US Blacklists 12 Chinese Firms For Military Deals With Iran

The Ynet news site cited Turkish outlets as revealing that the intended target of the Iranian terror cell was Yosef Levi Sfari, Israel’s former consul general in Istanbul, who was rescued by authorities and sent back to Israel. 

According to reports, the Iranian agents were staying at the same hotel in which Levi Sfari and his partner Roni Goldberg were staying for their vacation, alleging that their other targets were Israeli tourists. "The Iranian squad was caught hot red-handed at the last minute," the reports added. 

Turkey's National Intelligence Organization (MIT) revealed the operation last Thursday just before the arrival of Israel’s Foreign Minister Yair Lapid to Turkey, adding that the eight, who were not all Iranian nationals, were arrested in a raid in three houses in Istanbul’s Beyoglu district a week earlier.

Israeli officials and media began issuing warnings to citizens against traveling to Turkey in the end of May, citing suspected killing or abduction plots by Iran, which has vowed to avenge the May 22 assassination of a Revolutionary Guards colonel in Tehran that it blamed on Israeli agents. 

Israel’s National Security Council lowered the threat level in its travel warning from high to medium on Tuesday.

Reports said on Wednesday that Egyptian security officials also warned Iran not to operate on Egyptian soil during recent meetings among intelligence officials.

“The enemy wants to destroy our self-confidence, break us from within, and disillusion us, first and foremost, with ourselves,” Hossein Salami said at the inauguration ceremony of the new chief of the IRGC’s Intelligence Security (IntelSec) on Thursday.

Salami who made a rare admission of Israeli and western intelligence services’ capabilities and described them as steadfast and seasoned, claimed that despite their experience and access to complex technologies, these intelligence services have not managed to breach the barriers created by the Iranian armed forces’ intelligence security apparatuses to reach their targets in the armed forces.

Possible foreign infiltration in Iranian counterintelligence bodies, particularly by Israel, has raised alarm in Iran recently following a series of unexplained deadly attacks against IRGC officers and other breaches of security in Iran’s nuclear and military installations.

These attacks began with the highly complex assassination of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, a key figure in Iran's nuclear program, in November 2020 near Tehran. The operation involved a one-ton remote-controlled automated weapon that had been smuggled into the country in pieces.

Israel has never officially taken responsibility for any of these assassinations and acts of sabotage but has also never denied involvement.

Israel’s alleged operations have exposed the vulnerability of Iran’s nuclear, military, and industrial facilities and individuals involved in its nuclear and missile programs, pundits say and caused confusion and suspicions of infiltration of the rank and file in security bodies.

Such operations are apparently meant not only to harm individuals and facilities but also as psychological warfare to destroy the self-confidence of the many security bodies in charge of protecting them.

“An earthquake has taken place in Iran’s security and intelligence bodies,” Mohsen Sazegara, expatriate political dissident told Iran International.

Sazegara, one of the founders of the IRGC after the victory of the Islamic Revolution of 1979, opined that an extensive purge is likely to happen in these bodies in the coming weeks and months as they seem to have been highly infiltrated by foreign intelligence services.

Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei on Monday appointed Brigadier General Majid Khademi, former head of the Defense Ministry’s IntelSec, as the IRGC’s new intelligence security chief. The change is considered as a pivotal move by Khamenei.

Khademi’s appointment followed a series of similar high-level changes in the IRGC Intelligence Organization (SAS) last week.

Khademis predecessor, Mohammad Kazemi, was introduced by the IRGC commander-in-chief as the successor of the controversial cleric Hossein Ta’eb as chief of SAS last week.

On Saturday, two days after Ta’eb’s dismissal, which officials say was a mere shift in positions, the head of the IRGC's special unit responsible for the Supreme Leader’s protection (Sepah-e Vali-ye Amr) was also replaced.

Citing officials with close ties to the IRGC who spoke on condition of anonymity, the New York Times on Wednesday reported that Brigadier General Ali Nasiri, a senior commander in the IRGC Intelligence Security, was secretly arrested on suspicion of spying for Israel. The arrest came before the Guards’ intelligence chief, Hossein Ta’eb, was replaced after 13 years at the helm of the organization last week.

This, one of the sources quoted by the New York Times said, followed the arrest of several dozen employees of the defense ministry’s missile development program were arrested on suspicion of leaking classified military intelligence, including design blueprints of missiles, to Israel.

In a Thursday statement ahead of a Security Council meeting on the implementation of resolution 2231 that endorsed the 2015 nuclear deal, the E3 said, “Unfortunately... Iran once again refused to seize the opportunity and, instead, made new extraneous and unrealistic demands,” referring to indirect Tehran-Washington talks held in Doha this week.

Criticizing Iran’s installation and use of additional advanced centrifuges and the removal of the International Atomic Energy Agency’s JCPOA-related surveillance and monitoring equipment, they said some of the most serious steps to accelerate the pace of Tehran’s nuclear program have been taken during the negotiation process aimed at returning Iran and the US to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. 

Expressing deep concerns over Iran’s increasing uranium stockpiles enriched to 20-60 percent purity, the E3 said, “Iran’s complete termination of key JCPOA-related transparency measures is therefore a particularly negative, counterproductive and provocative step, which the UN Security Council cannot remain silent on.”

They also denounced Iran’s “provocative” launch of the Zolfaqar Satellite rocket, which could be capable of delivering nuclear weapons and can be used to construct long-range and intercontinental ballistic missiles.

“We strongly condemn Iran’s continued destabilizing activity in the region and call upon Iran to stop all ballistic missile activities and proliferation inconsistent with UNSCR 2231,” they concluded.

During a ceremony to introduce the new IRGC counter-intelligence chief on Thursday, Revolutionary Guard’s commander Hossein Salami acknowledged the experience and expertise of Israeli and Western intelligence agencies, saying that “the enemy seeks to strip us of our self-confidence and make us feel empty inside.” 

Calling on all commanders, officials and all the Revolutionary Guards to foil enemies’ plots, he said, “This is the most dangerous and mysterious kind of aggression... The enemy's most successful experience is in its intelligence operations."

“The Intelligence Protection Organization of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is engaged in direct confrontation with all the experienced and skilled intelligence and security services,” Salami said, admitting that they “have the collapse of many regimes on their record.”

On Monday, Brigadier General Majid Khademi, the head of the Defense Ministry’s Intelligence Security, was appointed by the Supreme Leader to succeed Mohammad Kazemi as the new chief of the IRGC Intelligence Organization’s information security (SAS InfoSec).

Kazemi replaced the controversial cleric Hossein Ta’eb as chief of the IRGC Intelligence Organization (SAS). Ta’eb’s replacement after 13 years at the helm of SAS which was announced on June 23 came as a big surprise and fueled many speculations about the reasons for his dismissal.

The SAS IntelSec is responsible for protecting the IRGC against infiltration by undesirable political fractions and leakage of information as well as monitoring of the forces’ commanders and the staff. 

Mojtaba Ferdowsipur, who is the director of West Asian Studies Group at the Iranian Foreign Ministry's Political and International Studies Center, has said in an interview with moderate conservative website Khabar Online on Wednesday, June 29, that in view of recent global developments and Iran's potentials, "the Islamic Republic should replace its offensive positions with defensive postures."

He said that one of the consequences of the war in Ukraine is its impact on energy supply in the world, and this has affected US President Joe Biden’s approach to the Middle east and energy issues, with adopting a realistic view toward West Asia with an eye on the significance of the region's oil reserves.

"One of the reasons for Biden's visit to Saudi Arabia is that the United States needs that country's oil. An increase in Saudi Arabia's oil output will lead to a reduction of prices in the international oil markets. This can largely prevent an energy crisis in the United States," Ferdowsipur said, adding that "this can also affect the Democrats' popularity before the [midterm] elections."

At the same time, Israel wants to use Biden’s trip the region to bring Saudi Arabia into the Abraham Accords, and this would have big impact on geopolitics.

The analyst added that "as a result of the war in Ukraine, international coalitions are no longer based on cooperation. Instead, they are based on a combination of cooperation, cooperation and rivalry. As a result, interactions between Israel and Egypt or between Israel and Turkey are likely to be based on competitions and rivalries."

Although Ferdowsipur avoided explaining what it would mean for Iran to adopt a defensive posture, but the context of his remarks pointed to a foreign policy based on both cooperation and competition, instead of stark choices against or in support of different countries.

Ferdowsipur added that "relying on relations and cooperation with Iran's neighbors may not work for the country. We should adopt a policy of cooperation and competition based on geopolitics." He explained that "Iran should show its weight in in the region's geopolitical developments and make sure that its share from the corridors in the region is respected by others."

Ferdowsipur also pointed out that "If Russia has a 20-year contract with Iran, this does not mean that Moscow will not compete with Tehran in the region's geo-economy." He further explained that "Iran is likely to sustain losses if it does not rely on a combination of cooperation and competition. Thus, tying the country's interests to relations with a single countrywill not secure Iran's interests."

The best example of this occurs in matters relating to the JCPOA. As Iran is a country under sanctions, other countries might change track to evade secondary sanctions, he said.

The analyst maintained that Iran should try to benefit from the geopolitical changes by securing its share of regional corridors in Karabakh region and the North-South corridor Russians are currently using to transport their goods.