Iran’s Revolutionary Guards warn of shifting battlefield with Israel
Iran's ballistic missile Khorramshahr
Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) on Wednesday issued a cryptic warning to Israel that the geography of Tehran's response to any future attack would shift and its arch-foe would face a punishing response.
"The geography of the response and the battlefield may change, and Iran's reactions will be more crushing than previously observed," state media outlet Mehr news cited the spokesman of the sprawling military organization as saying.
“If the Zionist regime launches a new attack on the powerful and resilient Iran, the initiative to end the conflict will be in our hands,’ Ali Mohammad Naeini said.
Israel's surprise 12-day military campaign against Iran last month killed hundreds of military personnel and civilians in air strikes and drone attacks. Missile salvos by Iran killed 28 Israeli civilians.
Iranian military leaders had made similar threats against Israel before the conflict, and official declarations of victory following the war have yet to substantively grapple with the lopsided toll and Tehran's intelligence lapses.
“We will not allow the sirens in the occupied territories to fall silent, and the enemy must not have the opportunity to leave its shelters,” Naeini said. “They will experience more fleeing and displacement than they did during the 12-day war.”
Iran's armed allies in the region have been degraded by nearly two years of Israeli attacks, but an Emirati news outlet reported on Wednesday that a top IRGC general traveled to Iraq to shore up support for Tehran-backed militias there.
Citing Iraqi political sources close to the Shi'ite-run political establishment, al-Ain al-Ekhbariya reported that the commander of the IRGC's elite Quds Force Esmail Qaani made an unannounced visit to Iran's neighbor.
The visit, the outlet said, involved meetings with senior Shi'ite political and militia leaders and aimed at shoring up unity and coordination as parliamentary elections loom.
Mysterious attacks hit Western-run oil facilities in Iraq's Kurdish region this month, in strikes blamed by local officials on Iran-backed militias. The sources cited by al-Ain al-Ekhbariya alleged Qaani described the events as not authorized by Tehran.
Following a US-brokered ceasefire on June 25, Israel and Iran have repeatedly exchanged threats.
Israel 'wiped off the face of the earth'
Iran’s interim chief of staff, Habibollah Sayyari, praised the Islamic Republic’s wartime performance on Wednesday, saying the conflict extended beyond just Israel.
“People must understand that we did not fight just one regime, we fought the world. That means we fought NATO, Europe and the United States. This is very important, yet we emerged from it with our heads held high,” Sayyari said.
Former IRGC chief Mohsen Rezaei added to the uptick of official military rhetoric on Wednesday, threatening to eradicate Israel.
“A day will come when great revenge and severe punishment will be carried out, and Israel will be wiped off the face of the earth forever,” Rezaei said on Wednesday.
A British couple held in solitary confinement in Iran since January on espionage charges was beaten, deprived of sleep and threatened with execution, a source familiar with the matter told Iran International.
Lindsay and Craig Foreman were recently moved to the Gharchak Women’s Prison and the Greater Tehran Central Penitentiary, added the source familiar with the situation who spoke on condition of anonymity citing security concerns.
The couple had been held by Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence for the past seven months.
According to the source, the couple were subjected to torture including sleep depravation, beating and threats of execution by security agents seeking to extract confessions but have maintained their innocence.
The couple, both in their 50s, entered Iran from Armenia during a motorcycle world tour. After visiting Tabriz, Tehran and Isfahan, they planned to travel to Kerman.
On January 4, 2025, they were arrested on their way to city of Kerman and charged with spying. Britain has rejected the charges and demanded their release.
The UK foreign office said the couple was receiving consular assistance in response to a request for comment by Iran International.
“We are deeply concerned by reports that two British nationals have been charged with espionage in Iran. We continue to raise this case directly with the Iranian authorities," it said in a statement.
“We are providing them with consular assistance and remain in close contact with their family members.”
Iran has long detained and convicted foreign nationals in a bid for to gain financial or political concessions from foreign powers.
Tehran has consistently denied that the detentions are politically motivated.
Tehran is once again urging Iranians abroad to return as part of its patriotic messaging after the war with Israel, but many remain deeply skeptical, citing years of repression, arrests and broken promises.
Last week, President Masoud Pezeshkian said Iranians living in other countries should be able to return without fear.
His culture minister, Reza Salehi Amiri, then appeared on state TV to hammer the message home: “This land belongs to you, and we are rolling out the red carpet."
Yet skepticism runs deep.
Returnees—especially dual nationals—have often been detained, interrogated, or sentenced on vague charges such as propaganda against the system or acting against national security.
‘Almost none stayed long’
“From (President Mohammad) Khatami in the late 1990s to Pezeshkian now, everyone has tried to woo expat professionals and people with financial resources to invest back in Iran,” Kamran, a 56-year-old who runs a family business in Tehran’s Grand Bazaar, told Iran International.
“I know a few who came back over the years, but almost none stayed long enough to invest.”
Kamran’s children live in Canada. He says he prefers they not return, even for short visits.
“They participated in every protest rally in Canada in recent years and have posted anti-government content online,” he explains. “That can get them into serious trouble. I won’t let them take any risks.”
Mitra, a housewife in Tehran, says her relatives avoid returning for the same reason.
“They meet their parents in countries like Turkey once or twice a year. It’s hard for their elderly parents, but they feel it’s better to be safe than sorry.”
New bill, old problems
There are an estimated 4 to 5 million Iranians living abroad—from Turkey and the United Arab Emirates to Australia, North America and nearly every country in Western Europe. Collectively, their wealth is believed to exceed one trillion dollars.
To tap into that potential, parliament is reviewing a bill titled Support for Iranians Abroad, proposing easier travel, expanded consular services, looser dual citizenship restrictions, and new academic and investment incentives.
“I don’t know what the government is thinking, asking diaspora Iranians to come back and invest. They must be fools to do so when neither their lives nor their money is safe,” said Mehdi, a 45-year-old artist in Tehran.
Other critics say the real obstacles are structural: deep corruption, cronyism and the dominance of security institutions over the economy.
“Diaspora Iranians don’t just listen to officials’ words—they watch their actions,” wrote former telecom minister Mohammad-Javad Azari-Jahromi on X. “Concrete reform of policies and procedures matters more than slogans.”
Social media activist Arash Ghaffari mocked the initiative given the country's ongoing water and electricity outages.
“The honorable President has invited Iranians abroad to return to their beloved homeland, overflowing with water and electricity in the summer, an abundance of gas in the winter, a land of stable prices, an economic paradise!” he posted on X.
Political prisoners at Iran's Ghezel Hesar prison have launched a hunger strike in response to a violent raid by guards and their transfer to solitary confinement, a source told Iran International on Wednesday.
On July 26, security forces raided Unit 4 of Ghezel Hesar prison in the town of Karaj, which houses political prisoners, to suppress detainees involved in a campaign against the death penalty.
Since the raid, families of about 20 prisoners have raised concerns about their whereabouts and filed petitions and requests for information.
A source familiar with the situation who declined to be named for security reasons told Iran International that the prisoners were beaten before being placed in solitary confinement. In protest, they launched a collective hunger strike.
The raid targeted approximately 25 prisoners who had participated in a campaign known as “No to Execution Tuesdays.”
The campaign began on January last year, when political prisoners in the women’s ward of Tehran’s Evin Prison started holding weekly hunger strikes every Tuesday to protest the rising number of executions.
Two men accused of belonging to the outlawed Mojahedin-e-Khalq (MEK) opposition group were executed on July 26.
The executions of Behrouz Ehsani-Eslamlou and Mehdi Hassani were carried out in Evin Prison, where they had been held since their arrest. Both were convicted in September 2024 by a Tehran revolutionary court on a range of national security charges.
Iran is one of the most aggressive state actors targeting individuals in the United Kingdom through transnational repression, according to a new parliamentary report.
The inquiry alleged Tehran’s intelligence services have orchestrated dozens of operations to surveil, intimidate, or physically harm UK-based dissidents, journalists, and other perceived critics.
Security agencies have investigated more than 20 credible threats to life linked to Iran since 2022.
“Iran represents one of the highest kidnap and assassination state threats to the UK, with the Homeland Security Group describing the threat of physical attack on individuals in the UK as the greatest level of threat we currently face from Iran,” according to the report released this week.
The tactics include assassination plots, stalking, digital hacking, threats to family members, online abuse, and coordinated smear campaigns.
One key target has been Iran International, a London-based Persian-language broadcaster.
British interior minister Yvette Cooper said in May that Iran posed an "unacceptable threat" to domestic security after authorities charged three Iranian nationals under a national security law following a major counter-terrorism investigation.
Three of the Iranian nationals were later charged with offences under the National Security Act, accused of acting on behalf of Iran’s intelligence service and carried out surveillance targeting Iran International journalists.
Broader strategy of coercion
The report warns of a broader strategy of coercion extending beyond direct threats. Iranian-linked cultural and religious centers in the UK are allegedly being used to gather intelligence on the Iranian diaspora and promote the interests of Tehran.
Kasra Aarabi, director of research on Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) at US-based advocacy group United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI), points to what he calls a state-run infiltration network.
"Charities, mosques, academic institutions and cultural centers consistently carried out IRGC-linked activities on its premises,” including direct contact with some of “the most radical and extremist commanders of the IRGC.”
“The failure to address this issue is putting the UK’s national security and British lives at risk,” he told Iran International.
Journalists and women most targeted
Journalists covering Iran remain especially vulnerable, with Iran International and BBC Persian staff facing asset freezes, defamation campaigns, and threats to their families still living in Iran.
The Islamic Republic’s targeting of journalists reflects its fear of independent reporting, UK Director of Reporters Without Borders Fiona O’Brien told Iran International.
“If you're going to go to that length to try and shut something down, to try and silence people ... you must feel very threatened by that kind of information,” she said.
Female journalists reporting on protests and human rights violations have been targeted with gendered abuse, including threats of sexual violence.
The inquiry also highlights the regime’s evolving tactics, including AI-generated deepfake pornography, doctored images, and fabricated narratives used to discredit and silence.
"Impacts extend far beyond those directly targeted, creating a broader ‘chilling effect’ on entire communities and undermining fundamental rights such as freedom of expression, assembly, and association,” the committee said.
Intelligence resources stretched
The fear can be used as a method to overwhelm a country’s security apparatus.
Dr. Omid Shams, a UK-based human rights lawyer of Iranian origin, said the Islamic Republic has shifted from high-level, sophisticated operations to more chaotic, diffuse strategies that are harder for security agencies to detect.
Rather than relying solely on trained agents, Tehran increasingly uses local criminal gangs and petty criminals to carry out lower-level attacks.
“The goal,” Shams said, “is to stretch intelligence resources so thin that authorities are forced to either limit dissidents’ activities or negotiate indirectly with Iran to reduce pressure.”
UK policy still catching up
Despite the scope of the threat, the UK government has yet to formally define transnational repression in law or develop a strategy for addressing it, according to the committee, which urged the government to create a legal definition, train police, support victims, and systematically track these incidents.
Iran — alongside Russia — has been placed under the “enhanced tier” of the UK’s Foreign Influence Registration Scheme, requiring those acting on Tehran’s behalf to declare their activities. The report also calls for coordinated international pressure through the United Nations and INTERPOL.
A former interior ministry official who criticized Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar after the October 7 attacks on Israel has been sentenced to six months in prison by a Tehran court, online outlet Jahan News reported on Tuesday.
Abdolreza Davari, a former adviser to Iran's minister of interior and a former deputy chief of the government's official news agency, is known for his rightwing, provocative commentary on social media.
In September 2024, he questioned Sinwar's motives to mastermind October 7 in a post on X.
“Yahya Sinwar is fluent in Hebrew and served as the liaison between prisoners and Israeli authorities during his imprisonment in Israel," Davari wrote.
"Sinwar is the commander of Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, which he launched without informing or coordinating with Ismail Haniyeh and Hezbollah in Lebanon, and his costly actions raise a big question mark about him.”
He later deleted the post but other users joined the discussion and suggested the slain Hamas commander was an Israeli agent.
Davari was sentenced to six months in jail, a fine, confiscation of his smart phone and a ban on social media activity, Jahan News reported.
The case is currently under appeal, while Davari is also being prosecuted for other controversial remarks made against Fereydoun Abbasi, former head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI), who was killed during an Israeli airstrike on June 13.
On June 14, Davari alleged Abbasi might have staged a terror attack on himself in 2009 to raise his profile and eventually become head of the AEOI.