Iran Claims Israel Plotted To Sabotage Missiles With Defective Parts

Iran has accused Israel of plotting to sabotage its defense industry and the production of missiles by supplying defective parts, state media reported on Thursday.

Thursday night, Iran’s government-controlled media announced that a major security announcement would be made in hours, but nothing was announced. Finally, on Friday Iran released a video and a short report showing hundreds of parts said to have been defective and discovered due to the vigilance of intelligence entities.

However, Iranian journalists abroad pointed out that if the parts were indeed defective and reached Iran it means the Islamic Republic spent huge sums to acquire the fake or defective black-market parts, and now wanted to turn the fiasco into an intelligence success story.

"The intelligence unit of the Defense Ministry thwarted one of the largest sabotage plots targeting Iran's missile, aviation and airspace military industry," Iranian state TV said.

"This sabotage was carried out under the guidance of the Zionist intelligence services and their agents."

There was no immediate response from Israel. There have been reports in the past of foreign intelligence organizations succeeding in supplying defective dual-use parts to Iran. In 2010, a malicious computer worm dubbed Stuxnet was discovered in Iran that worked to sabotage Iran’s nuclear program by targeting supervisory control and data acquisition. It was believed that the bug was developer by Israeli and US intelligence services.

An unnamed Iranian defense ministry official was quoted by state media as saying a network of agents sought to introduce defective parts into the production of advanced missiles.