Iran received several nuclear warheads from a former Soviet republic in the early 1990s and Russian experts maintained them, according to Iranian government documents relayed to Israel and obtained by The Jerusalem Post.

The documents, deemed authentic by US congressional experts and still being studied in Israel, contain correspondence between Iranian government officials and leaders of the Revolutionary Guards that discusses Iran's successful efforts to obtain nuclear warheads from former Soviet republics.

A detailed account of the Iranian effort, released on January 20, 1992, by the US Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare of the House Republican Research Committee, asserted that by the end of 1991 there was a "98 percent certainty that Iran already had all {or virtually all} of the components required for two to three operational nuclear weapons {aerial bombs and SSM warheads} made with parts purchased in the ex-Soviet Moslem republics."