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Iran acknowledges accusation it enriched uranium to 84% - The Associated Press - en Espaol
TEL AVIV A drone attack on an Iranian military facility that resulted in a large explosion in the center of the city of Isfahan on Saturday was the work of the Mossad, Israels premier intelligence agency, according to senior intelligence officials who were familiar with the dialogue between Israel and the United States about the incident.
The facilitys purpose was not clear, and neither was how much damage the strike caused. But Isfahan is a major center of missile production, research and development for Iran, including the assembly of many of its Shahab medium-range missiles, which can reach Israel and beyond.
Weeks ago, American officials publicly identified Iran as the primary supplier of drones to Russia for use in the war in Ukraine, and they said they believed Russia was also trying to obtain Iranian missiles to use in the conflict. But U.S. officials said they believed this strike was prompted by Israels concerns about its own security, not the potential for missile exports to Russia.
The strike came just as Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken was beginning a visit to Israel, his first since Benjamin Netanyahu returned to office as prime minister. The director of the Central Intelligence Agency, William J. Burns, visited Israel last week, though it is not clear anything about the operation in Isfahan was discussed.
American officials quickly sent out word on Sunday morning that the United States was not responsible for the attack. One official confirmed that it had been conducted by Israel but did not have details about the target. Sometimes Israel gives the United States advance warning of an attack or informs American officials as an operation is being launched. It is unclear what happened in this case.
Isfahan is the site of four small nuclear research facilities, all supplied by China many years ago. But the facility that was struck on Saturday was in the middle of the city and did not appear to be nuclear-related.
Iran made no effort to hide the fact that an attack had happened, but said it had done little damage. In statements, senior Iranian officials contended that the drones apparently quadcopters, a kind of aircraft with four separate propellers had all been shot down.
Irans official news agency, IRNA, reported on Sunday that the drones had targeted an ammunition manufacturing plant, and that they had been shot down by a surface-to-air defense system. It is not clear why Iran would build an ammunition production plant in the middle of a city of roughly two million people.
Irans foreign minister, Hossein Amir Abdollahian, said at a news conference in Tehran on Sunday that a cowardly drone attack on a military site in central Iran will not impede Irans progress on its peaceful nuclear program.
This is Israels first known attack inside Iran since Mr. Netanyahu reassumed office, and it may indicate that he has adopted the strategy formed under his two predecessors and political rivals, Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid, who expanded Israeli attacks inside Iran.
The quadcopters have become a signature of such operations.
In August 2019, Israel sent an exploding quadcopter into the heart of a Hezbollah-dominated neighborhood in Beirut, Lebanon, to destroy what Israeli officials described as machinery vital to the production of precision missiles.
In June 2021, quadcopters exploded at one of Irans main manufacturing centers for centrifuges, which purify uranium at the countrys two major uranium enrichment facilities, Fordow and Natanz. That attack was in Karaj, on the outskirts of Tehran. Iran claimed that there was no damage to the site, but satellite images showed evidence of significant damage.
A year ago, six quadcopters exploded at Kermanshah, Irans main manufacturing and storage plant for military drones.
And in May 2022, a drone strike targeted a highly sensitive military site outside Tehran where Iran develops missile, nuclear and drone technology.
The targets presumably including the military facility in Isfahan have been chosen in part to shake the Iranian leadership, because they demonstrate intelligence about the locations of key sites, even those hidden in the middle of cities.
But the strikes also reflect a change in Israeli strategy made after Mr. Bennett became prime minister in June 2021. He lasted a year in the post.
Mr. Bennett says in a forthcoming YouTube video shared with The New York Times that he decided to create a price tag and strike inside Iran in response to any attack on Israelis or Jews around the world. The Iranians beat us, and soldiers die on the border, Mr. Bennett says in the self-produced interview, while Iranian leaders sit quietly in Tehran and we do nothing to them.
It was not just the quadcopter attacks.
After Iran tried to murder Israelis in Cyprus, in Turkey, Mr. Bennett says, the Revolutionary Guards Corps commander behind it was eliminated in Tehran. He is referring to the assassination of Sayad Khodayee, who Israel claimed was a leader of a covert unit responsible for the abduction and killing of Israelis and other foreigners around the world.
After Israel adopted the new strategy, Mr. Bennett says in the video, President Biden, during a meeting, made a sharp request that Israel inform the United States in advance of any action we take in Iran.
Mr. Bennett refused, he says.
There are things you do not want to know about in advance, he recalls telling the American president.
The intelligence communities of Israel and the United States clashed on the issue in April 2021 after an operation by the Mossad to blow up bunkers at the Natanz enrichment site surprised the United States.
Mr. Burns called his counterpart at the Mossad at the time, Yossi Cohen, to express concern over the snub. Mr. Cohen said that the belated notification was the result of operational constraints and uncertainty about when the Natanz operation would take place.
Julian E. Barnes and Eric Schmitt contributed reporting.
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Israel Launched Drone Attack on Iranian Facility, Officials Say
Irans judiciary has sentenced three more anti-government protesters to death on charges of waging war on God, its Mizan news agency reported on Monday, defying growing international criticism over its fierce crackdown on demonstrators.
Iran hanged two other people on Saturday in its attempts to stamp out demonstrations, which have slowed considerably since it began executions carried out just weeks after arrests.
Mizan said Saleh Mirhashemi, Majid Kazemi and Saeid Yaghoubi, who had been convicted of allegedly killing members of the volunteer Basij militia during anti-government protests in the central city of Isfahan, could appeal against their verdicts.
The Basij forces, affiliated with the elite Revolutionary Guards, have been at the forefront of the state clampdown on the unrest sparked by the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini while in the custody of Irans morality police on Sept. 16.
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Pope Francis on Monday condemned Iran for using the death penalty on demonstrators demanding greater respect for women.
The right to life is also threatened in those places where the death penalty continues to be imposed, as is the case in these days in Iran, following the recent demonstrations demanding greater respect for the dignity of women, Francis said.
1:55Iran protests: Shop owners speak as protesters call for 3-day nationwide strike
One of the boldest challenges to the clerical leadership since the 1979 revolution, the protests have drawn support from Iranians in all walks of life and challenged the Islamic Republics legitimacy by calling for the downfall of its rulers.
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Irans Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Monday signalled the state has no intention of softening its position, saying in a televised speech that those who set fire to public places have committed treason with no doubt. Under Irans Islamic law, treason is punishable by death.
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Rights activists see the executions, arrests and harsh sentences of protesters by the clerical establishment as an attempt to intimidate demonstrators and strike enough fear in the population to end the unrest.
Despite the establishment doubling down on repression, small-scale protests persist in Tehran, Isfahan and several other cities.
2:26Iranian protestors facing death penalty
At least four people have been hanged since the demonstrations started, according to the judiciary, including two protesters on Saturday for allegedly killing a member of the Basij.
Amnesty International said last month that Iranian authorities are seeking the death penalty for at least 26 others in what it called sham trials designed to intimidate protesters.
Rights activists on social media said two other protesters, the 22-year-old Mohammad Ghobadlou and 18-year-old Mohammad Boroughani, had been transferred to solitary confinement ahead of their execution in the Rajai Shahr prison in Karaj city.
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Videos on social media, unverifiable by Reuters, showed people gathered late on Sunday in front of the prison chanting slogans against Khamenei.
The European Union, the United States and other Western countries have condemned Iran for using the death penalty against demonstrators.
The Islamic Republic, which has blamed the unrest on its foreign foes including the United States, sees its crackdown of protests as preserving national sovereignty.
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Iran protests: Tehran sentences 3 more protesters to death amid global ...
BERLIN (Reuters) - German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Monday condemned Iran for using the death penalty against demonstrators, and his spokesperson said Berlin wanted to crank up pressure on the Iranian authorities with new international measures.
Iran hanged two men on Saturday for allegedly killing a member of the security forces during nationwide protests that followed the death of 22-year-old Kurdish Iranian woman Mahsa Amini on Sept. 16, drawing condemnation from the European Union, the United States and other Western nations.
"With the executions, the Iranian regime is employing the death penalty as a means of repression," Scholz wrote on Twitter. "That is horrifying."
He said Iran should refrain from further executions after the killings of 22-year-old Mohammad Mehdi Karami and 39-year-old Seyyed Mohammad Hosseini, whose deaths bring the number of executions linked to the protests to four.
"Together with our international partners, we will increase the pressure further on the Iranian regime," the government spokesperson told a regular news conference, adding that Iran needed to see that there would be a price to pay for continuing.
A German foreign ministry spokesperson said the goal was to agree a fourth package of sanctions with other European Union member states in response to the crackdown.
(Reporting by Rachel More, Matthias Williams and Thomas Escritt; Editing by Miranda Murray, William Maclean)
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Germany says it wants to increase pressure on Iran after latest executions
Iran said it executed two men Saturday convicted of allegedly killing a paramilitary volunteer during a demonstration, the latest executions aimed at halting the nationwide protests now challenging the country's theocracy.
Irans judiciary identified those executed as Mohammad Mehdi Karami and Mohammad Hosseini, making it four men known to have been executed since the demonstrations began in September over the death of Mahsa Amini. All have faced internationally criticized, rapid, closed-door trials.
The judiciary's Mizan news agency said the men had been convicted of killing Ruhollah Ajamian, a member of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard's volunteer Basij force, in the city of Karaj outside of Tehran on Nov. 3. The Basij have deployed in major cities, attacking and detaining protesters, who in many cases have fought back.
Women protest the death of 22-year-old woman Mahsa Amini who was detained by the morality police, in Tehran, Saturday, Oct. 1, 2022. (AP Photo/Middle East Images, File)
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said on Twitter that Karami and Hosseini were "more than just two names."
"(They were) hanged by the regime in Iran because they didnt want to submit to its brutal and inhuman actions. Two further terrible fates that encourage us to increase the pressure on Tehran through the EU," she wrote.
IRAN OUTRAGED AFTER FRENCH SATIRICAL NEWSPAPER CHARLIE HEBDO PUBLISHES CARTOONS MOCKING KHAMENEI
Heavily edited footage aired on state television showed Karami speaking before a Revolutionary Court about the attack, which also showed a reenactment of the attack, according to prosecutors' claims. Iran's Revolutionary Courts handed down the two other death sentences already carried out.
The tribunals dont allow those on trial to pick their own lawyers or even see the evidence against them. Amnesty International has said the trials "bore no resemblance to a meaningful judicial proceeding."
State TV also aired footage of Karami and Hosseini talking about the attack, though the broadcaster for years has aired what activists describe as coerced confessions.
In this undated photo released on Saturday, Jan. 7, 2023, by the official website of the office of the Iranian supreme leader, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, right, speaks with Gen. Ahmad Reza Radan, Iran. Ayatollah Khamenei on Saturday, Jan. 7, appointed Gen. Radan as the new chief of police. (Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader via AP)
The men were convicted of the killing, as well as "corruption on Earth," a Quranic term and charge that has been levied against others in the decades since the 1979 Islamic Revolution and carries the death penalty.
Activists say at least 16 people have been sentenced to death in closed-door hearings over charges linked to the protests. Death sentences in Iran are typically carried out by hanging.
TWITTER FLAMES IRAN'S AYATOLLAH KHAMENEI FOR 'WOMEN'S FREEDOM' REMARKS: 'DUDE YOU'RE LITERALLY FROM IRAN'
At least 517 protesters have been killed and over 19,200 people have been arrested, according to Human Rights Activists in Iran, a group that has closely monitored the unrest. Iranian authorities have not provided an official count of those killed or detained.
The protests began in mid-September, when 22-year-old Amini died after being arrested by Irans morality police for allegedly violating the Islamic Republics strict dress code. Women have played a leading role in the protests, with many publicly stripping off the compulsory Islamic headscarf, known as the hijab.
This is a locator map for Iran with its capital, Tehran. (AP Photo)
The protests mark one of the biggest challenges to Iran's theocracy since the 1979 revolution. Security forces have used live ammunition, bird shot, tear gas and batons to disperse protesters, according to rights groups.
Also on Saturday, Irans supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei appointed a new hard-line chief of police, the official IRNA news agency reported. Gen. Ahmad Reza Radan replaced outgoing Gen. Hossein Ashtari after Ashtaris eight-year term of service ended.
Radan, who served as acting commander of police from 2008-2014, is known for his harsh handling of protesters during post-election turmoil in 2009. He also imposed measures against women wearing loose Islamic veils and young men with long hair.
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The U.S. and Europe imposed sanctions on Radan for human rights violations in 2009 and 2010.
He has been in charge of a police research center since 2014.
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Iran executes 2 more men detained amid nationwide protests