Iranian Nuclear Weapons Program: Site-Meter "Hacking" Iranian Interest

Map of Iran's highest priority nuclear facilities. This includes the research centers at Tehran and  Isfahan/Esfahan (from which Submarine Matters' site-meter picked up Iranian reader interest in computer simulations of nuclear weapon explosions) see below. 

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Submarine Matters direct technical monitoring of  the Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran (AEOI) as far back as 2006 reflects Iran's ongoing interest in nuclear weapons research as an option for Iran. The AEOI is active in many university institutes, cities and isolated sites in Iran, particularly in Tehran and Isfahan (aka Esfahan) a large city about 350 km south of Tehran.

The Esfahan/Isfahan University of Technology (IUT) is closely related to AEOI. IUT includes the Nuclear Technology Center (INTC). Its estimated 3,000 scientists have many nuclear functions including Uranium enrichment. INTC operates three small nuclear research reactors supplied by China.

Like all research communities the Iranian nuclear community uses internet searches for general and specific purposes. 

Using my website and a simple, free site-meter, Submarine Matters began to detect and collect some internet searches by employees of Iranian Atomic research institutions. 

In 2006 Google revealed to commercial site-meters the words used by readers in keyword searches. By 2016 Google began to disguise the precise keywords.  

Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran (AEOI) Employee Google keyword searches detected by Submarine Matters' site-meter include:

- July 21, 2006 (IP 80.191.142.11) "Esfahan", conducted Google search for "deep bunkers MOP" MOP means Massive Ordinance Penetrator (large US bombs [actually used against Iranian targets, including Isfahan, in June 2025] useful for blowing up deep dug high value targets including nuclear facilities)
   
- October 30, 2006 (IP 217.218.11.165) "Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran" "Tehran"  employee googled "what is nuclear simulation". Comment - literally revealing "Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran" as the Iranian ISP is clearly poor security. One can now conclude that 217.218 is an "Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran" IP number even if "Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran" is disguised with bland ISP names.  

- November 19, 2006 (IP 217.218.64.202) Atomic Energy Organization of Iran disguised as "Area No 6 Partition" "Tehran", conducted a Google search for "nuclear explosion simulation".

- March 4, 2007 (IP 213.176.127.82) from - "Iranian Research Organization" employee googled key words "simulation underground nuclear explosion".

- September 9, 2007 (IP 217.218.64.202) Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, employee googled information on "nuclear weapon effects computer".

- October 23, 2007 (IP 217.218.64.202) Atomic Energy Organization of Iran employee googled information on "nuclear weapon effects computer".

- November 13, 2007 (IP 217.218.64.202) Atomic Energy Organization of Iran employee googled information on "underground nuclear explosion"

- November 22, 2007 (IP 217.219.18.13) a reader from Isfahan/Esfahan University of Technology, Tehran campus, detected as reading information on Submarine Matters concerning "Indian and Pakistani nuclear missiles".

- June 3, 2010 (IP 83.147.213.101) a reader in Isfahan/Esfahan Googled Submarine Matters for information on the SILEX laser uranium enrichment process.

Information collected above on Iranian interest in "nuclear weapon effects computer" prompted me to do further research on supercomputer upgrades at the Isfahan University of Technology. In 2011 the then President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad reportedly unveiled a supercomputer at Isfahan University of Technology - see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isfahan_University_of_Technology#Research_and_facilities . 

A supercomputer has many uses including complex physical and chemical reactions that occur in nuclear explosion simulations. Such simulations demand the enormous speed and capacity of supercomputers. By 2011-2012 the Iranians are likely to have conducted nuclear explosion simulations using the supercomputer. More on Iran nuclear - see http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-11927720 and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_facilities_in_Iran  

Since 2014 Iran has been at or near nuclear weapon breakout status - with the three components being:

- substantial stocks of semi-enriched uranium (LEU or MEU), which could become bomb grade (90+%) HEU within a couple of months using Iran's thousands of centrifuges and possible hidden laser enrichment capability.

- delivery means - in the form of Sejjil http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sejjil solid fuel IRBM and the Shahab series liquid fueled IRBMs, and

- enough nuclear device plans and components acquired from Pakistan's A. Q. Khan network to have constructed crude fission devices (minus the HEU and/or Plutonium explosive) around 2006.

see https://www.nti.org/learn/countries/iran/nuclear/

SAUDI NUCLEAR PROGRAM?

Iran has been building a nuclear weapon program because regional opponent, Israel, has developed nuclear weapons since the mid 1960s. 

Shiite Iran's Sunni opponent Saudi Arabia has had the potential political and financial muscle to buy nuclear weapons and missiles from Pakistan and China since the 1980s. The Saudis bought Chinese inaccurate-hence-nuclear-specific-use CSS-2 IRBMs in 1987.  The Saudi's also reportedly bought from China more advanced nuclear-use DF-21 (CSS-5) MRBMs in 2007. See the Newsweek article and http://www.nti.org/gsn/article/us-backed-secret-saudi-missile-purchase-china/.

A more detailed map of Iran's nuclear sites.

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Pete

China's Submarines - Excellent Danish Report

An crucial characteristic of submarines is quieting . See quieting improvements for diesel-electric propelled Chinese and Russian submarines (above) and nuclear propelled (below). The green area indicates submarines that would be relatively easy for navies to detect vs. red which would be difficult to detect. (Image Credit: US Office of Naval Intelligence, 2009) reproduced at http://manglermuldoon.blogspot.com.au/2013/12/chinas-anti-access-strategy-submarine.html

Morten Hetmar Vestergaard wrote an excellent paper in late 2013 that has been published by several institutions including the Royal Danish Defence College. His paper is Overseas or Submarines? Understanding and Explaining China’s Naval Modernisation and Maritime Strategy. He presented it at the International Society of Military Sciences Conference, København, Denmark, November 12-14, 2014.

The paper is at   https://pure.fak.dk/ws/files/4783982/Overseas_or_Submarines_ISMS_Paper_Morten_Hetmar_Vestergaard.pdf.

More details about the paper are at http://pure.fak.dk/portal/en/publications/overseas-or-submarines(e3cbc7ef-0bec-4248-8ae7-159e2975ec55).html including the paper's Abstract which is:

"The rise of China in recent decades has taken place on an unprecedented scale and at a breathtaking a pace. Few, perhaps none, have gone so far so fast from weakness to strength. Especially the modernization of China’s Navy has been a focal point of debate regarding the evolving security environment in Asia. Deduced from defensive and offensive realism, this paper makes theoretically informed hypotheses and predicts corresponding naval force postures expected in each hypothesis. The hypotheses are then tested on the empirical data to explain China’s strategic behaviour and procurement patterns in the maritime domain. The findings are significant particularly in the development of two major constituents of the Chinese Navy, namely submarines and principal surface combatants. In these areas, the development of capabilities has taken place at a dramatic pace and breadth. The paper concludes that the naval capabilities of China have evolved in a manner exhibiting a power-maximising strategic behaviour in line with the revisionist disposition of great powers in offensive realism that accordingly corresponds with the predicted posture. As a whole, the empirical data presented in this paper is consistent with a tendency in the modernization of China’s Navy to establish itself as a dominant power in its maritime region."

The following are some details in the paper:

Pages 10 and 11 - details about China's SSBNs.

Pages 11 to 13 - details about China's SSKs  including the Ming, Romeo and Song classes. 

Pages 23 to 24 - China's Anti Ship Ballistic Missile derived from the DF-21.

Pages 26 and 27 concern the Yuzhao-class (Type-071) Landing Platform Dock 
(LPD) noting that China's Changbaishan of that class sailed between Indonesia and Australia in February 2014.

Pages 27 to 30 - details of China's Kilo, Ming, Romeo, Song and Yuan SSKs,

Pages 33 and 34 - Chinese SSNs and again SSBNs including a graph of the increasing quietness of Chinese and also Russian nuclear submarines (also reproduced in the second graph above).

Appendix A pages 43 to 46 - provide class, displacement, laid down, launched and commissioned details of all of China's submarine types.

Appendix B pages 47 to 51 - provide class, displacement, laid down, launched and commissioned details of all China's surface combatants.

Pete