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An Israeli Air Force squadron uploaded classified information - including briefings on combat readiness statuses ahead of a potential strike on Iran - to an easily-accessed civilian cloud service and scanned documents with a problematic app from China, Haaretz reported Tuesday.
The man who shot dead two Iranian Supreme Court judges in a rare assassination of top officials in January has been identified as Farshid Asadi, a 31-year-old court service aide, a source familiar with the matter told Iran International.
Asadi, originally from Razan in Iran's Western Hamedan Province, worked at the Supreme Court in Tehran providing refreshments to judges and staff, said the source who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter.
The assailant was initially assigned to the court’s fifth floor but was later relocated to the first floor after Judge Mohammad Moghiseh moved his office there.
On January 18, veteran judges Moghiseh and Ali Razini were shot and killed inside the Supreme Court building in central Tehran. The incident shocked the judiciary and remains largely unexplained by authorities.
The two clerics were central figures in Iran's theocratic establishment who had handed down death sentences and other harsh punishments on dissidents for decades. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei led their funerals.
Their deaths marked a rare attack on senior officials as discontent over political repression and economic malaise festers in Iran.
The source told Iran International that Asadi first entered the room of a security guard and injured him before proceeding to the judges’ office. There, he shot Razini once, killing him instantly. As Moghiseh attempted to flee, Asadi fired again, striking him in the hand and then fatally in the back, piercing his heart.
Asadi, the source added, also intended to target another senior judicial figure, Mahmoud Toliyat, a former Revolutionary Court judge, but changed his mind for unknown reasons. He then turned the weapon on himself and died at the scene.
The full name, age and intended third target of the attacker was not previously reported.
Initial reporting by state-affiliated media suggested the attacker may have been an outsider or “armed infiltrator.” However, conflicting accounts followed, with judiciary-linked outlets later confirming the assailant was employed inside the court complex.
Following the shooting, several of Asadi’s relatives—including his father, uncle, maternal uncle, and two female cousins—were detained at different times by Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence, the source told Iran International.
It remains unclear how many are still in custody.
Separately, former political prisoner Bijan Kazemi has been held incommunicado for over 100 days in connection with the case. Authorities are reportedly attempting to extract a confession linking Kazemi to the firearm used in the attack. Asadi’s father is under pressure to admit involvement, the source added.
Judges Razini and Moghiseh, both clerics, were widely known for their roles in high-profile security cases and for issuing harsh sentences against political dissidents.
They were also involved in the mass execution of political prisoners in 1988, a chapter heavily criticized by human rights organizations.
Debate is growing in Washington over talks with Iran, with hawkish Republicans urging against appeasing Iran's theocratic rulers but some observers saying the mercurial president might have a historic shot at clinching a deal with Tehran.
The debate has exposed unexpected fractures: US President Donald Trump’s own allies are split, while some longtime democratic critics of the president have cautiously praised his approach—highlighting the unpredictability of the current diplomatic moment.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi on Tuesday evening briefed IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi, who is visiting Washington DC, on the latest developments in nuclear talks between Iran and the United States.
During the phone call, Araghchi highlighted Tehran's "goodwill and serious approach in pursuing diplomacy," according to the Iranian foreign ministry's readout of the conversation.
Iran has enough enriched uranium to produce several nuclear warheads and could do so within months, International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Rafael Grossi said Tuesday at the Council on Foreign Relations.
“Iran is not far from having a nuclear problem. They don’t have it, we know it,” Grossi said. “But the material for it already, it’s already there. To make a few warheads.”
He added that Iran had previously “conducted research and even testing some of the necessary elements for (a) nuclear device,” and that the IAEA lacks “full confidence that they have disappeared completely.”
While stressing the technical distinction between capability and possession, Grossi warned that the timeline is narrowing: “It would be a matter of months, not years."
The IAEA continues inspections in Iran, but Grossi described the current level of access as falling short. “I would say insufficient ... degree of visibility as we see it necessary.”
Talks between the US and Iran are ongoing, with Grossi calling the moment “fraught with opportunity, but of course pretty sensitive, if not dangerous.”
He referred to the unprecedented nature of the engagement, saying, “We see Iran and the United States talking directly in a way that had never happened before.”
Grossi said the IAEA lacks adequate visibility and called the current US-Iran talks “a moment of huge, huge, huge responsibility for everybody.”
Key technical issues, including uranium enrichment and potential weaponization, are central to the discussions. “It is obvious ... that the enrichment chapter is a very big chapter...and the weaponization chapter is another very important part of that conversation,” said the IAEA chief.
Grossi said China had expressed clear opposition to a nuclear-armed Iran during his recent meetings in Beijing, which he called, "a very firm commitment ... that we should not have an Iran armed with nuclear weapons.”
He concluded that verifying any future agreement would remain the IAEA’s domain. “We are the ones that are able—the only ones that are able—to say Iran has so much of this, so much of that.”
Grossi visited Tehran last week and held talks with senior Iranian officials ahead of the second round of US-Iran diplomacy in Rome.
US President Donald Trump has threatened to bomb Iran if the negotiations fail.
