposition Claims to Have Found Secret Nuclear Site
2010-09-10
[Asharq al-Aswat] Leading Iranian opposition members claimed Thursday to have uncovered a secret nuclear enrichment site buried in the mountains northwest of Tehran and run by Iran's defense ministry.

Information obtained by the People's Mujahedeen Organization of Iran (PMOI) has revealed Iran began building the site in Abyek, about 70 miles (120 kilometers) northwest of Tehran, in 2005, the opposition members said.

"This is controlled, run and operated... by the ministry of defense," Alireza Jafarzadeh, former media spokesman for the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), told a press conference in Washington. The PMOI, the main group in the NCRI, is officially listed as a foreign terrorist organization in the United States, although a judge ruled in July that it should be removed from the blacklist.

Jafarzadeh said the information about the Behjatabad-Abyek site was shared this week with the US government, Congress and the UN's nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency.

There was no immediate comment from these bodies.

Soona Samsami, who was US representative for the NCRI, said the Iranian authorities have so far spent 100 million dollars on the project and completed about 85 percent of the construction.

The pair presented satellite pictures of excavation work at the alleged nuclear site, which they said supports information gleaned from sources "inside the Iranian regime" and showed what they said were four entrances and a tunnel. The mountain peak sitting atop the tunnel stands at 100 meters (330 feet), higher than the 80 meters (260 feet) nuclear experts say is required to prevent detection via radioactive emissions, Jafarzadeh said.
The Jerusalem Post has a photo, for those of you interested in such things.
AFP reports this group has come up with claims in the past that have not withstood scrutiny.
Posted by:Fred

#3  Iran is going for the bada$$ of the mideast award. They might use proxies such as Hamas or Hezbollah. However, I think they would want to claim their prize as leader of the muslim world--if there's anyone left to claim it in that part of the world.
Posted by: JohnQC   2010-09-10 14:33  

#2  I don't think they'd use it directly themselves. Instead they'd use it has a hammer to smack the rest of the region to do their bidding. They'd use intermediaries (terrorists) to carry out any use of the bomb. Depending on how well they think the region would react, as well as the world, they may take credit.
Posted by: miscellaneous   2010-09-10 13:59  

#1  Does not surprise me if true. The Iranians are trying to get a nuke as soon as they can. Look out when that happens. These crazies would use it.
Posted by: JohnQC   2010-09-10 13:56  

00:00