Iran tested advanced nuclear warhead design....

News for a day, and then we back into our slumber...

According to leaked documentation from a dossier compiled by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Iranian scientists may have tested high-explosive components of the design of a secret technology known as a "two-point implosion" device.

The technology can enable the building of warheads that are simpler and smaller than older ones. By reducing the size of warheads, it is easier to put them on a missile.

Documentation from the dossier, entitled "Possible Military Dimensions of Iran's Nuclear Program" and leaked to The Guardian, refers to experiments testing a two-point detonation design.

The information was partly drawn from reports submitted to the IAEA by Western intelligence agencies. It is part of the evidence of nuclear weaponisation collated by the IAEA that has been presented to Iran for its response.

In the past, the IAEA has regarded such information from Western intelligence agencies with scepticism, particularly since the Iraq war and the faulty reporting of the existence of weapons of mass destruction.

But Mohamed ElBaradei, the IAEA's director general, has said the evidence of Iranian weaponisation "appears to have been derived from multiple sources over different periods of time, appears to be generally consistent, and is sufficiently comprehensive and detailed that it needs to be addressed by Iran".

Some extracts from the dossier had already been made public but it had not been known that it had contained documentation about such an advanced warhead.

"It is breathtaking that Iran could be working on this sort of material," a European government adviser on nuclear issues told The Guardian.