IRAN’S THREATMemo: The Reported Destruction of Secret Workshop in 2020
On March 24, 2024, Iran International reported that an “industrial production workshop […] belonging to the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) was deliberately set on fire” in the summer of 2020. 1 The incident was not reported publicly at the time, and Iran International cites judicial and intelligence documents provided by a hacking group as their source. Iran alleged that the Israeli intelligence service, Mossad, hired a group of nine Iranians to destroy the facility.
On March 24, 2024, Iran International reported that an “industrial production workshop […] belonging to the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) was deliberately set on fire” in the summer of 2020. 1 The incident was not reported publicly at the time, and Iran International cites judicial and intelligence documents provided by a hacking group as their source. According to Iran International’s analysis of the documents, Iran alleges that the Israeli intelligence service, Mossad, hired a group of nine Iranians, provided them with a “blueprint of the Shadabad workshop,” and offered payment if the group “set the workshop on fire, destroyed the property, and filmed it.”The workshop is described in the report as “a covert workshop” in the Shadabad neighborhood of Tehran which Iran “had not disclosed to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).” Its destruction attracted the attention of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who called for the severe punishment of the perpetrators.
The exact purpose of the workshop is difficult to determine from the available information, but the general area is known to have workshops that were involved in making prototype re-entry vehicles for missiles under the Amad Plan. 2 Two of these workshops were visited by the IAEA in 2015.
Based on the available information, there are multiple possibilities regarding the purpose of the workshop to consider, including:
· An Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) workshop or contractor that makes important military-related components, such as missile re-entry vehicle prototypes;
· An AEOI facility, purpose unknown; or
· A workshop involved in advanced centrifuge research and development (R&D) and/or component manufacturing/assembly under the AEOI or the IRGC.
The site was destroyed shortly after a major attack on the AEOI’s advanced centrifuge assembly facility at the Natanz site. 3 Several months later the “father” of Iran’s nuclear weapons program and head of SPND, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, was killed in an ambush attributed to Israel. 4
Involvement of Rastin Khadamat Parsian Co
According to a letter revealed by Iran International in its Farsi language report, claimed to be from Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS), a person named “Hassan Imani Nasaz,” who works for Rastin Khadamat Parsian Co., was approached two days before the incident by “people on a motorcycle” asking him about the workshop.
