Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) is developing biological and chemical warheads for the country's long-range ballistic missiles, informed military sources told Iran International on Sunday.
The IRGC Aerospace Force is working on the unconventional warheads for ballistic missiles as it transfers missile launchers to eastern regions of Iran, the sources said.
The sources, who requested anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter, said these activities have accelerated in recent months and are being pursued amid rising regional tensions and Tehran’s concerns about the possibility of another direct confrontation with Israel and the United States.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is in Florida to meet the US president on Monday, when he plans to brief Donald Trump on options for potential future strikes against Iran, amid concerns that Tehran is rebuilding ballistic missile production facilities and repairing air defenses damaged during a brief war in June.
Iran International’s sources say these programs are largely carried out under the supervision of the IRGC Aerospace Force and include optimizing ballistic missiles to carry chemical and biological agents, as well as upgrading the associated command-and-control systems.
The Revolutionary Guard, anticipating scenarios of large-scale conflict, is building capabilities that, in the view of the Islamic Republic’s decision-makers, would serve as a “complementary deterrent factor” alongside Iran’s conventional missile program, one source said.
The pursuit of chemical and biological warheads comes six months after Iran’s foreign minister described his country as “the largest victim of chemical weapons in modern history,” citing Saddam Hussein’s chemical attack on Sardasht in western Iran, which, according to OPCW documentation, killed more than 100 people in a large-scale mustard gas assault.
Asked about the contradiction, one source told Iran International, “The Iranian leadership views potential Israeli and American attacks as a threat to its very existence and intends, in the event of a conflict, to significantly raise the cost for the opposing side.”
There is a perception at the highest decision-making levels of the Islamic Republic that “the use of unconventional weapons can be justified in situations of existential threat," the source added.
Last week, Iran International reported that Western intelligence agencies had identified “unusual” activities by the IRGC Aerospace Force and had increased monitoring and surveillance of these movements.
Sources said intelligence services were tracking command-and-control signals as well as deployments and logistical movements linked to the force.
'Drastic change in Mideast deterrence balance'
Military analysts told Iran International that if these reports are confirmed, the development of chemical and biological warheads could drastically alter the region’s deterrence balance and trigger broad international reactions.
The deployment of such weapons would face widespread global condemnation and could pave the way for additional sanctions and intensified pressure on Tehran.
Tehran has consistently denied any effort to acquire unconventional weapons and has declared itself committed to its international obligations.
Over recent years, Iran has steadily increased the range, accuracy, and variety of its ballistic missiles, a program that has been one of the main sources of concern for Western countries and regional states.
The satellites were placed into orbit from Russia’s Vostochny Cosmodrome in a multi-payload launch that Iranian officials described as the country’s seventh satellite mission carried out using Russian launch vehicles.
“These satellites were designed and manufactured by Iranian scientists, and both government bodies and the private sector have been involved,” Iran’s ambassador to Russia, Kazem Jalali, said in remarks published ahead of the launch.
“Two of the satellites belong to the government and one belongs to the private sector, and our knowledge-based companies and universities are active in this field.”
Jalali said Iran had continued to advance its space capabilities despite international pressure. “Despite all the threats and sanctions that exist, we have something to say in this field.”
Iran’s space agency chief, Hassan Salarieh, said the launch reflected what he described as Iran’s standing among a small group of countries with end-to-end space capabilities.
“Iran is among 10 or 11 countries in the world that simultaneously possess the capability to design and build satellites, launch vehicles and the infrastructure for launching, receiving data and processing images,” he said.
Salarieh said Iran aimed to expand both the number and precision of its satellites. “What is necessary for us is increasing the number of satellites, improving their accuracy and quality, and developing different classes of satellites,” he said.
Iranian media identified the satellites as Paya, also known as Tolou-3, Zafar-2, and a prototype satellite called Kowsar-1.5. The spacecraft were launched alongside a large cluster of mainly Russian satellites into a sun-synchronous low Earth orbit.
Paya (Tolou-3), built by the Iranian Space Agency, is Iran’s heaviest Earth-observation satellite to date, weighing about 150 kilograms.
Iranian officials say it is capable of producing black-and-white images with a resolution of about five meters and color images with a resolution of around 10 meters, and is intended for applications including agriculture, water management, environmental monitoring and disaster assessment.
Zafar-2, developed by Iran University of Science and Technology, is also an Earth-observation satellite designed for mapping, environmental monitoring and tracking natural hazards.
Kowsar-1.5 combines imaging and internet-of-things capabilities and is aimed primarily at agricultural and farm-monitoring uses, Iranian officials say.
Jalali described Iran’s space cooperation with Russia as extensive and said Moscow’s experience had played a key role.
“Russia is advanced in the space field, including satellites, launch vehicles and satellite launches, and we have been able to transfer part of the technology and work together,” he said.
He also described the Soyuz rocket as highly reliable. “Before Russia’s relations with the West deteriorated, many Western satellites were launched using Soyuz,” Jalali said.
The launch also carried Russian Earth-observation satellites, internet-of-things platforms and university-built spacecraft, according to launch data, as well as satellites from partner countries including Belarus, Kuwait and Montenegro.
Iran says its space program is civilian and focused on scientific and economic goals, but Western governments argue that satellite launch technology overlaps with systems used to develop intercontinental ballistic missiles.
On Wednesday, former Afghan police general Ikramuddin Sari was shot dead by masked assailants near his home in Tehran, according to sources close to him.
He was attacked alongside an associate near their residence in southern Tehran and died while being transferred to hospital, the sources told Afghanistan International.
Sari, a former police commander in Baghlan and Takhar provinces, fled to Iran after the Taliban returned to power in 2021. Reports in recent months had suggested Iranian police had detained and questioned him, though no official explanation was given.
Taliban's 'extraterritorial assassinations'
The killing follows the September shooting of Maroof Ghulami, a political and military figure close to veteran anti-Taliban leader Ismail Khan. He was killed by gunfire in the religious city of Mashhad.
People close to both men have blamed the Taliban for their deaths, according to Afghanistan International.
The attacks, an Afghan military source said, signal the start of what he described as Taliban “extraterritorial assassinations,” adding that the group has repeatedly threatened to target opponents abroad.
Senior Taliban official Mohammad Nabi Omari has previously said the group could kill opponents outside Afghanistan “with as little as 500 Pakistani rupees,” while Saeed Khosti, a former spokesperson for the de facto Taliban Ministry of Interior, warned two years ago that hundreds of volunteers were ready to target critics overseas.
Iranian authorities have remained publicly silent on Sari’s killing. Tehran has also provided no detailed update on the investigation into Ghulami’s death.
Iranian police said in September they arrested three suspects in that case but later released two, offering no clarity on affiliations.
A source familiar with the investigation told Afghanistan International that the remaining suspect was a Taliban operative, a comment not confirmed by Iranian authorities.
Calls for accountability
Sari, originally from Kapisa province, was regarded as a professional officer who served as police commander in Nuristan, Baghlan and Takhar, and as an adviser to Afghanistan’s interior ministry.
In Iran, he acted as an informal representative for former Afghan soldiers, advocating for their rights, opposing deportations and openly criticizing the Taliban.
The National Resistance Front of Afghanistan (NRF), led by Ahmad Massoud, called on Iran to conduct a “transparent, serious and independent” investigation, describing Sari’s killing as a “targeted terrorist act.”
The Jamiat-e Islami Afghanistan, led by Salahuddin Rabbani, also condemned the killing and urged Iranian authorities to identify those responsible.
Iran, which has handed Afghanistan’s embassy in Tehran and the consulate in Mashhad to the Taliban, has faced growing criticism for failing to protect Afghan dissidents on its soil even as it seeks closer ties with the Taliban-led administration.
“Israel does not have the capacity for an intense war of attrition or for confronting a major power like Iran, and it is clear that another war would not end in 12 days as the previous one did,” Javan wrote in an analysis on Wednesday.
The 12-day war between Iran and Israel in June 2025 was a brief but intense conflict. It began with extensive Israeli airstrikes on Iranian military and nuclear facilities.
The United States became militarily involved mid‑conflict. On June 22, US Air Force and Navy forces carried out coordinated strikes on three Iranian nuclear facilities – Natanz, Fordow and Isfahan – in an operation codenamed Operation Midnight Hammer, using B‑2 bombers and submarine‑launched missiles, marking the first US offensive against Iranian territory in decades. Iranian forces fired missiles at US assets in Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, after those strikes.
The conflict ended with a US and Qatari-mediated ceasefire, but it caused significant casualties, infrastructure damage.
Israeli rhetoric, the paper said, has shifted from threats of decisive victory to language of caution and warnings about the costs of renewed conflict.
Air strikes, according to Javan, failed to halt what it called Iran’s “distributed and self-sufficient” military production. The paper also argued that the previous fighting severely strained Israel’s multilayer missile defense systems.
“Israeli officials are now openly speaking of the ‘real threat’ posed by Iran’s missiles and warning that without preventive action Iran could reach annual production of thousands of missiles,” the paper said.
Focus shifts from battlefield to society
Javan framed the change in tone as evidence that the military option has lost credibility, writing that the inability to control the consequences of war has weakened Israel’s long-standing doctrine of absolute military superiority.
“War in the contemporary world is not merely a military confrontation, but a test of social capacity, political cohesion and national resilience,” the paper wrote, arguing that internal divisions, political strains and reliance on external support limit Israel’s ability to endure a prolonged conflict.
The article concluded that future confrontation will be shaped as much by narratives and domestic resilience as by missiles and air defenses.