Edited by: TJVNews.com

Iran’s Intelligence Ministry claimed Tuesday that it apprehended two cells linked to Israel’s Mossad spy agency that were operating in the country, local media reported, according to the Times of Israel.

In total, 23 alleged operatives were identified by Iranian authorities in the Tehran, Isfahan, Yazd, West Azarbaijan and Golestan provinces and 13 individuals who were in the country have been arrested, the Jerusalem Post reported.

A statement issued by the ministry said that “relentless efforts” led to the arrest of all operatives before they could carry out their assaults. The TOI reported that local coverage did not specify how many people in total were detained. Reports said equipment was found in the possession of the detainees and was seized, without elaborating further on what items were found, the TOI reported.

According to the ministry, the network of teams is headed by a person using the pseudonym “Cyrus,” who resides in an unspecified European country and contacts Iranian agents through such social media platforms as Instagram and WhatsApp, the JPost reported.

The ministry claimed that the Mossad was trying to “take advantage” of the protests sweeping Iran since mid-September to assassinate a military official and carry out several “sabotage operations” in major cities, the JPost reported. The network also allegedly tried to transport large-scale explosives from Iran’s southern coast.

The Times of Israel reported that a statement issued by the ministry said that “relentless efforts” led to the arrest of all operatives before they could carry out their assaults. Reports did not specify how many people in total were detained.

The alleged arrests were first reported by Iran’s Intelligence Ministry in late December, when the ministry claimed that four teams had been discovered, the JPost reported.  Just days before that announcement, the ministry claimed that it thwarted a Mossad network attempting to sabotage its defense industries.

According to the ministry, the Mossad contacted companies that work with the Islamic Republic’s defense industries in order to collect information, the JPost reported.  The Mossad allegedly began working with a person named “Frank” who works as a sales manager for a company that supplies parts and is in contact with Iranian companies, according to the report.

The JPost also reported that Iranian intelligence claimed that Frank invited his employees to a seminar in Malaysia and introduced them to a man named “Hadrien,” who runs a company in Singapore that works with Iranian companies to produce carbon fiber and metal alloys.

The two worked with colleagues in Iran who identified the latest needs of the military and defense establishment in the country, according to the ministry.

A week before that alleged bust, Iran also claimed to have foiled a Mossad operation to target its defense industry, as was reported by The Times of Israel.

Iran has been violently squelching protests that erupted throughout the country after the September death of Mahsa Amini, 22, in the custody of morality police, the TOI reported.

Amini was a young woman who refused to adorn traditional Iranian attire including a burqa, which sparked concern for women’s right in Iran. The AP reported that rallying under the slogan “Women, life, freedom,” the protesters in Iran and elsewhere around the word say they are fed up with decades of social and political repression. Iran has blamed the protests on foreign powers, without providing evidence, the AP reported.

At least 520 protesters have been killed and more than 19,300 people have been arrested since the demonstrations began, according to Human Rights Activists in Iran, a group that has been monitoring the unrest, the AP reported.  Iranian authorities have not provided official figures on deaths or arrests.

Iran has executed four people after convicting them of charges linked to the protests, including attacks on security forces. The AP also reported that they were also convicted in Revolutionary Courts, which do not allow those on trial to pick their own lawyers or see the evidence against them.

Iran on Saturday hanged two men, a 22-year-old national karate champion and a 39-year-old poultry worker, who participated in antigovernment demonstrations and whose executions were condemned as a ploy by the government to use violence and sow fear to crush the protests, according to the New York Times.

The men, Mohammad Mehdi Karami, the karate champion, and Sayed Mohammad Hosseini, the factory worker, were hanged at dawn on Saturday in the city of Karaj near the capital, Tehran, after hasty trials on charges that they participated in the killing of a member of the Basij paramilitary group in November, according to the judiciary, as was reported by the NYT.

Tehran has assigned blame for what it refers to as “riots” on the United States and Israel for allegedly planning them, the TOI reported.  In October, Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei condemned the protests as a foreign plot to destabilize the Islamic Republic, the report indicated.

At an event for Mossad employees held at the President’s Residence in Jerusalem last month, Mossad head David Barnea said the agency was “still warning about Iran’s future and intentions, which it is trying to keep secret,” adding that Iran was working to “deepen and expand the supply of advanced weapons to Russia,” as was reported by the Times of Israel.

On December 4th, the TOI reported that Iranian authorities executed four people accused of working for the Mossad,  the state-run IRNA news agency said. Three others received lengthy prison sentences.

“This morning, the sentences of four main members of the gang of mobsters related to the Zionist intelligence service were executed,” the judiciary’s Mizan Online website reported in December.

IRNA said the country’s powerful Revolutionary Guard announced the arrests of a network of people linked to the Israeli agency, TOI reported. It said the members had previous criminal records and tried to disrupt the country’s security.

Israel and Iran are regional arch-enemies and Iran occasionally announces the detention of people it says are spying for foreign countries, including the United States and Israel, according to the TOI report. Iran does not recognize Israel and supports anti-Israeli terror groups across the region, such as Hezbollah and Hamas.

Network members allegedly stole and destroyed private and public property and kidnapped individuals and interrogated them, according to the report, as was indicated by the TOI story. It said the alleged spies had weapons and received wages from Mossad in the form of cryptocurrency.

In January, Israel said it had broken up an Iranian spy ring that recruited Israeli women via social media to photograph sensitive sites, gather intelligence and encourage their sons to join Israeli military intelligence, as was reported by the TOI.

In July, Iran said it arrested members of an armed group linked to Mossad after they managed to get into Iran from across its western border, the TOI report said.

In 2020, Iran executed a man convicted of leaking information to the US and Israel about a prominent Revolutionary Guard general who was later killed by a US drone strike in Iraq.

Iran currently executes more people annually than any nation other than China, according to rights groups.

On Tuesday, the Associated Press reported that Iran has sentenced a Belgian aid worker to a lengthy prison term and 74 lashes after convicting him of espionage charges in a closed-door trial, state media reported.

The website of Iran’s judiciary said a Revolutionary Court sentenced 41-year-old Olivier Vandecasteele to 12.5 years in prison for espionage, 12.5 years for collaboration with hostile governments and 12.5 years for money laundering, as was reported by the AP. He was also fined $1 million and sentenced to 2.5 years for currency smuggling.

Under Iranian law, Vandecasteele would be eligible for release after 12.5 years, the AP reported. The judiciary website said the verdicts can be appealed.

Iran has detained a number of foreigners and dual nationals over the years, accusing them of espionage or other state security offenses and sentencing them after secretive trials in which rights groups say they are denied due process, the AP reported. Critics accuse Iran of using such prisoners as bargaining chips with the West, something Iranian officials deny.

Iran has not released any details about the charges against Vandecasteele. The AP reported that it is unclear if they are related to anti-government protests that have convulsed Iran for months or a long-running shadow war with Israel and the U.S. marked by covert attacks on Iran’s disputed nuclear program.

Vandecasteele’s family said last month that he has been detained in an Iranian prison for months and has been on a hunger strike, as was reported by the AP. They said he was deprived of access to a lawyer of his choice and is suffering from serious health problems.

Belgium has urged its nationals to leave Iran, warning that they face the risk of arbitrary arrest or unfair trial.

“Iran has provided no official information regarding the charges against Olivier Vandecasteele or his trial,” Belgium’s Foreign Minister Hadja Lahbib said in a statement, according to the AP report. “We will summon the Iranian ambassador today, given the information that is circulating in the press.”

The London-based Amnesty International organization has said such trials bear “no resemblance to a meaningful judicial proceeding,” as was reported by the AP.

Norway and Denmark summoned Iranian ambassadors this week to protest the executions and Iran’s handling of the demonstrations. “What is happening in Iran is completely unacceptable and must stop,” Norway’s Foreign Minister Anniken Huitfeldt said, the AP reported. “We have strongly condemned the executions. … We have called on Iran to end the use of the death penalty and to respect human rights.”

In Denmark, Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen called the executions “completely unacceptable” and said the European Union should impose additional sanctions on Iran.

“Belgium continues to condemn this arbitrary detention and is doing everything possible to put an end to it and to improve the conditions of his detention,” she said, the AP report indicated.

On Monday, i24News reported that an Iranian citizen in Germany had obtained cyanide and ricin in order to carry out a major attack. A report on Sunday said that the Mossad provided information that led to the arrest of the Iranian in question who was planning the attack, as was reported by i24 News.

German police detained a 32-year-old Iranian citizen suspected of obtaining deadly poisons, such as cyanide and ricin, to carry out an “Islamist-motivated” attack, German authorities said, as was reported by i24 News.  Israeli sources confirmed the Mossad’s involvement after the German Bild newspaper reported that a friendly nation’s intelligence agency provided crucial information.

The suspect’s residence in the town of Castrop-Rauxel, western Germany, was searched as part of the investigation, according to a joint press release from the Düsseldorf public prosecutor’s office and the police of the towns of Recklinghausen and Muenster, i24News reported. German police also arrested a second person, who turned out to be the suspect’s brother, aged 25.

Both men were staying in Germany since 2015, according to the i24News report. The warning that local authorities have received only referred to one of the brothers but the other man was already known to the police and was in the apartment at the time of the police raid, the report indicated.

The interior minister of the federal state, where they resided, said that the warning was very concrete and prompted police to act immediately, as was reported by i24 News. Firefighters and chemicals experts were deployed to assist the police; signaling that the situation was treated as a potential terrorist attack from the beginning.

I24 News reported that in Israel, security officials are conducting further investigations to determine whether the Iranian suspect intended to attack Jewish or Israeli targets. An arrest warrant was issued for the two brothers which allows the authorities to imprison them as the investigation continues, i24News reported. If plans for the attack prove to be true the two men could face a sentence between three and 15 years in prison. If the Islamist motive behind it is confirmed the sentence could be even longer, according to the i24News report.

According to German domestic intelligence, the number of members or supporters of Islamist causes fell by 1.5 percent to 28,290 people in 2021, due to the “split” of the militant group Islamic State, as was reported by i24News. Sunday’s arrests come a month after German authorities arrested 25 members and supporters of a far-right group that the prosecutor’s office said was plotting a violent coup d’état.

In other developments, the New York Post reported on Tuesday that President Biden kept classified documents about Ukraine and Iran at his former think tank office.  A new report revealed this as the president again refused to answer reporter questions about the matter.

The Post reported that journalists shouted queries about the secret papers at the start of a meeting between Biden and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau at the North American Leaders’ Summit in Mexico City.

Biden clearly heard the questions but chose not to discuss the discovery of the documents at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement, which opened in 2018, according to the Post report.

Moments later, CNN reported that 10 documents with classified markings and dated between 2013 and 2016 were found mixed in with Biden family papers — including information about the funeral arrangements for the president’s late son, Beau, who died in 2015, the Post report indicated. Some of the documents were reportedly labeled “top secret,” the highest level of government classification.

The Post also reported that the three-year time frame covers major events that took place during the Obama administration — including the Iran nuclear deal of 2015, the Maidan Revolution that overthrew then-Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych and Russia’s subsequent invasion and annexation of Crimea in February of 2014.

(Sources: AP.com, JPost.com, TimesofIsrael.com, i24News.com, NYT.com) – Additional reporting by: Fern Sidman