Report: Iran captured spy who gathered intel on Qom nuke site

Iran captured a spy for a Western intelligence agency two months ago who gathered information on the Islamic Republic's uranium enrichment site at Qom, Channel 2 television reported yesterday.

However, Tehran has not officially announced the arrest of any agent on its territory - whereas in previous cases, it has rushed to boast about the capture of real or fictitious Western spies. Moreover, there has been no corroboration of the report from any other news outlet.

Another factor that makes the report seem questionable is that the enrichment site at Qom was revealed almost three months ago. Security services usually prefer not to announce a spy's arrest immediately, in order to have time to conduct interrogations that could lead to the capture of his partners as well. But three months is an unreasonably long time for such as process. If this spy had brought about the facility's disclosure, it seems likely that his capture would already have been published.

Immediately after the Qom site was revealed, assessments were published that there had been an "intelligence leak" from the West to Iran that enabled Iran to know that the United States, and perhaps other Western nations, knew of the facility's existence and were about to reveal it. Tehran therefore hurried to announce of the site's existence to the International Atomic Energy Agency of its own accord.

It was also reported at the time that the Iranians suspected a spy of having been behind the West's discovery of Qom.

Shahram Amiri, an Iranian nuclear scientist who had worked at the Qom facility, disappeared six months ago while on a pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia. Iran has demanded information on his whereabouts from Saudi Arabia and even accused Riyadh of transferring him to U.S. intelligence officials.