Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said on Saturday it had arrested eight people suspected of trying to transmit the coordinates of sensitive sites and details about senior military figures to Israel’s Mossad, Iranian state media reported.
They are accused of having provided the information to the Mossad spy agency during Israel’s war with Iran in June, when it targeted Iranian nuclear facilities and killed top military commanders in the worst blow to the Islamic Republic since the 1980s war with Iraq.
Iran retaliated with barrages of missiles and drones. The United States entered the war on June 22 with strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities.
A statement by the IRGC, a US-designated terrorist organization, alleged that the suspects had received specialized training from Mossad via online platforms. It said they were apprehended in northeastern Iran before carrying out their plans, and that materials for making launchers, bombs, explosives and booby traps had been seized.
State media reported earlier this month that Iranian police had arrested as many as 21,000 “suspects” during the 12-day war with Israel, though they did not say what these people had been suspected of doing.
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Security forces conducted a campaign of widespread arrests and also stepped up their street presence during the brief war that ended in a US-brokered ceasefire.
This grab taken from UGC images posted on social media on June 23, 2025, shows a plume of smoke billowing after Israeli strikes in Tehran. (UGC / AFP)
Iran has executed at least eight people in recent months, including nuclear scientist Rouzbeh Vadi, hanged on August 9 for allegedly passing information to Israel about another scientist killed in Israeli airstrikes.
Human rights groups say Iran uses espionage charges and fast-tracked executions as tools for broader political repression.
Israel said its sweeping assault on Iran’s top military leaders, nuclear scientists, uranium enrichment sites, and ballistic missile program was necessary to prevent the Islamic Republic from realizing its avowed plan to destroy the Jewish state.
Iran has consistently denied seeking to acquire nuclear weapons. However, it enriched uranium to levels that have no peaceful application, obstructed international inspectors from checking its nuclear facilities, and expanded its ballistic missile capabilities. Israel said Iran had recently taken steps toward weaponization. Iran said hundreds were killed, including civilians, but the figures could not be verified.
Iran retaliated to Israel’s strikes by launching over 500 ballistic missiles and around 1,100 drones at Israel.
The attacks killed 31 people and wounded over 3,000 in Israel, according to health officials and hospitals.
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