  We report on the discovery of several compact regions of mid-infrared
emission in the starforming circum nuclear disk of the starburst/Seyfert2
galaxy NGC7582. The compact sources do not have counterparts in the optical and
near-infrared, suggesting that they are deeply embedded in dust. We use the
[NeII]12.8 micron line emission to estimate the emission measure of the ionized
gas, which in turn is used to assess the number of ionizing photons. Two of the
brighter sources are found to have ionizing fluxes of ~2.5x10^52, whereas the
fainter ones have ~1x10^52 photons/s. Comparing with a one Myr old starburst,
we derive stellar masses in the range (3-5)x10^5 Msun, and find that the number
of O-stars in each compact source is typically (0.6-1.6)x10^3. We conclude that
the compact mid-infrared sources are likely to be young, embedded star
clusters, of which only a few are known so far. Our observation highlights the
need for high resolution mid-infrared imaging to discover and study embedded
star clusters in the proximity of active galactic nuclei.
