Iranian authorities have been increasingly clear that they believe foreign countries are behind the unrest sweeping the country \u2013 and are involved in fomenting unrest on the ground.<\/p>\n
On Monday, President Masoud Pezeshkian shifted focus away from Iran\u2019s stuttering economy and suppression of dissent and towards his country\u2019s longstanding geopolitical adversaries, Israel and the United States.<\/p>\n list of 4 items<\/span>end of list<\/span><\/section>\n Speaking on state broadcaster IRIB, Pezeshkian claimed that \u201cthe same people that struck this country\u201d during Israel\u2019s 12-day war last June were now \u201ctrying to escalate these unrests with regard to the economic discussion\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cThey have trained some people inside and outside the country; they have brought in some terrorists from outside,\u201d he said, alleging that those responsible had attacked a bazaar in the northern city of Rasht and set \u201cmosques on fire\u201d.<\/p>\n The prospect of direct foreign intervention in support of Iran\u2019s protesters appears to be growing daily, with US President Donald Trump repeatedly signalling a readiness to attack.<\/p>\n In Israel, far-right Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu told Army Radio last week, \u201cWhen we attacked in Iran during \u2018Rising Lion\u2019 [Israel\u2019s June attack on Iran], we were on its soil and knew how to lay the groundwork for a strike. I can assure you that we have some of our people operating there right now,\u201d stopping short of claiming that Israeli agents were seeking regime change.<\/p>\n Writing on social media earlier this month, former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who is also a former director of the CIA, did acknowledge the presence of Israeli agents operating on the ground in Iran, wishing \u201cHappy New Year to every Iranian in the streets. Also to every Mossad agent walking beside them.\u201d<\/p>\n Despite its wars with Syria, Yemen, Lebanon and the genocide it has unleashed on Gaza, it is Iran that looms largest in the minds of many Israelis as the most deadly of the many enemies they face.<\/p>\n Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly claimed that Tehran stands on the brink of developing nuclear weapons and is responsible for backing Israel\u2019s opponents across the region.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t know if it\u2019s Netanyahu pushing it or the whole of society,\u201d Israeli political scientist Ori Goldberg said. \u201cIsraelis are desperate for any sign of a \u2026 masterplan in which they \u2026 will unite against any foe threatening their destruction.\u201d<\/p>\n Israel has a history of covert operations in Iran.<\/p>\n Previous Israeli operations have targeted Iran\u2019s nuclear and missile programmes and embedded agents and weapons systems inside Iranian territory.<\/p>\n Israeli intelligence has also exploited its presence within Iran to conduct a series of high-profile assassinations of nuclear scientists and politicians, including the Palestinian group Hamas\u2019s political leader Ismail Haniyeh, who was killed while attending Pezeshkian\u2019s inauguration ceremony in July 2024.<\/p>\n Israel is also widely acknowledged to have infiltrated deep into Iran and its security networks in the weeks before the June war. At that time, Israel was not only able to target scientists and officials involved in the country\u2019s nuclear programme for assassination, but also to assemble and launch drones from within Iranian territory.<\/p>\n \u201cMy assumption is that the Mossad is active in Tehran behind the scenes,\u201d said Ahron Bregman, who teaches at King\u2019s College London and has written extensively on Israeli intelligence operations. \u201cIsraeli officials are unusually quiet. [There are] clear instructions not to talk [and] not to be seen to be involved in any way.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI assume there are Israeli agents on the ground, reporting back on the situation from the streets, particularly now that the internet in Iran is down,\u201d he continued. \u201cOperationally, it is easier to do things on the ground as it is so chaotic now.\u201d<\/p>\n In the eyes of many analysts, Iran\u2019s internal cohesion has been fundamentally undermined by the long-running series of protests and unrest, which has allowed for the infiltration of foreign security services.<\/p>\n Exacerbating those fissures has been the toxic mixture of crippling sanctions, corruption and the deaths of protesters.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019d be very surprised if Israeli agents were not active within Iran right now,\u201d defence analyst Hamze Attar said. \u201cThey\u2019re going to be doing everything they can to make sure these protests continue and escalate.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cPrincipally, they\u2019re going to try to provide the demonstrators with what they need most: exposure,\u201d Attar continued. \u201cPeople have come to expect violence from the Iranian regime. What [the protesters] need is to know it\u2019s not for nothing. That\u2019s what Israel and the US will be focusing on: providing the internet access that will allow people to share footage of what\u2019s happening to them. The protesters will know where [what countries that support] is coming from, but right now \u2013 in the midst of the chaos \u2013 they\u2019re very unlikely to care.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Iranian authorities have been increasingly clear that they believe foreign countries are behind the unrest sweeping the country \u2013 and are involved in fomenting unrest on the ground. On Monday, President Masoud Pezeshkian shifted focus away from Iran\u2019s stuttering economy and suppression of dissent and towards his country\u2019s longstanding geopolitical adversaries, Israel and the United […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8560,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8559","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle-east-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8559","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8559"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8559\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8560"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Recommended Stories <\/h2>\n
Israel\u2019s enemy<\/h2>\n
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