'Tehran has nuclear warhead plants'
Agence France-Presse - 25 September, 2009
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Iran's exiled opposition movement said yesterday it had learned of two
previously unknown sites in and near Tehran that are being used to build
nuclear warheads.

"Resistance sources have managed to uncover two centres that work directly
on nuclear armaments and which were until now kept secret," Mehdi
Abrihamtchi (pictured) of the People's Mujahedeen told reporters in Paris,
where his group is based.

"They are places for research and production of detonation systems which is
a major part of the mullahs' atomic bomb project," he said, adding that his
organisation had passed on the information to the UN atomic watchdog, the
International Atomic Energy Agency.

The UN Security Council has ordered three rounds of sanctions for failing to
end its uranium enrichment programme which the West sees as a cover for
acquiring nuclear arms. Tehran says the programme is solely for electricity
generation.

Abrihamtchi said the secret sites belonged to a unit linked to the defence
ministry and called Research Centre for the Technology of Explosion and
Impact, known as METFAZ.

The centre has a research unit, a production unit and a test unit, he said.
Its command centre was in a building in eastern Tehran.

The second site, surrounded by high concrete walls, is near the village of
Sanjarian to the east of the capital, he said. "In this site they build
parts and units necessary for tests, using advanced technologies," he said.

The opposition figure provided an address in eastern Tehran as the site of a
command and research centre where he said computer simulations were carried
out.

He gave another location in the village of Sanjarian as the venue for the
manufacture of components for detonation systems.

The manufactured explosives are tested at a special military facility in
Parchin, southeast of Tehran which serves as "a cover for blast tests linked
to non-conventional weapons," he added.

The opposition movement was the first to reveal the Islamic regime's nuclear
programme in 2002.