Picture FastFission (PD)
Via the Herald Sun: The Iranian press is reporting that a group of Republican Guards on patrol outside of an underground nuclear enrichment plant discovered a “monitoring device” cleverly disguised as a rock. The device self-destructed when the guards attempted to remove it. This is only the latest in a string of incidences involving the use of high-tech devices to monitor, or in some cases sabotage, Iranian nuclear plants.
Last week, the country’s vice president Fereydoun Abbasi said power lines had been blown up near the facility on August 17 in an attempt to sabotage Iran’s “peaceful” nuclear program.
But experts examined the rubble and found a device designed to intercept data from computers at the plant.
The accident signals the loss of an important source of intelligence for the West on Iran’s progress towards making a nuclear bomb.
It is not the first time a fake rock has been used for espionage. In 2006 British officials admitted that a fake rock found in Moscow contained spying devices.
And last year a spying system camouflaged to look like a rock was discovered by the Lebanese army near the southern port city of Tyre, which they claimed was put there by Israel.
In all cases, western powers have either denied that such devices were there in the first place, or claimed that they were not responsible.
