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Copyright © 1994-98, by the Middle East Data Project, Inc. All rights reserved.
While much is known about Russian and Chinese assistance to the Shahab-3 program, The Iran Brief has long tracked sales by European companies that have helped Iran with its missile development programs.
Among the most prominent:
• Mercedes Benz, which established a joint venture in 1992 with Iran Kaveh to build heavy duty trucks and diesel engines in Iran. The 19 to 26-ton trucks are ideally suited for use as Tractor-Erector-Launcher vehicles; some have reportedly already been adapted to launch Iran's shorter-range Oghab and Nazeat-10 rockets;
• DA Dampf. This private German firm purchased large quantities of ammonium perchlorate, a solid-fuel ingredient, through Girundus, an intermediary based in Switzerland and major U.S. producers, for transshipment to Iran in the late 1980s.
• Air Liquide. This French firm has built several air separation plants at major petrochemicals complexes (Arak, Mobarakeh), to produce oxygen and nitrogen. While this is a standard procedure at such plants, Iran will need a large indigenous supply of nitrogen as fuel for its various liquid-fuel missile projects..
• Société Nationale des Poudres et Explosifs (SNPE). This French state-owned firm supplied process technology and production equipment for a solid- propellant fuel plant in the mid-1980s in Parchin. It also shipped hundreds of tons of HMX and plastic explosives for use in naval mines;
• Degussa. The Swiss subsidiary of the German chemicals giant contracted with a Spanish firm, Senner, to build a carbon black plant in Saveh in the late 1980s. Carbon black has many civilian uses, but is also needed to make missile nozzles and other components subjected to intense heat.
• Wild Heerbrugg. This Swiss military optics specialist was caught in 1987 shipping GPS units to Iran's Revolutionary Guards. U.S. intelligence sources expect Iran to incorporate GPS receivers in the Shahab missiles.
• Ashtech Inc. This American company was indicted in 1995 for having shipped 8 GPS units to Iran through the UAE.