Hours before Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was to sit down with President Donald Trump in Florida, alarming intelligence has emerged suggesting Iran was racing to develop chemical and biological warheads for its ballistic missile arsenal.
The Iran International channel, which is affiliated with Iran's opposition, reported overnight (between Sunday and Monday) that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has been developing biological and chemical warheads for long-range ballistic missiles.
The report also stated that the IRGC's Aerospace Force has been working on manufacturing the unconventional warheads for ballistic missiles while transferring launchers to areas in eastern Iran. "These activities have accelerated in recent months, against the backdrop of regional tensions and Tehran's fear of the possibility of another direct confrontation with Israel and the US," the report said.
Trump-Netanyahu meeting
The report comes hours before the scheduled meeting between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US President Donald Trump in Florida, which was moved up to 8:00 p.m. Israel time. The talks between the leaders are expected to focus on the Iranian issue, amid concerns that Tehran has been rehabilitating ballistic missile production facilities and repairing air defense systems that were damaged during the war in June.
"Complementary deterrent factor"
According to Iran International, the IRGC's plans include optimizing ballistic missiles so they can carry biological or chemical material. One of the sources claimed that the IRGC, while preparing for scenarios of wide-scale confrontation, has been building capabilities that decision-makers in the Islamic Republic view as a "complementary deterrent factor," alongside Iran's conventional missile program.
The push to develop chemical and biological warheads comes half a year after Iran's foreign minister described his country as "the greatest victim of chemical weapons in modern history," referring to the chemical weapons attack carried out by Saddam Hussein in the city of Sardasht in western Iran – an attack that, according to OPCW documentation, claimed the lives of more than 100 people in a large-scale mustard gas attack.
When asked about the contradiction between these statements, one of the sources said: "The Iranian leadership views potential Israeli and American strikes as a threat to its very existence, and intends, in the event of confrontation, to significantly raise the price for the opposing side." According to that source, among the highest decision-making ranks in the Islamic Republic, there is a perception that "the use of unconventional weapons can be justified in situations of existential threat."
"Unusual activity"
Last week, the outlet reported that Western intelligence agencies had identified "unusual" activity by the IRGC's Aerospace Force and had increased monitoring and surveillance of these movements. In Iran, the use of unconventional weapons has allegedly been banned for religious reasons.
In 2003, it was reported that Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei issued a "fatwa" against developing nuclear weapons, but before the Israeli strike on Iran and the 12-day war, Israel was no longer certain he would even announce the cancellation of this "fatwa" publicly – which would allow detection that Iran was building such a weapon.
