WASHINGTON, Aug 7: US intelligence agencies leaked a new story to the media on Thursday saying that Iran already has acquired a missile that can deliver a nuclear payload over a range from Cairo to Mumbai.

The CIA says that two weeks ago, Iranian officials held a ceremony in Tehran to welcome the newest missile to their arsenal, which was designed in North Korea.

A US nuclear expert, George Perkovich, told reporters in Washington that Iran could make nuclear weapons in the next two to four years. The US media also referred to a French intelligence report, which says that Iran might obtain a sufficient quantity of fissionable materials to manufacture a nuclear weapon within a few years.

A Washington-based nuclear watchdog, Institute for Science and International Security, has identified two major nuclear sites in Iran:

* Near Natanz 1,000 gas centrifuges that could be used for nuclear weapons are ready to be installed at a uranium enrichment plant hidden underground.

* Near Arak, there are plans for a reactor to make plutonium — another source of fuel for nuclear weapons.

“There is concern that Iran’s effort to obtain a complete fuel cycle is aimed at developing the capability to make separated plutonium and highly enriched uranium, the two main nuclear explosive materials,” says ISIS president David Albright.

A report in some US newspapers on Thursday quoted French experts as saying that Iran is also shopping in Europe for equipment to conduct nuclear tests.

Some reports quote Gary Samore, a former member of the National Security Council, as claiming that “the big breakthrough” for Iran “seems to have been the access to the gas centrifuge technology from Pakistan.”

Pakistan has strongly denied such allegations, calling them baseless and malicious. But on Thursday, NBC news identified Dr A.Q. Khan, as the man who US intelligence believes was “freelancing in Iran.”