Iran: We’ve arrested 21,000 suspects over war with Israel

The news comes after reports that the Mossad trained many non-Israeli agents who helped bomb sites and assassinate officials.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

Iranian police said Tuesday that they have arrested 21,000 people suspected of helping Israel during its short but devastating war in June with the Islamic Republic, which it dubbed “Operation Rising Lion.”

Police spokesman Saeid Montazerolmahdi credited ordinary Iranians for their “high awareness and participation” in helping the authorities “provide security.”

“There was a 41% increase in calls by the public, which led to the arrest of 21,000 suspects during the 12-day war,” he said.

“Law enforcement rounded up 2,774 illegal migrants and discovered 30 special security cases by examining their phones,” he added. “Two hundred sixty-one suspects of espionage and 172 people accused of unauthorized filming were also arrested.”

He did not say how many have been released since then, considering that the numbers he mentioned as being accused of serious charges (463) are only 2.2% of those arrested.

Iran has also executed seven people since the end of June who were convicted of spying for Israel.

The announcement follows reports in recent days that claimed that Israel’s spy agency, the Mossad, had trained non-Israeli agents both inside and outside Iran for more than a year to prepare for a coordinated attack on the Islamic Republic.

Citing Mossad sources, a Thursday report in ProPublica said that as the war began on June 13 at 3 a.m., “S.T. and a foreign legion of roughly 70 commandos opened fire with drones and missiles on a carefully chosen list of anti-aircraft batteries and ballistic missile launchers…. The next day, another group of Iranians and others recruited from the region launched a second wave of attacks inside Iran.”

Intelligence officials, the report said, called the commando attacks “pivotal,” as they “allow[ed] Israel’s air force to carry out wave after wave of bombing runs without losing a single plane.”

In a move attributed to an effort at psychological warfare, the Mossad publicized during the war video clips of its men deep inside Iran launching kamikaze drones from isolated areas.

Agents also reportedly followed and watched senior Iranian military commanders and nuclear scientists for months so the Israelis would know their routines and be able to strike them from the air, at times even sending missiles directly into their bedrooms.

This could be accomplished by jets or local rockets, but several of the scientists were also assassinated by car bombs, a mission only possible with operatives on the ground.

During the war itself, Iranian media reported that the authorities had found vehicles used for smuggling Israeli equipment and weaponry into the country, showed suspected safe houses used for their storage, and publicized the discovery of a secret workshop right outside Tehran in which drones had been made, along with GPS devices and 200 kilos of explosives.

The ProPublica report mentioned that “tons” of weaponry had been smuggled into Iran by “unwitting truck drivers.”

Smuggling is a known way of life on several of Iran’s borders, especially from neighboring Afghanistan and Iraq, which have weak central governments.