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NDTV
5 hours ago
- Politics
- NDTV
"Dead Men Walking": Why Iran Has Moved Its Nuclear Scientists Into Hiding
In June, Israeli strikes killed several top commanders and six nuclear scientists of Iran. The strikes targeted Iran's nuclear facilities, ballistic missile factories and military commanders to prevent Tehran from developing an atomic weapon. Now Iran has moved its remaining nuclear scientists into hiding, according to a report by the UK's The Telegraph. About 15 researchers - from a group of 100 - have been moved out over concerns of further Israeli attacks. The Iranian nuclear research programme is designed in such a way that each key player has one deputy, in case of an attack. The scientists have been moved to secure locations in Tehran or northern coastal cities. They no longer live at home or teach at universities, but live in villas with their families. An Iranian official said, "Those who were teaching at universities are replaced with people who have no connection with the nuclear programme." This move comes amid Israeli briefings that informed of further assassinations in the offing and one execution by Iran of its own nuclear scientist, over allegations that he had helped Israel with its assassinations. Israeli experts have said that a new generation of Iranian scientists will now step into the shoes of those killed, however they described them as "dead man walking", despite round-the-clock protection, safe houses and increased security. Israeli sources are concerned that the new scientists may have replaced their dead colleagues at Iran's nuclear weaponisation programme at the Organisation of Defensive Innovation and Research known as SPND. These scientists possess expertise in areas such as explosives, neutron physics, and warhead design. Israeli intelligence and defence analyst, Ronen Solomon told the publication, "While the eliminated scientists focused more on warhead design, the expertise in delivery systems makes those who remain equally strategic targets for Israel, as Israel's June 2025 strikes also targeted ballistic missile infrastructure." Despite this, Iran has repeatedly denied having a nuclear weapons programme, saying that the nuclear expertise was limited to civilian use. Danny Citrinowicz, the former head of the Iranian strategic desk in Israeli Defense Intelligence, a branch of the Israeli military said that any Iranian scientist who is involved in the nuclear programme, will be eliminated or threatened with elimination. "Those who are left will be at the forefront of any Iranian attempt to reach a nuclear bomb, hence they will automatically become targets for Israel as Israel has shown in the past. I have no doubt about it. Any scientist that deals with the nuclear issue will be eliminated or will be threatened with elimination", he said. The security has also been boosted, as an Iranian official informs. Earlier, a single Revolutionary Guard unit handled their security, but now there are multiple agencies involved in the protection because of trust concerns. "They were all asked if they still trust their bodyguards - some said no and were provided with new ones," he said. Over 620 people were killed in Iran, including 12 scientists and 20 senior commanders, with 4,870 injured people. Iranian retaliation killed 28 people in Israel and injured over 3,000.
Time of India
6 days ago
- Business
- Time of India
Explosive Report: Iran Sought Nuclear Materials In Russia During Secret Weapons-Linked Trip
A secret Iranian delegation linked to Tehran's nuclear weapons programme visited Russia in August 2024 to seek sensitive dual-use technologies, according to a Financial Times report. The group, led by SPND official Ali Kalvand, met with Russian scientists and inquired about nuclear-related materials including tritium. Documents show they requested radioactive isotopes from a Russian supplier. Experts say the visit raises alarms over potential military applications and signals a shift in Russia's stance on Iran's nuclear ambitions. Several delegates were sanctioned figures, including experts in radiation and neutron generation. The trip reportedly had FSB approval, fuelling suspicions of deepening Tehran-Moscow cooperation in sensitive research. Neither Iran nor Russia commented on the revelations. Read More
Asharq Al-Awsat
6 days ago
- Politics
- Asharq Al-Awsat
Western Intelligence Tracks Iranian Efforts to Acquire Sensitive Nuclear Material from Russia
A group of Iranian scientists, including nuclear specialists and a military intelligence member, secretly visited Russia in August 2024 to seek out dual-use technologies with potential military applications, the Financial Times reported Tuesday, citing internal documents, correspondence and travel records. The five-member delegation included nuclear physicist Ali Kalvand and a nuclear scientist who, according to Western officials, works for Iran's SPND (the Defense Innovation and Research Organization), a secret military research unit that has been described by the US government as 'the direct successor to Iran's pre-2004 nuclear program.' FT said some members of the delegation also worked for DamavandTec, a sanctioned Iranian procurement firm. The Iranian delegation travelled to Moscow on a diplomatic service passport. FT said the Iranian delegation sought access to radioactive isotopes such as tritium, an isotope used in both civilian and military applications, including boosting the yield of nuclear warheads. It wrote that in a letter sent prior to the visit, DamavandTec requested tritium, strontium-90 and nickel-63 from a Russian supplier. The report came one week after the FT published an interview with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, who said Tehran was committed to a peaceful, civilian program, and that it would not change its doctrine and would abide by a two-decade old fatwa issued by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei forbidding the development of nuclear weapons. The name of the SPND was mentioned in April 2018, when then-Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu presented documents seized in a Mossad operation, saying Iran's nuclear weapons program continued under the Organization, after the prior AMAD project was shuttered. Ian Stewart, a former UK Ministry of Defense nuclear engineer who is head of the Washington office of the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, told FT: 'While there could be benign explanations for these visits, the totality of the information available points to a possibility that Iran's SPND is seeking to sustain its nuclear weapons-related knowhow by tapping Russian expertise.' SPND Established in 2023, DamavandTec presents itself as a civilian scientific consultancy. On its website, it claims to have 'an experienced team in the field of technology transfer' and aims to 'develop scientific communication' between academic and research institutions. The trip of the Iranian delegation to Russia came at a time when Western governments had observed a number of suspicious activities by Iranian scientists, including efforts to procure nuclear-related technology from abroad. In early 2024, Kalvand received a request from Iran's defense ministry — to use his small company DamavandTec to arrange a sensitive delegation to travel to Moscow, according to correspondence seen by the FT. SPND was established in 2011 by Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, a physicist who was sanctioned by the United Nations in 2007 for being 'involved in Iran's nuclear or ballistic missile activities.' Fakhrizadeh was widely regarded as the architect of Iran's pre-2003 nuclear weapons program, known as the Amad Plan. Iran has long denied the existence of Amad or any nuclear weapons activity. In 2020, Fakhrizadeh was assassinated in a roadside ambush widely attributed to Israel, using a remote-controlled, AI-guided machine gun. In 2024, Iran's parliament officially recognized SPND under Iranian law for the first time, placing it under the control of the defense ministry, and ultimately the personal authority of Iran's Supreme Leader. Hi-Techs According to FT, the Iranian delegation that visited Russia in 2024 included Javad Ghasemi, 48, who was previously the CEO of Paradise Medical Pioneers, a US-sanctioned nuclear weapons-related company in Iran. Also, the delegation included Rouhollah Azimirad, an associate professor at Malek Ashtar University of Technology, which the US and UK have said is under the control of Iran's ministry of defense and Soroush Mohtashami, an expert on neutron generators — a component that can trigger detonation in some nuclear weapons. FT said the delegation stayed in Russia for four days and visited Russian nuclear and electronics research centers including facilities connected to Oleg Maslennikov, a physicist known for his work on klystrons — devices used in both particle accelerators and nuclear diagnostics. Also, the Iranian delegation visited Toriy, a research facility located a short walk from the premises of the Polyus Science and Research Institute. Polyus is a subsidiary of sanctioned state conglomerate Rostec, and was sanctioned by the US in the late 1990s for reportedly supplying missile guidance technology to Iran. Experts say it is highly unlikely the Iranians could have visited the Russian sites without approval from the FSB, Russia's main security agency. For more than a decade, SPND has attempted to covertly acquire such technology by circumventing western export controls, according to the US, as well as public comments by intelligence agencies in Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden. The technical offerings of the Russian companies they met, suggest the delegation may have been pursuing information relevant to diagnostic tools for nuclear weapon tests. It's likely that the Iranian delegation was interested in high-powered X-ray tubes for flash X-rays which are used for diagnostic tests of a nuclear weapon's implosion mechanism, FT said. The documents seen by FT also suggest that the delegation's interest extended beyond technical expertise to something far more sensitive: radioactive materials. Two former western officials told the FT that the US had last year picked up signs that SPND had engaged in dual-use knowledge transfers with Russia, as well as procuring physical items, that could be relevant to nuclear weapons research. Other western officials said that they had become aware of the SPND expressing an interest in acquiring various radioactive isotopes — not including tritium — but that the motivations for this interest had been unclear. Much of Iran's nuclear infrastructure may have been destroyed or damaged after the Israeli and US attacks in June. But some experts believe that the system SPND built — the personnel, the training, the technical continuity — is harder to eradicate. 'Israel can't totally destroy Iran's nuclear program,' says Nicole Grajewski, a fellow in the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. 'Because one of the things Iran has done is have those involved in the Amad plan train a cadre of younger scientists.'
LeMonde
08-07-2025
- Politics
- LeMonde
How Israel tracked down and assassinated scientists involved in Iran's nuclear program
Thousands of supporters of the Iranian regime marched along Enghelab Avenue, in central Tehran, on Saturday, June 28, behind the coffins of victims of Israeli strikes that decimated the country's security apparatus. On that day, the Islamic Republic held state funerals for its high-ranking officers and several nuclear scientists killed during the first bombings, an unprecedented wave of assassinations in the country's history. Admiral Ali Shamkhani, reported dead on the first day of the war and then rumored to have lost a leg, reappeared for the occasion, wounded but standing on his own two legs, leaning on a cane. The bodies of the scientists were laid to rest in a Shiite mausoleum in the impoverished Rey neighborhood, where dignitaries of the regime and artists are buried. Israel had tracked these men's every move for two decades. The country had already attempted to assassinate one of them, Fereydoun Abbasi, in 2010. This physicist, a zealous ideologue, as pious as he was hard-working, had jumped out of his car with his wife just before a bomb, believed to have been planted by Israeli agents, exploded. So began the first wave of assassinations of Iranian scientists attributed to Israel. Abbasi went on to become vice president of the country and head of its Atomic Energy Organization – a vantage point from which he fought against any international agreement that would restrict Iran's nuclear program. He died on June 13. He was buried alongside colleagues linked to the Organization of Defensive Innovation and Research (SPND, its Persian acronym): a center suspected of having conducted research since the 1990s aimed at militarizing the uranium enriched by Iran, in order to acquire the capability to assemble a nuclear weapon, should the regime choose to do so.
Time of India
21-06-2025
- Politics
- Time of India
Israel's multi-layered defense and strategic counteroffensive highlighted amid intensifying conflict with Iran
The recent hostilities between Israel and Iran on Friday have escalated into a complex military confrontation that underscores Israel's advanced multi-tiered air defense capabilities alongside strategic precision strikes deep inside Iranian territory. Israel has successfully intercepted a significant number of Iranian unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and ballistic missiles, while simultaneously conducting targeted airstrikes on Iranian missile launchers and nuclear-related infrastructure. The Israeli Air Force (IAF), supported by naval defense systems such as the Barak MX, intercepted over 15 Iranian UAVs in a single day, maintaining an overall interception rate exceeding 90% against hundreds of drones and missiles launched since the conflict's escalation. The lengthy flight time of Iranian drones—approximately nine hours—has allowed Israel to effectively deploy interceptors and scramble fighter jets to neutralize threats well before they reach populated areas. Despite the high interception rate, missile strikes caused injuries and damage in Haifa and Beersheba, with at least seven lightly wounded in Beersheba and two injured in Haifa, including a teenager in serious condition. In retaliation, Israel launched precision airstrikes involving over 60 aircraft targeting missile launch sites, storage facilities, and nuclear program-related sites across central and western Iran. Among the key targets was the headquarters of the SPND nuclear project , a critical component of Iran's advanced weapons development efforts. Israeli officials reported the elimination of key Iranian military commanders and disruption of planned missile barrages aimed at southern Israel. Live Events Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz announced plans to intensify strikes against Iranian internal security institutions and regime symbols to destabilize the regime, with Iran continuing to expand its missile arsenal. However, Israel maintains sufficient interceptor missile stockpiles and is adapting its defense systems, including deploying new interceptors specifically designed to counter UAV threats. This conflict has evolved into a high-stakes tit-for-tat exchange, with both nations demonstrating advanced military technologies and a willingness to strike strategic targets beyond their borders. Recent intelligence has revealed covert Israeli drone manufacturing facilities inside Iran, while Iran's use of cluster warheads highlights the evolving and covert nature of this confrontation. Israel's ability to intercept the vast majority of Iranian UAVs and missiles while conducting deep strikes into Iranian territory reflects a blend of technological superiority and tactical planning that might shape this prolonged conflict. With current hostilities numbering at least 24 Israeli and over 600 Iranian deaths since June 13, with hundreds more wounded, authorities emphasize the importance of adhering strictly to safety protocols.
