The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday, June 5, citing unnamed informed sources, that Tehran, amid tense nuclear negotiations with the United States, is seeking to rebuild its military capabilities and has ordered thousands of tons of materials needed to produce ballistic missiles from China.
According to the Wall Street Journal, the shipments include “ammonium perchlorate,” which, according to the sources, is expected to arrive in Iran in the coming months. Ammonium perchlorate is the main component used in producing solid fuel for Iran’s ballistic missiles.
The report adds that part of these materials will likely be sent to Iran’s regime-backed militias in the region, including the Houthis in Yemen.
Iran’s Regime Sends Long-Range Missiles to Its Proxy Forces in Iraq
According to the report, while advancing tense nuclear negotiations with the U.S. government, Iran’s regime is also working to strengthen its regional allies and rebuild its missile arsenal. At the same time, Tehran continues enriching uranium to weapons-grade levels and has explicitly stated it is not willing to negotiate over its missile program.
U.S. President Donald Trump stated on Wednesday, June 4, that he had a phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin in which they discussed negotiations with Iran’s regime.
The Wall Street Journal wrote that an Iranian company called Pishgaman Tejarat Rafi Novin Co placed an order in recent months with a Hong Kong-based company named Lion Commodities Holdings Ltd.
The director of the Hong Kong company, representatives of the Iranian firm, and the Iranian regime’s mission to the United Nations did not respond to the newspaper’s request for comment.
A spokesperson for China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs also told the Wall Street Journal that they had no knowledge of the deal.
Iran’s regime is trying to rebuild its “Axis of Resistance” following the collapse of Bashar al-Assad’s government in Syria and the serious damage inflicted on groups like Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza. U.S. and Israeli attacks on Houthi positions in Yemen have also weakened this group, although their threats against Israel continue.
Sources informed the Wall Street Journal that Iran’s regime has recently transferred ballistic missiles to Shia militias in Iraq—groups that have previously attacked U.S. and Israeli forces. These transfers were also previously reported by the Times of London.
After the U.S. killed Qassem Soleimani in 2020, Shia militias in Iraq launched at least 12 ballistic missiles at the American airbase Ain al-Asad.
U.S. officials state that Iran’s regime possesses one of the largest missile programs in the region. Ammonium perchlorate, as an oxidizer, is the key component in the solid fuel of Iran’s effective ballistic missiles.
Earlier this year, two Iranian ships docked in China loaded more than 1,000 tons of sodium perchlorate, a substance used to produce ammonium perchlorate. According to reports, these materials, which arrived at Iranian ports in mid-February and late March, were sufficient to fuel approximately 260 short-range missiles.
A new contract for the import of ammonium perchlorate in larger volumes, according to an official, will provide the capacity to produce fuel for approximately 800 missiles. This agreement was signed months ago, likely before Donald Trump extended a nuclear negotiation proposal to the regime’s leader in early March.
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On April 29, the U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned six individuals and six entities in Iran and China for their involvement in procuring raw materials for ballistic missiles, including sodium perchlorate. Two weeks later, additional sanctions were imposed on entities and individuals in China and Hong Kong.
In November 2022, the U.S. Navy announced that it had seized a ship in the Gulf of Oman carrying over 70 tons of ammonium perchlorate—a route Iran’s regime commonly uses to smuggle weapons to the Houthis.
Last October, Israel severely damaged the Iranian regime’s capability to produce solid-fuel missiles by targeting approximately 12 planetary mixers used in the production of missile fuel.
The Wall Street Journal further reported, citing a knowledgeable official, that Iran’s regime has begun repairing these mixers. As a result, part of the imported materials will likely be used domestically, while another portion will be transferred to groups such as the Houthis.
Storing these flammable materials carries high risks. In April, an explosion at Rajaee Port—which handles a major share of Iran’s container trade—left dozens dead. State-run media reported that the explosion was caused by improper storage of explosive materials by a unit of the IRGC Quds Force. According to an official, some of the sodium perchlorate imported from China was also destroyed in that explosion.
