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New York Post
02-07-2025
- Politics
- New York Post
Iran executes 6 people, arrests hundreds in espionage crackdown
Iranian authorities have executed six people and arrested 700 in a nationwide espionage crackdown during its 12-day war with Israel, officials and human rights groups said. After Israel's bombardments on Tehran's nuclear program exposed the extent of the Jewish state's infiltration of Iran, the Islamic republic began sweeping up residents on suspicion of treachery, with a half dozen killed in lightning-fast trials, according to the Center for Human Rights in Iran. Human rights groups and local media estimate that more than 700 were arrested across five Iranian provinces, with many of the incarcerated clueless about the charges being levied against them. 4 Iran conducted mass sweeps for alleged spies during the 12-day war with Israel that saw dozens of Iranian scientists and military commanders killed. Morteza Nikoubazl/NurPhoto/Shutterstock Advertisement 4 The strikes saw Tehran come under direct attack from Israel, with police going after residents who posted about the airstrikes on social media. UGC/AFP via Getty Images Asghar Jahangir, a spokesman for Iran's judiciary, said that the state will soon reveal exactly how many people were arrested in the sweeps, as well as what charges they will face. He told reporters Sunday that many were arrested for 'spying for the Zionist regime' — just as the Iranian parliament announced an emergency bill to impose harsher punishments, including the death penalty, over espionage charges. Advertisement Jahangir said the judiciary was also expanding its monitoring of electronic communications to go after online accounts that were allegedly cooperating with Israel. The US-based human rights website HRANA claimed that nearly 300 of the people detained so far were arrested for their online activities, including for making posts on social media regarding the Israeli bombardments. 4 Iranians said they're falling in line with Tehran's strict demands as they fear being targeted as spies for Israel. Getty Images Amnesty International first rang the alarm over the crackdowns during the war, reporting that one man was killed over espionage accusations just three days after the Israeli attacks began on June 13. Advertisement 'Official calls for expedited trials and executions of those arrested for alleged collaboration with Israel show how the Iranian authorities weaponize the death penalty to assert control and instill fear among the people of Iran,' the human rights group said of Tehran's alleged misuse of the judicial system. 'The authorities must ensure all those detained are protected from enforced disappearance, torture and other ill-treatment, and afforded fair trials at all times, including during armed conflict,' the group added. 4 Ayatollah Ali Khamenei declared victory in Iran's war against Israel. IRIB NEWS AGENCY/AFP via Getty Images The crackdown has created a chilling effect across Iran, with many opting to lose their colorful clothes and don more traditional outfits lest they be marked traitors and targeted by authorities. Advertisement 'As long as this government exists, I am concerned about the chances of increased repression, but during times when there's an 'external threat,' the repression gets much worse, as they have more excuse to see us as enemies,' a 26-year-old from Tehran told the Washington Post. An activist who identified herself only as Zahra, 41, told the outlet that at least four of her colleagues were arrested during the sweeps, with more arrests likely to come as Iran tries to keep its iron grip on its citizens firm. Iran has a history of rounding up and executing dissenters in crackdowns that date back to the Islamic republic's founding in 1979. In 2022, 22-year-old lawyer Mahsa Amini died in police custody following her arrest for allegedly violating the country's strict hijab rules — sparking nationwide protests.
NZ Herald
27-06-2025
- Entertainment
- NZ Herald
Ceasefire in Iran spurs Arab mediators and Israeli hostage families to try again over Gaza
An Iranian woman waves a flag while standing at Azadi Square to watch a live concert in western Tehran, Iran, as a ceasefire occurs between Iran and Israel. Photo / Morteza Nikoubazl, AFP Arab mediators and Israeli hostage families are making a renewed push this week for a deal to end the war in the Gaza Strip. They are using Israel's successful strikes on Iran, as well as a ceasefire brokered by the United States and Qatar, to make the case that Israeli
New York Post
25-06-2025
- Politics
- New York Post
Trump says US-Iran meeting will happen next week — with Tehran's nuke material buried under ‘30 stories' of rubble
President Trump said Wednesday that US officials will meet with their Iranian counterparts next week — following Saturday's unprecedented US airstrikes that he said buried the nation's enriched uranium under '30 stories' of rubble. Trump did not say who would represent the US at that meeting after he helped broker a cease-fire between Iran and Israel Monday, ending what he has dubbed the '12-Day War.' 3 President Trump says his team has a meeting with Iran next week. AP Advertisement 'We're going to talk to them next week, with Iran. We may sign an agreement. I don't know,' Trump said at a press conference following the annual NATO summit at The Hague. 'I could get a statement that they're not going to go nuclear. We're probably going to ask for that, but they're not going to be doing it anyway.' Trump then reiterated: 'We may sign an agreement, [but] I don't care if I have an agreement or not.' Advertisement The president also said it's his opinion that nearly 900 pounds of enriched uranium, the whereabouts of which are currently unknown, remain underneath 300 feet of rubble at the Fordow enrichment site, which was hit with 14 30,000-pound 'bunker buster' bombs. 3 Iranians celebrate cease-fire 'victory' over Israel in Tehran on June 24, 2025. Morteza Nikoubazl/NurPhoto/Shutterstock 'We think everything nuclear is down there, they didn't take it out,' he said. Trump, 79, also used the press conference to rip the 'real scum' in the press who he accused of downplaying the impact of his air raids on Iran, which he likened Wednesday to the US dropping atomic weapons on Japan to end World War II in 1945. Advertisement 3 Trump brokered a cease-fire with Israel Monday, ending the country's fighting with Iran. AP 'It was so bad that they ended the war,' he said of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Trump also argued a leaked Defense Intelligence Agency assessment that the strikes may not have set back Iran's nuclear program more than a few months was merely 'a guess' because 'they didn't see it.'
Vox
23-06-2025
- Politics
- Vox
3 ways Americans could pay for Trump's war with Iran
is a senior correspondent at Vox. He covers a wide range of political and policy issues with a special focus on questions that internally divide the American left and right. Before coming to Vox in 2024, he wrote a column on politics and economics for New York Magazine. An Iranian cleric stands next to a scale model of an Iran-made surface-to-surface missile, which is displayed during an anti-Israeli protest at Palestine Square in downtown Tehran, Iran, on April 9, 2025. Morteza Nikoubazl/NurPhoto via Getty Images President Donald Trump has framed his strikes on Iran as a costless triumph. The president is not asking Americans to accept sacrifices in service of destroying the Iranian nuclear program — only to applaud his already successful destruction of it. 'Iran's key nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated,' Trump declared Saturday night. 'Iran, the bully of the Middle East, must now make peace. If they do not, future attacks will be far greater and a lot easier.' From this precarious position, the Iranian leadership might conclude that it can ill afford an escalating conflict with the world's greatest military power. Perhaps, it will follow the same basic playbook it did following Trump's assasination of its military leader Qasem Soleimani in 2020: Back then, Iran responded with face-saving strikes on US military bases in Iraq — but ones that it heavily telegraphed, enabling American soldiers to take cover and retain their lives, which in turn allowed Trump to call things even and end the conflict. Iran's strike on a US base in Qatar on Monday could be interpreted as fitting this mold: The US said that it had advanced warning of the strike and that there were no American casualties. What's more, it is even possible that the Iranian regime could conclude that its nuclear program is more trouble than it's worth and sheepishly return to the bargaining table, now ready to accept more stringent restrictions on its freedom to enrich uranium or build ballistic missiles. But such rosy outcomes are far from certain. And if things do not transpire as Trump hopes, his war could impose significant costs on the American people — in terms of money, blood, and nuclear security. How Trump's war on Iran could impact the economy For Americans, the most widely felt consequences of Trump's war with Iran would likely be economic. Oil prices have climbed by more than 12 percent since the end of May, when Israel began threatening to strike Iran's nuclear facilities. An escalating US-Iran conflict could further elevate Americans' energy costs. The nightmare scenario here concerns the Strait of Hormuz, the world's only waterway connecting the Persian Gulf with the open ocean. Each day, about 20 million barrels of oil — or about 20 percent of the world's total supply — moves through the strait. Iran could plausibly choke off all shipping through the waterway if it wished to do so. And on Sunday, the Iranian Parliament reportedly approved such a course of action, although it remains up to the nation's Supreme National Security Council to enact a blockade. Were Iran to take that extraordinary measure, the price of oil could shoot up past $130 a barrel, according to industry analysts (as of this writing, a barrel is trading at $72). That would dramatically increase the costs of energy and transportation for US consumers. And since energy is an input into the production of more or less every good and service, a sustained blockade could push up prices more broadly. Faced with higher inflation, the Federal Reserve would likely scrap plans for cutting interest rates. In this scenario, Americans would see lower real wages and higher borrowing costs than they would have enjoyed in a world where Trump did not bomb Iran. It's worth saying that a blockade of the Strait of Hormuz is unlikely. Were Iran to pursue such a policy, it would effectively be sabotaging its own economy, which is heavily dependent on exporting oil via the waterway. Nevertheless, the threat of disrupting shipping through the strait is the regime's greatest point of leverage over other world powers. Iran could also disrupt global commerce in more modest ways. Tehran is allied with Yemen's Houthi militia, which is already threatening to recommence its attacks on US ships in the Red Sea. Any disruption to Red Sea trade could increase global shipping costs, which would eventually bleed into US consumer prices. Alternatively, Iran could strike oil and gas infrastructure in Middle Eastern countries allied with the United States. In a 2019 drone attack allegedly backed by Tehran, the Houthis bombed two major oil facilities in Saudi Arabia, temporarily cutting the country's oil production in half and spiking crude prices. At a moment when the president's tariffs are already nudging up the cost of imports, any war-related disruptions to global trade could prove painful for American households. Trump's attack has put American soldiers in harm's way As Monday's attack on US troops in Qatar demonstrated, Americans stationed in the Middle East face a far graver threat than more expensive gasoline. More than 40,000 US soldiers are serving on bases and warships in the region, well within reach of Iranian missiles. Trump's bombing of Iran's nuclear facilities represented a far broader and more destructive attack than his strike against Soleimani five years ago. It's reasonable to fear that Tehran's response will be proportionally more severe, and that Monday's strikes at Qatar represent only the beginning of its retaliation. At least, this is what the regime is telling Americans to expect. 'Any country in the region or elsewhere that is used by American forces to strike Iran will be considered a legitimate target for our armed forces,' Ali Akbar Velayati, an adviser to Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said Saturday. 'America has attacked the heart of the Islamic world and must await irreparable consequences.' Some of these 'consequences' could transpire on American soil. Although Iran's immediate targets will likely lie close to home. Years after the Soleimani strike, Iran allegedly orchestrated failed assassination attempts against former national security adviser John Bolton, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and Donald Trump. According to US officials who spoke with NBC News, Iran warned Trump at this year's G7 Summit that it could respond to an American strike on its nuclear facilities by perpetrating terrorist attacks within the United States. The regime claimed to have sleeper cells in America ready and waiting to commit such violence. Trump may have made an Iranian nuclear weapon more likely Trump's war with Iran may risk making all Americans poorer while getting some of us killed. But in his administration's ostensible view, these potential harms pale in comparison to the threat posed by Iran acquiring a nuclear weapon — a threat that Saturday's strikes greatly mitigated. It is not obvious how much Americans actually have at stake in preventing Iran from developing atomic weapons. No serious analyst believes that the Iranian regime is suicidal. Tehran is not going to order a nuclear first strike against the United States or any other country. Rather, it almost certainly sees nuclear weapons primarily as a deterrent against both foreign intervention and domestic challenges to its authoritarian regime. Nevertheless, all else equal, Americans have an interest in preventing nuclear proliferation. Were Iran to acquire an atomic weapon, Saudi Arabia would be liable to pursue its own. And a nuclear arms race in the Middle East would increase the tail risk of a future atomic catastrophe. And yet, it is possible that Trump's strikes on Iran have actually made that nation's acquisition of a nuclear weapon more likely. Before Saturday's bombings, Iran was engaged in negotiations over its nuclear program without the United States. And Tehran had previously reached an agreement to limit its enrichment of uranium in 2015, a nuclear deal that Trump tore up during his first term in office. Now, all diplomacy over Iran's nuclear program appears dead. And Tehran may see a nuclear weapon as more indispensable for its security than ever before. After all, the regime's conventional military defenses have proven grossly inadequate to deter or defeat Israeli and American incursions. Already, Iranian officials are signalling that the nation will withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), a move that would mean an end to the nation's cooperation with United Nations inspections of its uranium enrichment. At present, the UN's nuclear watchdog says it is uncertain about where Iran is storing the highly enriched uranium it has already produced. Tehran claims that, before Trump's strikes, it had moved its uranium stockpiles out of the three sites that he targeted. American and Israeli bombing has surely undermined Iran's capacity to produce weapons-grade uranium. Tehran has lost some of its top nuclear scientists and suffered massive damage to its enrichment facilities. But Iran retains both the technical know-how and raw materials necessary for building an atomic bomb. And the world may have now lost visibility into its nuclear activities.
New York Post
23-06-2025
- Politics
- New York Post
Iran accused of abducting journalist's family in retaliation for war coverage
Iran detained the family members of an Iran International journalist Saturday in retaliation for the channel's coverage of the country's war with Israel, threatening to hold them until the journalist resigned from her position. The London-based Farsi news channel said in a statement that it strongly condemns the abduction of its journalist's family, calling it 'an appalling act of hostage-taking aimed at coercing our colleague into resigning from their post.' 3 The London-based Farsi news channel said in a statement that it strongly condemns the abduction of its journalist's family. AFP via Getty Images 'This deeply reprehensible tactic marks a dangerous escalation in the regime's ruthless campaign to silence dissent and suppress independent journalism,' the news channel said. 3 The broadcaster said that Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guards took the presenter's mother, father and younger brother to an unidentified location. Morteza Nikoubazl/NurPhoto/Shutterstock The detainment marks the latest example of Iran's longstanding effort to crack down not only on Iranian journalists inside the country but also those abroad who still have family and friends living in Iran. The Islamic Republic is one of the world's top jailer of journalists, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, and in the best of times, reporters face strict restrictions. The broadcaster said that Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guards took the presenter's mother, father and younger brother to an unidentified location. The journalist, whose name the outlet did not disclose, then received a phone call from her father early Saturday, urging her to resign from her role, according to Iran International. The voices of security agents could be heard in the background telling her father what to say. 3 The journalist received a phone call from her father early Saturday, urging her to resign from her role, according to Iran International. Morteza Nikoubazl/NurPhoto/Shutterstock 'I've told you a thousand times to resign. What other consequences do you expect?' Iran International said her father told her. 'You have to resign.' Farsi-language broadcasters like Iran International and BBC Persia have long been targets for the Islamic Republic, given the fact that they broadcast in the native language and many Iranians, both domestically and abroad, rely on them for news, especially of the most recent Iran-Israel war amid an official internet blackout. Iran International in particular has become a target of Tehran in recent years over its programming that is critical of the theocratic government in Tehran. The Iranian government has called the news outlet a terrorist organization. One of its journalists was stabbed in 2024 in an attack suspected to have been carried out by Iran, while men were arrested in a suspected plot to target others at the channel.
