Two Swedish-Iranian Brothers Face Trial Over Spying For Iran

Axios correspondent Barak Ravid quoted a senior Israeli official as saying on Sunday that David Barnea will attend closed door classified meetings of House and Senate intelligence committees.

In remarks that were not coordinated with Prime Minister Yair Lapid, the spymaster described the emerging agreement "a strategic disaster" for Israel and the United States “is rushing into an accord that is ultimately based on lies,” referring to Iran’s claim that its nuclear activities are peaceful in nature.

Shortly after Barnea’s comments were published, Lapid called the Mossad chief, telling him he had gone off script in his criticism of the US and asking for a clarification.

Barnea’s visit is the latest effort by Israel to sway Western powers from returning to the landmark accord. 

Earlier in the day, Lapid said that Israel's “diplomatic fight” against the deal included its National Security Adviser Eyal Hulata and Defense Minister Benny Gantz holding recent meetings in the US.

“We are making a concerted effort to ensure the Americans and Europeans understand the dangers involved in this agreement,” Lapid said, reiterating that what was signed in 2015 was “not a good deal,” and that the one currently being discussed entails “greater dangers.”

Lapid and US President Joe Biden are likely to meet in September, Israel’s Kan news reported on Saturday, citing unnamed officials. 

Iran is currently reviewing the US response to its position earlier sent to the European Union, which acts as a mediator between the two sides.

Following their meeting on Saturday afternoon, President Ebrahim Raisi, Parliament Speaker Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf, and Chief Justice Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei warned against "media speculations" until the review of the case is completed by the judiciary.

Only the judiciary should review and assess the reports of the parliament’s investigation, and it is necessary to refrain from media speculations until these reports are scrutinized in judicial courts, they announced. 

Last week, a scathing report about an alleged $3 billion corruption case revealed massive irregularities and mismanagement in government-controlled Mobarakeh Steel Company, the largest steel producer in the Middle East and Northern Africa, which is located near the city of Mobarakeh, Esfahan Province. 

The over 250-page report says the company paid astronomical sums of money to various government entities including the Revolutionary Guard (IRGC), ministry of intelligence, police, state broadcaster (IRIB), Friday prayer imam’s offices, religious seminaries, and bribed others such as certain media outlets, individuals, and social media influencers.

The company, which has a share of around 1% in Iran's GDP, employs around 350,000 people directly and indirectly and feeds over 2,800 other large and small enterprises.

According to the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, the attack targeted a missile warehouse in the city’s Syrian Scientific Studies and Research Center (SSRC) complex that stored thousands of medium-range, surface-to-surface missiles assembled under the supervision of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard’s “expert officers.”

The observatory added that 14 Syrian civilians sustained injuries with varying levels of severity during the Masyaf airstrike, in addition to casualties reported among Iranian-backed militias guarding the research center– which is heavily damaged during the attack.

Moreover, several fires broke out in areas surrounding the city ignited by the shrapnel from the explosions of the warehouse, with nearby civilian houses and property suffering material damage, the report said. Secondary explosions continued for hours after the strikes, along with the blazes caused by them. Local residents were reportedly instructed to remain in shelters until the fires were brought under control.

In addition to the strikes attributed to Israel, the United States also engaged in a string of tit-for-tat attacks last week against Iranian militias in northern Syria who had targeted US forces with rockets and drones.

Iran-backed militias established a foothold in Syria while fighting in support of President Bashar al-Assad during Syria's civil war.

Tickets were sold only to 500 female fans and a special forces unit consisting of female anti- riot police was present to lead them to their secluded section of the 100,000-seat stadium. many say the ban on women’s presence at soccer matches was only lifted under pressure from the international governing body of association football (FIFA).

The world’s soccer authority had tried to convince Iran’s government to lift an unwritten ban on women attending stadiums to watch male players for nearly a decade.

The ban has led to many arrests, beatings, detentions, and abuses against women.

Iranian officials have always argued that male football fans swear profanities, so the atmosphere of stadiums is not suitable for women even if they are seated in a different part of the stadium.

“I wish you had voluntarily opened stadium gates to Iranian women and FIFA’s pressure wasn't behind the realization of [female fans’] right [to watch games in stadiums],” Azar Mansouri, the first female party leader in Iran wrote in a commentary in reformist Etemad newspaper Sunday.

“Opposingthe demands of half of the country’s population for going to stadiums, cycling in public, and the right to choose how to dress, means the demand to end discrimination. Why should a plea such as going to stadiums be opposed in the name of religion in a society which is susceptible to tension and every kind of protest and violence, so that people say FIFA’s pressure saved Iranian woman,” Mansouri who was elected secretary-general of the Etehad-e Mellat (Nation’s Unity) Party in December wrote.

Ensieh Khazali, Vice President for Women and Family Affairs, however, claimed on Sunday that the decision to allow women’s presence at the game was made by the ministry of sports and pressure from FIFA had no role in it.

Many Iranians had urged FIFA to ban their country from the World Cup after hundreds of female fans were once again denied entry into a soccer stadium on March 1 in Mashhad in northeastern Iran to watch a World Cup qualifier between Iran and Lebanon, despite FIFA’s pressure to lift the ban on women entering stadiums. The fans, with tickets in their hands, were stopped from entering and were pepper-sprayed when they demanded to be allowed in.

Authorities tried to use the unprecedented presence of women at Azadi Stadium on Friday for regime propaganda but videos circulating on social media show enraged fans booing, during a religious and ideological propaganda song performed by a choir during halftime and drowning the choir’s voice.

The song, ‘Hello Commander’, is heavily promoted by the Islamic Republic, especially among children, and was first performed to a full stadium of mobilized regime supporters and school children on May 27.

‘Hello Commander’ is a song dedicated to Mahdi, the 12th Imam of Shiites who has been in occultation since the 9th century according to Shiite believers. The song and its promotion are unusual as the music is in the often frowned upon pop genre which has no place on Iran’s state media.

‘Hello Commander’ also mentions Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei who is believed by his devotees to be the Imam’s representative on earth and has to be obeyed as the Imam would be if he were present among believers.

In a tweet on Sunday, Nour News, a website affiliated with the secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council (SNSC), Ali Shamkhani, said that “the precise examination of US's responses to Iran's modified pivots regarding the proposal of the European Union coordinator, is still ongoing at expert levels, and this process will continue at least until the end of this week.”

The Iranian week ends on Friday, September 2.

Meanwhile, Iran's hardline Kayhan Daily, affiliated with Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s office, has called on the government to leave the negotiations and proceed without reviving the landmark accord. 

“The path taken in these years has proven that with negotiations [Iran] cannot remove the sanctions, and with more negotiations only the scope of [other side’s] the demands will become wider,” the newspaper said.

The article noted that the capabilities of the Iranian government and the regional and global developments have provided the administration of Ebrahim Raisi with a good opportunity to correct the deviated path of the nuclear talks.

Removal of sanctions through negotiations is a bait that the US foreign policy officials have set on the hook, and the government can forget this bait and spend all its focus and energy on neutralizing the effects of the sanctions as it has been doing during the past year, the daily underlined. 

Unconfirmed parts of the US response to Iran have been leaked in Tehran, showing Washington’s rejection of three key Iranian demands.