Saudi diplomats in Khartoum believed Iran shipped advanced nuclear equipment including centrifuges to Sudan in 2012, according to a document leaked last week that WikiLeaks says is a cable from the embassy.

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"The embassy's sources advised that Iranian containers arrived this week at Khartoum airport containing sensitive technical equipment in the form of fast centrifuges for enriching uranium, and a second shipment is expected to arrive this week," the document, dated February 2012 and marked 'very secret', read.

Heavy water reactor in Arak, Iran (Photo: AFP)

WikiLeaks last week released more than 60,000 cables and documents which it says are official Saudi communications, and plans to release half a million in total. Saudi Arabia said they might be faked and has not commented on specific documents.

If the cable is authentic, it does not provide details on the source of the embassy's information or any further evidence of the shipment. There have been no previous reports of Iran sending nuclear equipment to Sudan, which has no known nuclear program.

A Sudanese munitions factory was destroyed in a mysterious explosion in October 2012, eight months after the date on the cable, which the Sudanese government blamed on an Israeli air raid.

Sudanese munitions factory on fire in 2012, which that country's government blamed on Israel (Photo: EPA)

There were no indications that the factory had a nuclear dimension.

An Iranian official declined to comment and Sudanese officials were not immediately available for comment.