Iran Redline

04 Aug, 2016 Anyone with a passing interest in science fiction has probably heard of an electromagnetic pulse (پالس الکترومغناطیسی), or EMP. The US, Russia and China have experimented with EMP technology before, and the North Koreans might be having a go as well. Indeed EMPs pop up all over the place, including in The Matrix, Battlestar Galactica, Ocean’s Eleven and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. This got Redline thinking, has Mohsen Fakhrizadeh’s (محسن فخریزاده) Xbox 360 addiction pushed him to develop this most fashionable of weapons. Now, as the most avid of Redline fans out there will be aware, SPND has a thing for the idea of making things melt or fizzle in a really cool, War of the Worlds-style way The Divine Unit and the Death Ray . To us this doesn’t put EMP research beyond the realms of speculation. In March a claim emerged that a secret Iranian military handbook contained details that Iran was planning a nuclear EMP attack against the American national...

11 Apr, 2016   It's more or less holiday time at Redline HQ at the moment. Scientists from Iran's former nuclear weapons program (known as AMAD) are cooling their heels under the terms of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the nuclear deal that prohibits them from doing any nuclear weapon-related experiments. So SPND (سازمان پژوهش و نوآوری دفاعی ), the organisation where these frustrated folks are now housed, is similarly quiet. In the meantime, we've been going through the Redline archives to survey some of the lesser stars in the constellation of Iranian scientists who have a particular penchant for nuclear weapons. A very good place to start looking is the Physics Department at Imam Hossein University (دانشگاه امام حسین), the IRGC's very own research college. IHU Physics is a hotbed of academics who are probably none too pleased with the terms of the JCPOA. And they'd much rather be building nuclear warheads than teaching snotty...

26 Feb, 2016 The Iran Space Agency (سازمان فضایی ایران) has a new man at the top! His name is Manouchehr Manteghi (منوچهر منطقی) and he'll be taking charge of Iran's space programme - the country's occasionally successful efforts to lob satellites, monkeys and space cats into orbit. Manteghi has led a colourful life, to say the least. His past adventures are well worth recounting, because they neatly illustrate the extent to which leadership in Iran's defence and missile industries is basically a revolving door of IRGC cronies. Which is not to say that Manteghi doesn't know what he's doing when it comes to pointy things that fly a long way and then explode. In fact, Manteghi's involvement with missiles goes back as far as literally anyone in the entire Islamic Republic of Iran. Manteghi started his missile career during the 1980s war with Iraq. Diaries available online on former president Akbar Rafsanjani's glorified blog record ...

08 Jan, 2016   Redline HQ has noted that, hot on the heels of the recent IAEA report , Iranian regime heavyweight and pistachio billionaire Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani (‌اکبر هاشمی رفسنجانی) has also been in the news after giving a tell-all interview about the early days of Iran's nuclear programme. Rafsanjani was Iran's president from 1989 to 1997 - exactly the period that the country's endeavours in uranium enrichment, heavy water and weapons research really kicked off. You can read the interview in its entirety here. A couple of his admissions from the interview have already made headlines Surprising nobody, Rafsanjani admitted that Iran's nuclear program was established with one eye on it as a potential deterrent. "Our basic doctrine was always a peaceful nuclear application," he says, "but it never left our mind that if one day we should be threatened and it was imperative, we should be able to go down the other path." ...