The grandfather of eBay founder Pierre Omidyar built a munitions factory. That sentence is strange enough to be worth repeating: General Mahmud Mir-Djalali, Omidyar's maternal grandfather, established the Parchin Chemical and Explosives Factory in 1935, with construction carried out by Czechoslovakia's Skoda Works. The factory was part of Reza Shah's campaign to build a domestic arms industry, and it sat on the banks of the Jajrud River, about 30 kilometers southeast of Tehran. Ninety years later, Parchin remains one of the most watched and contested pieces of real estate on Earth -- a military complex whose name has become synonymous with the question of whether Iran has pursued nuclear weapons.
Parchin began as a conventional munitions site, producing artillery shells and explosives for the Iranian military. During the Shah's reign, it expanded. In November 1976, the complex was chosen as the assembly site for British-made Rapier missiles -- a project that was canceled before completion. After the 1979 Revolution, the facility continued to grow under the Islamic Republic. In the Barjamali Hills northwest of the main complex, the Shahid Hemmat Industrial Group established a test range for liquid-propellant missile engines. In August 1997, an American spy satellite confirmed the signature of engine test-stand firings at the site, likely incorporating technology derived from the Russian SS-4 Sandal missile. What had started as a conventional arms factory was now linked to Iran's ballistic missile program.
The name Parchin entered global consciousness through the International Atomic Energy Agency. On January 13, 2005, IAEA inspectors were allowed access to the complex as a confidence-building measure and returned in November of the same year. But relations soured. By late 2011, the IAEA reported observing extensive landscaping, demolition, and new construction at the site -- activities that arms control analysts interpreted as cleanup of possible nuclear weapons-related testing. When the agency sought renewed access in February 2012, Iran refused. The standoff became a centerpiece of the nuclear negotiations that consumed the following years. In September 2015, IAEA Director-General Yukiya Amano visited Parchin personally, though the Iranians collected the environmental samples themselves rather than allowing agency experts to do so.
Parchin has a history of unexplained blasts. In November 2007, a warehouse explosion injured four people. In October 2014, the New York Times reported on a larger blast that produced a huge orange flash visible from Tehran; two people died, and sabotage was suspected. The most dramatic incident came in the early hours of June 26, 2020, when an explosion near the base lit up the Tehran sky. Iran's Defense Ministry blamed a gas leak, but satellite images from Sentinel-2 showed a vast blackened area in the hills next to the ammunition facility and the cruise missile factory at the adjacent Khojir complex. Whether these explosions were accidents, sabotage, or something else remains, in most cases, officially unresolved.
In June 2016, IAEA investigators disclosed to the Wall Street Journal that they had found traces of uranium at Parchin during sampling conducted in December 2015. The discovery represented the first physical evidence of nuclear weapons-related activity at the missile complex. Iran has consistently denied pursuing nuclear weapons at the site, with Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif calling analyses of satellite imagery lies and arguing that observed activity was merely road reconstruction near the Mamloo Dam. The site was reportedly struck by military strikes in June 2025, adding another violent chapter to a facility that has spent decades at the intersection of Iranian sovereignty, international inspections, and the question of nuclear proliferation.
Located at 35.527N, 51.778E approximately 30 km southeast of Tehran on the banks of the Jajrud River. This is a restricted military zone -- do not overfly at low altitude. The complex is near the Khojir missile production facility to the northwest. Nearest civilian airport: Tehran Imam Khomeini International (OIIE) approximately 40 km southwest. The Mamloo Dam is a visual landmark to the east. Exercise caution regarding restricted airspace.