Iran hanged a man on Monday for spying on Israel's intelligence agency, escalating already heightened tensions between Tel Aviv and Tehran. Mohammad Amin Mahdavi Shayesteh was hanged, Iranian judicial authorities said, after he was convicted of spying on behalf of the Israeli intelligence service Mossad.
Mohammad Amin Mahdavi Shayesteh was executed this morning for cooperation with the Zionist regime's intelligence," Iran's judiciary stated, using Israel's name as is commonly used by the Islamic Republic.
Shayesteh was detained in 2023 on charges of cooperating with Mossad. His execution is the most recent turning point in an expanding tide of counter-intelligence efforts as the conflict between Iran and Israel intensifies.
Only days before that, on June 14, Iranian officials had conducted a distinct execution of yet another person charged with spying for Mossad. Iranian state-run Mehr News Agency verified the death of Esmail Fekri, who was said to have been arrested in December 2023 in a secret intelligence sweep by Iranian security forces.
"Israeli Mossad spy executed after full criminal trial, the verdict being upheld by Iran's Supreme Court," Mehr cited.
While details surrounding Fekri’s arrest, the charges against him, and the trial proceedings remain scant due to the classified nature of such cases, Iran’s judiciary outlet Mizan News Agency claimed that Fekri had attempted to pass sensitive and classified state information to Israeli handlers in exchange for payment.
These hangings come after another in late May, when Iran executed a man named Pedram Madani, who was also charged with spying for the Israeli state.
Complementing the atmosphere of increased suspicion and clandestine confrontation, Iranian media on Sunday reported that two people were detained in Alborz province, west of Tehran, for alleged Mossad connections. On the same day, Israeli security forces declared the detention of two people suspected of employment for Iran's intelligence network.
These mutual interests in arrests and killings reflect the two intelligence services' increasing shadow war. Mossad and Iran's security establishment have been locked in a game of tit-for-tat actions including espionage, sabotage, cyber warfare, aerial attacks, and killings for decades.
A number of sources have said that Israeli agents were most likely based within Iran and had been involved in smuggling weapons there long before recent aerial attacks.
With tensions still escalating, these events further destabilize a high-risk West Asian region, where both open military intervention and clandestine intelligence warfare are occurring simultaneously, attracting the interest of global actors and regional players alike.
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