by Yoni Hersch, News Agencies and Israel Hayom Staff
Images suggest Tehran is developing long-range ballistic missiles at remote desert facility in country's northeast, New York Times reports
|
The Sharhud
facility, where Iran is suspected of secretly
developing ballistic
missile technology
Photo: David
Schmerler/Center for Nonproliferation Studies
New
satellite images indicate Tehran is developing long-range ballistic
missiles at a remote desert facility in the country's northeast, The New
York Times reported Wednesday.
In 2011, an explosion nearly razed Iran's
long-range missile research facility and killed the military scientist
who ran it, Gen. Hassan Tehrani Moghaddam. Many Western intelligence
analysts regarded the incident as a devastating setback to Tehran's
technological ambitions.
In recent months, however, weapons
researchers from the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in
California stumbled on a series of clues that led them to a startling
conclusion: Shortly before his death, Moghaddam oversaw the development
of a secret, second facility in the remote Iranian desert, which they
say is still very much operational.
For weeks, The New York Times reported, the
researchers picked through satellite photos of the so-called Shahrud
facility. They discovered, they say, that work at the site now appears
to focus on advanced rocket engines and rocket fuel and is often
conducted under cover of night.
It is possible that the Shahrud facility is
developing only medium-range missiles, which Iran already possesses, or
perhaps an unusually sophisticated space program, according to the
report.
However, analysis of structures and ground
markings at the facility strongly suggests, although it does not prove,
that Iran is indeed developing the technology for long-range missiles.
Five outside experts who independently reviewed the findings agreed
there was compelling evidence that Iran is developing long-range missile
technology.
Missile engine tests, when conducted in
desert landscapes like those around Shahrud, can burn ground scars,
shaped like candle flames, into the terrain, the report continued.
In their analysis of the satellite photos
of the area around Shahrud, researchers say, they found two tell-tale
ground scars in a crater a few miles away – larger than those at
Moghaddam's publicly known facility.
The scars were recent. One appeared in 2016, the other in June 2017.
Such a program, if it indeed exists, would
not violate the nuclear deal struck between Iran and world powers in
2015. If completed, however, it could threaten Europe and potentially
the United States. If Iran is found to be conducting long-range missile
work, it would certainly add to the tensions between Tehran and the U.S.
Meanwhile, U.S. Secretary of State Mike
Pompeo on Wednesday told the House Foreign Affairs Committee that the
Trump administration will work with as many allies as possible to reach a
new deal to halt "all of Iran's nuclear and non-nuclear threats."
"We will apply unprecedented financial
pressure, coordinate with [the military] on deterrence efforts, support
the Iranian people … and hold out the prospects for a new deal with
Iran," Pompeo said.
"It [Iran] simply needs to change its
behavior," Pompeo continued. "In the almost three years of the JCPOA
[Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, known as the Iran nuclear deal],
the Iranians marched across the Middle East. We're simply asking Iran to
be a normal country."
Maj. Gen. Mohammad Bagheri, chief of staff
of the Iranian military, said: "Iranian armed forces are now, thank God,
more prepared than ever and will not wait for the permission or
approval of any foreign power to develop defense capabilities."
He slammed the U.S. as "a criminal and
oppressor, isolated and angry with corrupted and oath-breaker leaders
who are mercenaries of the Israeli regime."
"This enemy, while afraid of facing Iran
head-on in battle, is trying instead to exert pressure on Iran in the
economic sector and through psychological warfare," he added.
Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif dismissed as "untrue" Pompeo's charges against the Islamic republic.
"Pompeo and other U.S. officials are
trapped in old illusions. … They are taken hostage by corrupt pressure
groups," he told state television.
Yoni Hersch, News Agencies and Israel Hayom Staff
Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/2018/05/24/report-satellite-images-reveal-secret-iranian-missile-development-site/
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Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.
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