Playing Hide and Seek

For the last eight years, international inspectors have been excluded from the Parchin military complex, where Iran is believed to have tested rockets and explosives. In particular, Iran is accused of using Parchin to experiment with detonators inside an “explosives containment vessel”.

Any such tests would be “strong indicators of possible nuclear weapon development,” according to the latest report of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

Inspectors have not been allowed into Parchin since February 2005. But satellite images obtained by the Daily Telegraph show that construction of new facilities has continued inside the complex.

One picture, taken last October, shows a cluster of three new buildings near the entrance to a tunnel. “This area has the appearance of a research and test facility,” said an analysis from McKenzie Intelligence Services, a consultancy.

”One of the buildings appears to be for the purpose of an activity that requires venting, possibly a test facility or laboratory. The other large building appears to be a control building to monitor activity in the first building,” it said.