The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) announced at a press conference in Washington that they had uncovered a previously undeclared 2,500-acre nuclear weapons development site about 55 miles southeast of Tehran near the city of Eyvanak.
The anti-regime group announced that the "Organization of Defensive Innovation and Research (SPND)—a body controlled by Iran’s Ministry of Defense and the IRGC [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps]—has been pursuing tritium extraction to enhance nuclear weapons yields."
Tritium is also a crucial fuel for fusion reactions, making it a valuable byproduct from certain fission reactors. If Iran is extracting the tritium, they are probably in the early stages of trying to develop a hydrogen bomb.
NCRI is the oldest Iranian resistance organization in existence. It's the political arm of the Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK), the main armed resistance group in Iran, and was, at one time, designated a terrorist group by the U.S.. Their credibility has been questioned on several occasions, including their claim that they "discovered" the nuclear enrichment site at Natanz in August 2002. In fact, U.S. intelligence discovered the site in the late 1990s, and information leaked to NCRI in 2002.
But that doesn't mean the NCRI is wrong. If Iran is fooling around with tritium, that's clear proof that their nuclear program is looking to build a bomb and probably a hydrogen bomb.
If true, this catches Iran in a lie that their apologists around the world can't deny. There is no commercial use for tritium, and its only known application is in the development of nuclear weapons.
“This project is not peaceful. It’s designed for nuclear warheads to be mounted on missiles with ranges over 3,000 kilometers,” Soona Samsami, NCRI’s U.S. Representative, stated. “The world must shut down Iran’s nuclear sites, deny enrichment capability, and task the IAEA with verifying closure.”
Alireza Jafarzadeh, NCRI-US Deputy Director, explained that the intelligence was gathered by the PMOI’s internal network in Iran, the same source that exposed Natanz in 2002. “This information comes after years of investigation, verification, and analysis,” he said. SPND, first revealed by NCRI in 2011, has since 2013 quietly recruited nuclear fusion and tritium experts from Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, including Dr. Ebrahim Haji Ebrahimi and Hadi Zaker Khatir, while suppressing academic publications on fusion-related research.
Jafarzadeh detailed the organizational structure: a parent front company, Petsar (Pishtazan-e Towsee-ye San’ati-ye Arya Razi), and four subsidiaries provide procurement and cover. The site itself, originally built under the supervision of assassinated nuclear chief Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, features underground facilities protected by IRGC missile defenses and the Qadir long-range radar.
“The regime disguised the site as a paint or missile factory to locals, but its military-level security—fencing, cameras, restricted zones—betrays its real function,” Jafarzadeh noted. “Iran’s nuclear weapons program never stopped; it advanced under greater secrecy.”
Only Joe Biden and Barack Obama believed that Iran had sworn off the development of nuclear weapons. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has always maintained that Iran was working to build a nuclear bomb. There's been no comment from the Israeli government, nor has U.S. intelligence confirmed or denied the report.
Satellite imagery was shared of the purported site as well as apparently associated off-site air defenses and military infrastructure. Jafarzadeh acknowledged, however, that the imagery did not immediately hold evidence of the alleged activities being conducted there, including the extraction of tritium necessary for the development of a hydrogen bomb and the production of warheads to carry such a weapon.
Still, Jafarzadeh stood by the claims, which he argued were bolstered by information of direct visits to the sites by former top Iranian nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, who was assassinated in a 2020 operation widely linked to Israel.
"The information we released today was entirely proven and verified by the sources on the ground," Jafarzadeh said. "I use satellite imagery just for people to understand what it is I'm talking about, where is the location of the sites and all of that."
Donald Trump wants a foreign policy win. He thinks he can get it because Iran desperately needs sanctions relief. The country is one incident away from another round of street protests. More than 1,000 Iranians were executed in 2024 as the regime cracked down hard on dissent.
Iran has said many times that it will not give up their nuclear program. But faced with revolution, they may not be as adamant in their stance.
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