Much attention has been focused on North Korea’s links to a suspected Syrian nuclear program, but quietly as posted before here on the ROK Drop, North Korea has been aiding Iran’s nuclear program as well. More details about this North Korean and Iranian nuclear connection are now coming to light:
THE Iranian opposition group that first exposed Iran’s controversial nuclear fuel program has given the UN’s nuclear watchdog details of what the group says is a working nuclear warhead factory, visited by North Koreans.
The facility at Khojir, a Defence Ministry missile research site on the southeast edge of Tehran, is developing a nuclear warhead for use on Iranian medium-range missiles, according to Mohammad Mohaddessin, foreign affairs chief for the exiled National Council of Resistance of Iran.
Mr Mohaddessin also said the NCRI had identified a guest house on a military compound near Khojir that housed North Korean specialists working at the warhead facility. He said the information had been finalised in recent weeks and was current. [The Australian]
The Khojir missile research site is literally located on the edge of the Iranian capitol of Tehran:
Here is a close up look at the main base of the missile research center that is only separated from the Tehran suburbs by a road:
Here is an even closer look at the buildings and warehouses that make up the main base:
No matter what angle I look at these structures from, I cannot figure out what they are?:
Anyone have any ideas what these white structures are?
Away from the main base a road leads out to the desert area where the actual missile range is located:
As can be seen in the picture above, there are a number of smaller structures located out on the range. Access to the range from the main road is controlled at this gated checkpoint area where it looks like everyone that wants to access the range has to park their car and possibly take buses or military vehicles down range:
The NCRI claims that the North Koreans are being bused to a small production facility at Khojir, which could mean that they are being bused from this checkpoint to a smaller production facility downrange.
There are number of storage and possible production areas located out on the range that I suspect could be the area where the NCRI claims the North Koreans are working at:
The strangest buildings I could find out on the Khojir missile range were these three large blue buildings:
If you look on the right you can also see what appears to be a large bunker that is open on the hillside. Just scanning around the area I could find other areas that appeared to have bunkers as well which would be consistent with other North Korean nuclear program sites.
For those wondering if this information of North Korean involvement with a nuclear warhead facility at Khojir is accurate take into consideration the fact that this group providing the information has been right before:
The NCRI is the Paris-based political wing of the Mujaheddin e-Khalq, an exiled military group that has been seeking to overthrow the Iranian regime since the mid-1980s.
It has at least twice given detailed information to the IAEA that the agency’s inspectors have later verified, including the original information thatexposed Iran’s uranium-enrichment program and the location of those facilities in 2002. The NCRI says it develops its information with the help of contacts inside Iran.
NCRI leaders said their latest effort to locate the alleged nuclear warhead facility was triggered by the December 3 release of a US National Intelligence Estimate concluding that Iran had halted its nuclear weapon efforts in 2003.
The report effectively ended speculation in Washington about a potential US military strike against Iran to cripple its nuclear program.
Something else to keep in mind for anyone doubting that North Korea may be helping North Korean warhead efforts is that Iran’s Shahab-3 missile is based on North Korea’s Nodong-1 missile which has a range of approximately 2,000 kilometers:
It will be interesting to see how this information effects the current debate over Iran’s nuclear program. I suspect that the Bush administration is committed to a policy of non-confrontation with Iran, but I do suspect this may add another nail in the coffin of the already failed Agreed Framework 2.o with North Korea.
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8:07 am on February 26th, 2008 1
GI, I believe those white structures may be housing/dormitories for workers. Just a guess; I’m not an analyst.
9:38 am on February 26th, 2008 2
GI,
Are you 96D MOS?
11:06 am on February 26th, 2008 3
Dave beat me to it.
You can’t have Koreans just living anywhere. They aren’t entirely happy unless they are packed into white, multi-story, look-alike concrete boxes with not enough parking.
11:11 am on February 26th, 2008 4
I would not be surprised at all if NK tests another nuke within the next 6 to 12 months:
A GNP conservative now occupies the Blue House. The Bush administration is in limbo and on hold as far as goodie giving and deal making. China is hosting the Olympics which will invite more scrutiny of its relationship with NK and NKorean refugees….
….that last item might push against NK acting up, but I NK is a nation that often does things that seem counter-productive. They don’t mind pissing others off just to grab attention because they have a long term view and believe everything will swing back their way at some point —- especially that China will never cut them off fully.
Most of all - though - their last nuke test was a bust, and they need to prove they have a working design. They need to prove it to their own military and top civilian leadership…..to nations like Iran or Libya or Syria who might be willing to pay for North Korean expertise or material, and to the US and UN.
1:06 pm on February 26th, 2008 5
[...] that said, GI Korea over at ROK Drop brings us some evidence that North Korea may be providing nuclear weapons assistance to Iran. The [...]
3:22 pm on February 26th, 2008 6
Dave,
I looked at those structures at every angle and they did not look like homes to me because they are very conical structures. Like yourself I’m not an imagery analyst either.
CPT Kim,
I am not intel, I am a combat arms soldier.
usinkorea,
I think something that may effect any future nuclear tests is the amount of nuclear material NK has left. If they only have enough material to make 6-8 bombs, would they want to waste any of it that is left on a nuclear test?
1:56 am on February 27th, 2008 7
usinkorea, you forgot our drooling castro groupie in Venezuela…
4:36 am on February 27th, 2008 8
I think they will most likely think they have to do another test.
I haven’t read that much along this line in the media, but the test they did must be bad for Pyongyang.
Testing a dud is most likely a good bit worse for it than the strategic ambiguity it had working for it for years and years —
— we had figured they had a couple to few working nukes since the early 1990s. We’ve been figuring in the 1990s and early 2000s that they processed enough fuel and made a few more nukes….
….That thinking was good for Pyongyang.
Now, we have to be seriously questioning whether they have a working nuke or not. That isn’t good for the regime at all……couple that with the failure of its last ICBM test….
I would guess that the regime also needs to convince its own people in the know that it has a working nuke — that it has that security blanket. The regime is hyper-paranoid. It keeps even the highest members under fear and watch. But, it can’t continually purge everybody…..so…..it has to keep those who have to accumlate some power in the system happy enough and afraid enough —– part of this is making them feel secure enough from outside threats but also fearing those threats ——
— what I mean is — it has to have the US look like the boogieman, but it also needs to convince those who recognize the nation’s weakness that Pyongyang is still strong enough to prevent the US from stepping in…
…..otherwise……some of those power players who are always kept in fear of purges or the US coming in —- will start to put feelers out to the Americans or Chinese or South Koreans or Japanese or whoever……..
The bottom line being that some of those who gain some power in North Korea will seek to get out while they can if they start to believe collapse or American intervention is inevitable.
With the nuke fear, they can feel much safer about the Americans coming in — and they can feel much more sure about the regime’s ability to blackmail material aid enough for the regime to live.
With the nuke fear gone….???….
So, if I were Kim Jong Il, I’d have to test another nuke, even if I did it in Pakistan. I’d have to give some backbone and staying power to those I need to keep the nation functioning at a minimum level.
But, having a sucessful nuke test that the world can view would be a lot more useful for the regime.
In fact —— knowing what little I know about all this —– I’d have to conclude that —- the longer we go without seeing another North Korean nuke test…..the more we have to doubt whether they have a functional warhead/bomb or not….
The more time that passes, the more we have to question their nuke capability, I’d think.
And the dread of artillery shells raining down on Seoul is still much less dreadful than a mushroom cloud rising over it…..
….and that fact, to Pyongyang, has to spell out that minus a much more sucessful nuke test, the US will have more confidence in its ability to strike at the North without truly catastrophic results.
12:54 pm on February 27th, 2008 9
[...] ads in the Washington Times, and by trying to make itself valuable as an intelligence source. GI Korea has posted about PMOI allegations that North Koreans are present at an Iranian nuclear warhead factory. [...]
3:45 pm on March 22nd, 2008 10
7:17 am on June 16th, 2008 11
Those conical buildings are likely the Iranian equivalent of the bomb hardened US “Igloo” found on US Nuclear bases for storing things you don’t want blown up.
11:00 am on June 16th, 2008 12
I think that is greater possibility then the structures being some kind of housing units. Maybe the structures are where the Iranians store their missiles and warheads in?
11:53 am on June 16th, 2008 13
They could be moisture vaporators.
The third one over looks like it has a tiny little R2 unit working on it.
…and the whole place is swarming with sandpeople.