A small arms and ammunition plant at Parchin has been in operation since before the Second World War, although very little solid information is available about the post-Revolutionary Iranian arms industry. On 25 August 1999 Iran’s Defense Ministry opened a new chemical factory capable of producing previously imported explosives. The new factory, with a production capacity of two tons per day, opened in the presence of Defense Minister Vice-Admiral Ali Shamkhani in the Parchin Chemical Complex.
Defense Industry Organization Department 140/31 at Parchin is associated with production of solid propellant for missiles. The production of a few types of unguided missiles, including Okhab and Nazeat-10, air-to-air and ground-to-air missiles, anti-tank TOW missiles, as well as the assembly of the SCUD missiles or SCUD-based missiles. New production facilities are being built for the IFA. Iran has invested heavily in an assembly line for production of the Fajr-3 missiles in Parchin using North Korean missile manufacturing technology. Iran's missile program reportedly includes production plants in Esfahan and Semnan, as well as at design centers in Sultanatabad, Lavizan and Kuh-e Bagh-e-Melli on the outskirts of Teheran. Other reports claim that the Iranian missile infrastructure includes a Chinese-built missile plant near Semnan, larger North Korean-built plants at Isfahan and Sirjan which can produce liquid fuels and some structural components, and missile test facilities at Shahroud.
Parchin is said to be one of Iran's major chemical weapons facilities, along with the facilities located at Damghan [the primary production facility], Esfahan and Qazvin. Reports that Iran had chemical weapons plants at Damghan and Parchin that began operation as early as March 1988 are of uncertain reliability. Iran continues to upgrade and expand its chemical warfare production infrastructure and munitions arsenal, which includes blister, blood, choking agents, and nerve agents.
As of 01 October 2000 Russian 2-meter resolution KVR-1000 imagery coverage was not available via the SPIN-2 service on TerraServer. Several archived Space Imaging IKONOS 1-meter images of this area are available on the CARTERRA™ Archive.
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