|
|||||
|
|||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|||||
 |
 |
    |
|
|
|||
 |
|
||
|
|||
|
|
|
|
||||||||
|
Iran: Tehran Capable of “Delivering Deadly Blows” With Biological Weapons, Opposition Group Says By Mike Nartker At a press conference yesterday, representatives from the National Council of Resistance of Iran provided a detailed outline of Iran’s alleged biological weapons program. The group described an official 2001 Iranian document, the Comprehensive National Microbial Defense Plan, which detailed Tehran’s goals for its biological weapons program, as well as which agencies and centers would be responsible for various research and procurement activities. The council is the political arm of the Mujahedin-e Khalq, which the U.S. State Department has formally identified as a terrorist organization. Mujahedin-e Khalq is a Marxist-influenced group that conducted terrorist attacks in the 1970s that killed U.S. military and civilian personnel in Iran, has a long history of attacks against the Iranian clerical regime and advocates a secular government, according to a Federation of American Scientists fact sheet. Tehran anticipates tripling its biological weapons capabilities within two years, according to council representatives who also provided the names of Iranian officials and scientists — as well as those of research centers and universities — involved in the program. Iran’s biological weapons efforts have apparently reached the point where Iran could conduct biological attacks today, said council representative Alireza Jafarzadeh. “Our sources have confirmed that if decided today, the Iranian regime is capable of delivering deadly blows and inflict[ing] massive casualties, human casualties,” Jafarzadeh said. The council has made its information available to international arms control organizations and to U.S. officials, Jafarzadeh said. “We urge attention to this matter,” he said. A U.S. State Department official confirmed today to Global Security Newswire that Washington has received the council’s information. “We’ve been concerned about Iran’s chem/bio programs for a long time now,” the official said (see GSN, April 11). While refusing to confirm the council’s descriptions of Iran’s biological weapons efforts, the State official did note the group’s past successes in bringing aspects of Iran’s WMD programs to international notice. “These guys have been proven to be sort of accurate in the past,” the official said. Iran today denied the council’s allegations, according to reports. “I strongly deny that we have biological weapons because we do not need any banned weapons,” according to a senior Iranian official quoted by Reuters. The council’s presentation described a far more developed and advanced biological weapons program than the CIA described in a report released earlier this month. The agency’s WMD assessment says Tehran “has capabilities to produce small quantities of BW agents, but has a limited ability to weaponize them.” According to council representative Soona Samsami, Iran’s biological weapons efforts include a number of components, including the production of anthrax and aflatoxin at the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps Imam Hussein University and the weaponization of several biological agents, including anthrax, smallpox, typhoid, plague and cholera. Iranian scientists are also conducting weapons-related genetic engineering research at the Malek Ashtar University, Samsami said. The components of Iran’s biological weapons program have been divided among a number of Iranian agencies, including the ministries of defense and intelligence and security, the Armed Forces Command Headquarters and the Revolutionary Guards Joint Command Headquarters, Samsami said. Coordinating the activities of the various involved agencies is the Armed Forces Command Headquarters’ New Warfare Directorate, headed by senior Revolutionary Guards Commander Nasser Toqyani, Samsami said. The Iranian Intelligence and Security Ministry has established the Directorate to Assess Weapons of Mass Destruction, which works to illegally obtain foreign WMD-related technologies, especially those related to biological weapons, Samsami said. She added that the directorate has installed agents in a number of countries to carry out this mission. Tehran has established within the Iranian Defense Ministry the Special Industries Organization, which is responsible for arming the Iranian military with biological weapons and for procuring biological weapons-related technologies, Samsami said. She also said the Special Industries Organization has hired experts from China, India, North Korea and Russia to assist Iran’s biological weapons program. Iran has also established several research centers under various agencies to conduct biological weapons-related research, Samsami said. These include the Martyr Meisami complex, headed by the Special Industries Organization, and the Revolutionary Guards Baqiyatollah Research Center, affiliated with unit’s Baqiyatollah Hospital. The Baqiyatollah center is headed by a man named Karami, who is also a member of Iran’s National Body of Biological Weapons Disarmament Convention, Samsami said. A key research center in Iran’s WMD efforts is the Sina Industry facility, Jafarzadeh said, describing it as “one of the most important biological and chemical laboratories of the Iranian regime.” Sina Industry, which has conducted biological weapons tests on animals, uses medical research as a cover for its activities, he said. In addition, Iran is working to almost quadruple its number of biological experts — from 3,000 to a planned 11,000, Samsami said. The council received its information on Iran’s biological weapons program by using “human resources” placed within the clerical regime, Jafarzadeh said. He also highlighted past information the council had obtained through such sources on Iran’s WMD- and ballistic missile-related efforts, such as the existence of a uranium enrichment facility at the Iranian city of Natanz (see GSN, Feb. 20) and the test-firing of a Shahab 4 ballistic missile (see GSN, Oct. 18, 2002).
| ||||||||||
Back to top
