Conflicting accounts emerge over how US, Israel located Iran's top security official

Unlike the corruption scandals that have long dominated headlines in Iran, the report by Jahan-e Sanat focuses on thefts measured not in billions of rials but in loaves of bread, packages of cheese and cuts of meat.

It argues that cases involving everyday groceries are increasingly reflecting economic distress rather than simple criminality.

"There are no billions of tomans, no gold, no luxury villas," the newspaper wrote. "Sometimes it is only a can of cheese, a loaf of bread or a few simple food items."

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Days before Jahan-e Sanat published its report, CCTV footage from outside a minimarket at night in the northern city of Babolsar spread widely across Persian-language social media.

The footage appears to show a woman wearing a black chador approaching a display of boxed goods outside the shop. After pausing beside the display and glancing around, she appears to pick up one of the boxes before walking away.

Exactly what prompted the woman's actions remains unknown. But for many Iranians, the clip became less about one apparent shoplifting than about the growing struggle to afford everyday necessities.

"May God never let anyone feel ashamed in front of their family," one user wrote.

"This is what happens when prices keep rising. We live in a country rich in oil and gold, yet the government cannot provide for 87 million people," another commented.

"People simply cannot afford to buy things anymore because prices have become so expensive," another wrote.

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Others pleaded with whoever shared the footage not to expose the woman's identity.

"Who would steal a few groceries unless driven by poverty and hunger? God help them," one commenter wrote.

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"Maybe she had no money to buy food for her children. The shopkeeper should have protected her dignity instead of exposing her," another said.

Some comments contrasted the apparent theft with what they described as large-scale corruption, arguing authorities should focus on powerful figures accused of enriching themselves rather than people taking everyday necessities.

The sympathy expressed online echoed account gathered by Jahan-e Sanat from a supermarket employee who described an apparent increase in customers taking inexpensive food items.

Behind the supermarket shelves

Amirhossein, an employee at a large supermarket chain, told the newspaper he had witnessed several such incidents during the past 10 months.

He recalled seeing a woman place two tubs of cheese into her handbag during a busy period before leaving without paying. In another case, he said, security camera footage later showed a man leaving with butter, cakes and pastries concealed beneath his coat.

Staff also stopped a customer who had eaten packaged cakes inside the store and hidden the empty wrappers before trying to leave, according to the employee.

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Perhaps most surprising, Amirhossein said, was a regular customer who was caught taking a package of meat.

"I think poverty is the main reason," he told Jahan-e Sanat. "You cannot judge everyone the same way, but when someone steals a simple item, they are probably under enormous pressure. Sometimes, if what was taken has little financial value, we don't pursue it because we think the person's circumstances may have brought them to this point."

'A crisis of livelihoods'

Sociologist Mostafa Abroshan said reports of thefts involving bread, dairy products and other essentials should be viewed in the context of Iran's prolonged economic difficulties.

"Thefts of basic goods, especially food and other necessities, reflect disruptions in economic structures and the declining ability of households to meet their basic needs," he told the newspaper.

"This does not justify theft, but it shows that people's behavior must be understood within its social context."

Abroshan said inflation, declining purchasing power and job insecurity had left many households struggling to afford essential goods.

"A society in which stealing bread, milk or rice becomes more common is facing a crisis of livelihoods and social justice more than a security crisis," he said.

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Prolonged economic hardship, he warned, could also erode social trust, leaving retailers more suspicious of customers, increasing security costs and weakening confidence in public institutions.

While enforcing the law remains necessary, Abroshan said that reducing poverty, controlling inflation, creating jobs and strengthening social support would do more to curb petty theft than harsher punishment alone.

Without addressing the economic pressures facing low-income households, he said, the theft of everyday groceries risks becoming an increasingly visible measure of Iran's widening cost-of-living crisis.

The experts said at least 24 members of the Baluch minority and 22 members of the Kurdish minority had been executed in 2026, with many more at imminent risk of execution.

“Iran’s ethnic minorities must be able to live in safety and dignity, free from discrimination,” the experts said in a statement.

Kurds are concentrated mainly in western and northwestern Iran, while many of Iran's Baluch population live in the southeastern province of Sistan-Baluchistan. Both predominantly Sunni communities have long faced political, economic and security pressure from the Shiite-led authorities, according to rights groups.

“Reports point to a significant increase in arbitrary arrests, and what appears to be politically motivated sentences,” the experts said, adding that members of ethnic minorities were often detained under broadly defined national security charges.

The experts said a 2025 law expanding the definition of espionage, along with offenses including moharebeh, or “enmity against God,” efsad-fil-arz, or “spreading corruption on earth,” and baghi, or armed rebellion against the Islamic Republic, had been used particularly against Kurds.

They described the laws as “a tool to repress dissent.”

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Executions rise

Thursday’s warning comes a day after UN human rights chief Volker Türk said Iran had executed at least 56 people on national security-related charges since March 19, including 27 in cases linked to protests earlier this year.

Türk said executions and death sentences had risen since March and that more than 100 other people faced similar charges and the death penalty.

The figures follow a series of executions in recent weeks involving young people detained over the January protests.

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Iranian authorities executed 20-year-old Arvin Kheirkhah at Shahroud prison on Saturday after he was sentenced to death over his involvement in the protests, according to information obtained by Iran International.

Days earlier, authorities hanged Amirhossein Safari and Abolfazl Sepahi in Isfahan’s Alikhani Square. They were among 12 young men sentenced to death in a case stemming from protests there in January.

A group of UN human rights experts led by Mai Sato, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Iran, had urged Tehran to halt executions in the Isfahan case, citing concerns about closed proceedings, alleged ill-treatment and the use of confessions broadcast on state television.

Türk urged Iranian authorities to halt all executions and move towards abolishing the death penalty.

In an interview published on Thursday, Pezeshkian acknowledged that thousands had been killed but rejected estimates putting the toll at 30,000 to 60,000.

“Some media outlets and journalists said that 40,000 or 60,000 people were killed in Iran,” Pezeshkian said.

He said authorities responded by publishing names and national identification numbers of those they said had been killed and inviting people to provide names that were missing.

“But those sitting outside the country, presenting themselves as concerned, informed and sometimes as intellectuals and academics, turned a figure of around 3,000 into 30,000 or 40,000 and misled public opinion,” he said.

Pezeshkian described those behind the higher estimates as “cowards” and “traitors to the country.”

Trump figure rejected

Pezeshkian also rejected US President Donald Trump's account of the crackdown.

Trump said at a NATO summit in Ankara in July that Iranian authorities had killed 54,000 protesters and argued that the scale of the killings had prevented demonstrators from overthrowing the Islamic Republic.

“They can’t take over because they’re dead. They killed them,” Trump said at the time.

Pezeshkian said Trump had acknowledged that protesters had received outside support, accusing Washington of seeking to exploit unrest inside Iran.

“Trump himself explicitly said that they had armed these people and supported them, so it was clear what their objective was,” Pezeshkian said.

Trump's comments cited above, however, described the protesters as unarmed and Iranian security forces as having machine guns.

Pezeshkian acknowledged that some of those involved in the protests had legitimate grievances and that innocent people had been caught up in the violence.

“We had problems, and we still have them,” he said. “Some people were legitimately raising their problems, but another group wanted to use this environment to pursue their sinister objectives.”

He also acknowledged failures in the authorities' handling of the unrest.

“Because we were not sufficiently prepared to manage the situation, many people were harmed,” Pezeshkian said. “Many young people lost their lives and others lost parts of their bodies.”

“We should not have allowed things to reach this point,” he added.

Iran International reported in January that more than 36,500 people were killed by security forces during the January 8-9 crackdown, based on classified documents, field reports and accounts from medical workers, witnesses and victims' families reviewed by its Editorial Board.

The figure included information from internal Iranian government and security documents.

Remarks draw backlash

Pezeshkian's comments prompted criticism from government opponents and some Iranians who challenged both his death toll and his description of people reporting higher figures as traitors.

Mehdi Mahmoudian, a human rights activist and former political prisoner, called on Pezeshkian to explain responsibility for the deaths that the president himself acknowledged.

“Please explain who killed those several thousand people whose deaths you yourself do not deny, and what should the perpetrators of this crime be called?” Mahmoudian wrote on X.

A previously published account by dissident cleric Mojtaba Lotfi was also recirculated following Pezeshkian's remarks. Lotfi said local checks in his hometown of Najafabad had identified at least 30 names missing from the government's list of those killed, arguing that the official count was incomplete.

Iran International also received messages from citizens disputing Pezeshkian's account and criticizing his comments, with some saying that disagreements over the final number did not justify the killing of protesters.

The demands follow the executions of Amirhossein Safari and Abolfazl Sepahi in Isfahan's Alikhani Square in late July. Witnesses reported clashes between security forces and people who gathered to protest the hangings.

Freiburg, a university city in southwestern Germany, is the only municipality in the country to maintain a formal partnership with an Iranian city. Iranian activists have long argued that the arrangement, established in 2000, legitimizes the Islamic Republic despite its human rights record.

Mayor Martin Horn has rejected those arguments. Speaking to Frankfurter Rundschau in June, he said, "We as a city do not conduct foreign policy," adding that shutting the door on Isfahan would undermine engagement with ordinary Iranians.

"People are reaching out to the West, and we slam the door shut? That is exactly the opposite of what we should be doing."

‘Nothing against Isfahan’

Germany-based dissident Mina Ahadi, who led a successful international campaign against Iran's practice of public stoning, said the latest executions had fundamentally changed the debate.

"I have been protesting for a long time against this twin-city partnership between Freiburg and Isfahan because it is, in reality, a relationship with the state structures of the Islamic Republic," she told Iran International.

"I therefore support the numerous protests and demands to end this partnership—especially in light of the current tragedy in Isfahan: the public execution of two young people and the threat of the death penalty facing further individuals in this city."

Ahadi said ending the partnership would not be directed against the people of Isfahan but would instead demonstrate solidarity with Iranians confronting state repression.

"It would be a sign of support for the people in Iran, who themselves are victims of the policies of the Islamic Republic," she said.

‘Unjustifiable’

Behrouz Asadi, spokesperson for Woman Life Freedom Germany, likewise argued that the partnership had ceased to function as a neutral cultural exchange.

"The twin-city partnership between Freiburg and Isfahan has clearly shown in recent years that it is not an apolitical cultural exchange," he said. "As long as the Islamic Republic controls the exchange, such a partnership primarily serves its propaganda and grants legitimacy to its networks—not to the people of Isfahan."

He said recent executions, alongside the imprisonment of activists and members of the Baha'i community, made it increasingly difficult to justify maintaining the relationship.

"The people of Isfahan have taken to the streets for freedom, democracy and human dignity," Asadi said. "

Many have suffered prison, torture or even death for it. It is not justifiable toward them to maintain a partnership that creates the impression that normal cultural exchange with this regime is possible."

Defense of human rights

The debate has also drawn attention to Baden-Württemberg's antisemitism commissioner, Michael Blume, whom some critics accuse of failing to challenge the Freiburg-Isfahan partnership. Blume did not respond to repeated requests for comment from Iran International.

The partnership has faced criticism before. In 2010, the German city of Weimar ended its relationship with Shiraz after Iranian officials visiting Germany refused to visit the Buchenwald concentration camp memorial.

For campaigners, however, the executions in Isfahan have raised the stakes beyond a long-running dispute over municipal diplomacy.

They argue the question is no longer whether cultural engagement remains desirable, but whether maintaining official ties with an Iranian municipality can be reconciled with a rapidly deteriorating human rights situation.

“Verbal distancing is no longer enough,” said Asadi. “Anyone who takes human rights seriously must draw consequences. That is why I demand the termination of the twin-city partnership with Isfahan.”

A baby does not stop needing clean water because the pumps have shut down. A patient cannot postpone the use of refrigerated medicine or medical equipment. An elderly person living on the 14th floor cannot simply take the stairs when the elevator stops working. Parents cannot suspend cooking, washing or caring for their children until the state restores the water.

During the brutal Iranian summer, when temperatures in parts of the country exceed 40 degrees Celsius and climb above 50 in the south, air conditioning is not merely a comfort. For children, older people and those with medical conditions, it can become a matter of survival.

The authorities can announce a two-hour power cut. A child's fever, a patient's oxygen machine and a family's need for clean water do not follow that schedule.

Iran's water and electricity emergencies are not separate crises. Water distribution depends on electricity to operate pumping stations and move water through municipal networks, especially into apartment buildings and elevated neighbourhoods. When electricity fails, pumps stop working and water pressure falls. One failing system pulls another down with it.

‘No one to turn to’

Reports from across Iran describe daily electricity cuts lasting for hours alongside recurring water shortages. In Boumehen, east of Tehran, residents reportedly received running water on only two days during one week, and even then for only a few hours.

"We have a sick person at home. We no longer know who to turn to," one resident said.

In Pardis, another city east of Tehran, a resident of a 14-storey building said a four-hour power cut left the elevators out of service. "How are we supposed to climb all these stairs?" he asked.

In Ilam, power cuts reportedly lasted as long as four hours while temperatures reached around 46 degrees Celsius. In Khuzestan, one of Iran's principal oil- and electricity-producing provinces, residents complained that outages had resumed as temperatures crossed 50 degrees.

This is one of modern Iran's deepest contradictions. A country with some of the world's largest oil and natural gas reserves cannot guarantee electricity to its own population. Provinces that generate much of Iran's energy cannot rely on power in their own homes.

Factories lose production hours, small businesses lose income, food and medicine spoil, and families organise their days around outage schedules that are not always accurate.

During the summer they lose electricity; during the winter they face gas shortages. The crisis changes with the season, but it never disappears.

‘Energy imbalance’

Officials describe this as an "energy imbalance," a phrase that makes the problem sound technical rather than political. But Iran's energy crisis was not created overnight.

For years, electricity generation failed to keep pace with demand. Transmission networks deteriorated, renewable energy remained marginal and water systems continued to lose enormous quantities through leakage and decay.

In June 2026, Iran's Parliamentary Research Center reportedly projected a peak summer electricity deficit of roughly 13,600 megawatts.

The government's answer was to ask every Iranian to reduce electricity consumption by ten percent. Once again, citizens were instructed to compensate for failures they did not create.

A family can switch off a lamp. It cannot modernize a power station. A parent can shorten a child's shower. She cannot repair a leaking municipal water network. A shopkeeper can turn off an air conditioner, but he cannot recover decades of lost investment or build the electricity capacity the country requires.

Iran does face genuine environmental pressures. Drought, extreme heat and irregular rainfall have reduced water availability across the country. Climate change is making an already dry region hotter and more vulnerable.

But climate alone cannot explain why so much available water is wasted, why groundwater has been extracted beyond natural recovery or why inefficient agricultural practices remained dominant for decades.

Low efficiency

Even experts quoted by Iran's official news agency acknowledge as much.

Hashem Oraee, head of the Iran Energy Associations Union, estimated that nearly 90 percent of Iran's annual water consumption goes to agriculture, where efficiency remains extremely low.

He also said roughly one-third of the water entering urban distribution networks is lost before reaching consumers.

Iran is not simply running out of water. It is losing the water it still has. The current war did not create this crisis. It struck a system that was already fragile, underfunded and unable to meet national demand.

Iranian electricity officials have said more than 2,000 points across the national grid were damaged during the conflict, reducing available generating capacity by around 4,200 megawatts.

Those figures have not been independently verified, but they indicate the scale of the damage the authorities themselves claim to be facing.

Extended hours

In Bandar Abbas, residents described explosions followed by prolonged electricity cuts. One woman who depends on the internet for her income said she had already been struggling with government-imposed internet shutdowns before longer power cuts placed her work at further risk.

"We always had power cuts, but the hours have now extended," she said.

That distinction matters. The war made the outages longer and more dangerous, but it did not introduce Iranians to blackouts. Years of neglect had already done that.

Inside the home, the consequences are immediate. Refrigerators stop cooling food and medicine. Medical devices fail unless families can afford backup power. Elevators become unusable. Water no longer reaches upper floors when electric pumps stop working. Parents struggle to prepare food, wash clothes, sterilize baby bottles or care for elderly relatives and young children.

The word "outage" suggests a temporary interruption after which normal life resumes. But when electricity disappears every day, when water and power fail together, and when no one knows whether the published schedule can be trusted, the interruption becomes normal life.

Water and electricity are not luxuries. They are the foundations on which healthcare, sanitation, education, industry and family life depend.

Iran did not run out of intelligence, resources or human ability. Its people were deprived of functioning systems because those in power failed to build and maintain them.

Now the lights are going out, the taps are running dry, and ordinary Iranians are once again being asked to bear the cost.