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Intelligence from Tehran Elevates Concern in the West

(Der Spiegel-Germany) Dieter Bednarz, Erich Follath and Holger Stark - According to intelligence reports based on sources within Iran and information from high-ranking defectors, there is a secret military branch of Iran's nuclear research program that answers to the Defense Ministry and has clandestine structures. Kamran Daneshjoo, 52, Iran's new minister of science, research and technology, is also responsible for the country's nuclear energy agency, and he is seen as a close ally of Ahmadinejad. Daneshjoo spent several years working at the Tehran "Center for Aviation Technology." Western experts believe that this center developed into a sub-organization of the Defense Ministry known as FEDAT, the "Department for Expanded High-Technology Applications" - the secret heart of Iran's nuclear weapons program. The head of FEDAT is Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, 48, an officer in the Revolutionary Guard and a professor at Tehran's Imam Hossein University. Western intelligence agencies believe that FEDAT is involved in the construction of a nuclear warhead to be used in Iran's Shahab missiles. Experts believe that Iran's scientists could produce a primitive, truck-sized version of the bomb this year, and that they could learn to compress it to a size that would fit into a nuclear warhead sometime between 2012 and 2014.
2010-01-26 08:12:30
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