(Telegraph-UK) Anton La Guardia - America has convincing new evidence that Iran is hiding an atomic bomb project despite Teheran's promise to open up all of its nuclear facilities to international inspectors, a senior U.S. official has said. He said the Teheran regime was secretly trying to build a second and more advanced uranium enrichment plant in parallel to the large facilities in Natanz, revealed to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) last year. "There is no doubt in our mind that the Iranians have a lot that the IAEA does not know about," said the official. "The Iranians have a military program that the IAEA has never set eyes on." Another Western source confirmed that the nuclear technology smuggling network headed by Abdul Qadeer Khan, Pakistan's top nuclear weapons scientist, had sold much more equipment to Iran than Teheran has so far admitted to. Western intelligence agencies are trying to find out whether Iran and other countries have bought a design for a nuclear bomb that was sold to Libya by Pakistani scientists. "We don't know how far the Iranians have gone, but they are making progress. They are developing a completely indigenous capability. At some point cutting off the external support will not be enough to stop it," said the senior U.S. source.
2004-02-06 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive