Iranian nuclear chief was present at North Korean A-bomb test, reports Sunday Times.

Iran continues to strenuously deny it wants nuclear weapons or is actively pursuing them. Yet the evidence continues to say the exact opposite. Now there are new and credible reports that Iran is working closely with North Korea to join develop The Bomb, and that the recent North Korean nuclear weapons test was done in close coordination with Iran, even with Iranian nuclear officials present to observe the test.

“Iran’s leading nuclear scientist, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh Mahabadi, is believed to have travelled to North Korea to observe its third nuclear test last week, according to western intelligence sources,” reports the Sunday Times of London.

“Fakhrizadeh-Mahabadi has ventured outside Iran rarely, if at all, since several Iranian nuclear scientists were assassinated in attacks blamed by  Tehran on the Israeli intelligence service Mossad,” reports the Times. “He is in charge of developing a warhead small enough to fit on to one of the ballistic missiles developed by Iran from North Korean prototypes, the  sources said. His trip may have been worth the risk because North Korea’s triumphant announcement of the blast hinted that it was a compact, powerful device.”

In my novels, The Twelfth Imam and The Tehran Initiative, I paint a fictional account of Iran buying missiles and nuke plans from North Korea, and poring over data from North Korean nuclear bomb tests to assist and accelerate their own development of The Bomb. However, there is a growing stream of hard reporting and expert analysis that this is not fiction, that Iran and North Korea are, in fact, working very closely on ballistic missile development and on the development of nuclear weapons. 

“No country is more interested in the results of the North’s nuclear program, or the Western reaction, than Iran, which is pursuing its own uranium enrichment program,” the New York Times reported on February 11. “The two countries have long cooperated on missile technology, and many intelligence officials believe they share nuclear knowledge as well, though so far there is no hard evidence. The Iranians are also pursuing uranium enrichment, and one senior American official said two weeks ago that ‘it’s very possible that the North Koreans are testing for two countries.’ Some believe that the country may have been planning two simultaneous tests, but it could take time to sort out the data.”

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