IRAN: WHAT IS THE GOALS ?? EXECUTING SPY AGENTS OR PUTTING PRESSURE ON NORMAL CIVILIANS WHO ARE AGAINST THE REGIME ?

Defence affairs analysis

At the height of Israel’s war against Iran, Kambiz Hosseini - an anti-establishment figure working for the Saudi-funded media outlet Iran International - told his followers that Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei would soon be killed.

On 19 June, when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared that Khamenei’s death would mean the end of the Islamic Republic, Hosseini urged his followers to wait just a little longer, writing: “You have waited 46 years, 4 months, and 29 days; wait three more days.”

For three days, nothing happened. Then, on the fourth, everything changed.

Less than two hours after US President Donald Trump announced a ceasefire between Iran and Israel, Hosseini posted anxiously on X: “If Khamenei survives in these remaining hours, he will massacre the people! He will take revenge on everyone.”

And Khamenei survived.

It wasn’t only Hosseini and his followers, who supported foreign intervention to overthrow the Islamic Republic, who were worried.

Many Iranians inside and outside the country soon witnessed a wave of repression, arrests and executions after the war ended.

On the morning of 24 June, just hours after the ceasefire took effect, three people were hanged in Urmia prison. Idris Aali, Azad Shojaei, and Rasoul Ahmad had been accused of collaborating with Mossad before the war and were swiftly executed.

In the days before that, three other prisoners - Mohammad Amin Mahdavi Shayesteh, Majid Mossayebi, and Esmail Fekri - were also executed in different prisons on charges of spying for Israel.

At the same time, Iranian state media announced that over 700 people had been arrested across the country for “espionage”, “spreading anti-establishment propaganda”, or “collaborating with hostile governments”.

Mahmood Amiri-Moghaddam, head of the Oslo-based Iran Human Rights organisation, put the number at least 900 in an interview with Middle East Eye.

He also pointed to a new law passed by Iran’s parliament during the war, and its details revealed on 28 June, known as the “intensifying punishment for agents collaborating with hostile states” bill. According to him, this law is meant to increase pressure on citizens and provide legal justification for future executions.

“The real targets are not Mossad agents, but ordinary people. Under this law, anyone can be accused of ‘corruption on earth’ and executed. Even talking to people outside Iran could now be considered espionage,” he explained.

“What threatens the establishment is not a foreign enemy, but the opposition and ordinary people inside Iran.”