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At first, Masih Alinejad didnt believe the F.B.I. The Iranian-born journalist and activist thought that she was safe after going into exile, in 2009, even as government propaganda continued to target her from afar. State television variously reported that she was a drug addict, accused her of being a spy for Western governments, and claimed that she had been raped in a London subway. Her parents and siblings, who remained in their village, in northern Iran, were repeatedly harassed, threatened with loss of employment, and instructed to lure Alinejad to neighboring Turkey for a family reunion, so that agents could supposedly just talk to her, she told me last week. In 2018, Alinejads sister was forced to go on prime-time television to say that the family was disgraced by Alinejads behavior; they disowned her. After the show, her sobbing mother, who is illiterate and had been married off at the age of fourteen, called Alinejad to report that the government had tried to get her parents to appear on the program, too. Stalin would have been proud, Alinejad recounted in an Op-Ed in the Times, in 2018. Her brother, Alireza, warned her about a potential trap. In 2019, he was arrested, and the next year he was sentenced to eight years in prisonfive for assembly and collusion for action against the countrys security, two for insulting Irans Supreme Leader, and another year for propaganda against the regime, his lawyer reported. Amnesty International condemned the relentless persecution. Arresting the relatives of an activist in an attempt to intimidate her into silence is a despicable and cowardly move, a representative for the organization said. Alinejads brother remains in jail.

Yet the warning from the F.B.I., late last year, struck Alinejadwho now has five million followers on Instagram, a million on her Facebook campaign against compulsory hijab-wearing, a quarter million on Twitter, and a show on the Voice of Americas Persian-language serviceas too bizarre even for the Islamic Republic. In September, F.B.I. agents showed up at her home in Brooklyn, where she was living with her husband and stepchildren, to report that they had uncovered a plot by Iranian intelligence to kidnap or kill her. My first reaction was laughing. I was making a joke, she told me. I told them, Im used to it. I received death threats daily on social media. The agents then revealed that private investigators, allegedly hired by an Iranian intelligence network, had been closely surveilling her for months. They showed her photographs that the operatives had taken of her hourly movements, and also pictures of her family, friends, visitors, home, and even the cars in her neighborhood. When I saw my photosthey even took pictures of my stepsonI was shocked. I got goosebumps. Hes fourteen, she said. She agreed to go to a safe housefirst one, then another, then a third, over several months. It was the beginning of a series of traumas that included separation from her stepchildren, helping the F.B.I. agents create traps for the Iranian network, and the demise of her unwatered houseplants.

On July 13th, the Department of Justice disclosed the details of the pernicious caper. This is not some far-fetched movie plot, the F.B.I. assistant director William F. Sweeney, Jr., said. We allege a group, backed by the Iranian government, conspired to kidnap a U.S. based journalist here on our soil and forcibly return her to Iran. Four Iranian intelligence agents, or assets, led by Alireza Farahani, were charged with conspiring to abduct Alinejad to stop her from continuing to mobilize public opinion in Iran and around the world to bring about changes to the regimes laws and practices, the U.S. announcement said.

The Iranian kidnapping schemewhich appears to be the first publicized case on U.S. soildated back to at least June, 2020. According to the D.O.J. announcement, the plotters had identified travel routes from Alinejads home to a Brooklyn waterfront, researched a service offering military-style speedboats for maritime evacuation out of New York, and studied sea travel from New York to Venezuela, which has close ties with the Islamic Republic. In a detailed e-mail, Kiya Sadeghi, another of the four indicted Iranian intelligence agents, even instructed the private investigators to take pictures of the envelopes in Alinejads mailbox. Kindly be discreet as they are on the look out, he wrote. The private investigators were told that they were tracking a missing person who had skipped out on debt repayment in Dubai. Last week, the F.B.I. insisted that it had foiled Irans scheme in the United States. Not on our watch, Sweeney said.

Ironically, the nefarious plot has only exposed the regimes profound insecurities and paranoia, four decades after ousting Irans millennia-old monarchy. Even now, they are scared of their own people, Alinejad, the author of The Wind in My Hair: My Fight for Freedom in Modern Iran, told me. They can censor papers. They can arrest journalists. They can shut down any party, or any womens-rights organization. But they cannot do anything to people sharing stories with me about how they are being oppressed.

Predictably, Irans Ministry of Foreign Affairs denied the U.S. charges. This is not the first time that the United States resorts to such Hollywood-like scenarios, the Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh told a local news agency. But Irans ambitious campaign to silence critics in far-flung places is far from over. The same Iranian intelligence network is also targeting Iranian-born activists living in Canada, Britain, and the United Arab Emirates, the Department of Justice said last week. The Islamic Republic has already succeeded at suppressing other dissidents abroad. In 2019, Iran lured Ruhollah Zam from exile in Paris to Iraq on false pretenses. Like Alinejad, Zam used social mediathrough Amad News, which he launched, and the messaging platform Telegramto amplify public anger and activism, with messages and videos sent to him from inside Iran. He gained more than a million followers on Telegram after posting videos of protests over deteriorating economic conditions, in 2017. He thought that he was safe as long as he was outside Iran. When he arrived in Iraq, Zam was abducted by agents of the Revolutionary Guard and taken back to Tehran, where he was convicted of corruption on earth last year. He was hanged, at the notorious Evin Prison, in December.

Alinejad was not the first American citizen to be targeted. Since the 1979 Revolution, dozens of Americans, and also dual nationals, have been detained in Iran or by its proxies in Lebanon. Four are still being held in Tehran: the businessman Siamak Namazi; his elderly father, Baquer Namazi; the environmental conservationist Morad Tahbaz; and the businessman Emad Sharghi. Worldwide, Iran is increasingly aggressive against exiles, foreign social-media platforms, and other governments. On Thursday, Facebook announced that it had taken down some two hundred accounts run by a group of Iranian hackers, known as Tortoiseshell, who were targeting U.S. military personnel and employees at major defense agencies. This activity had the hallmarks of a well-resourced and persistent operation, while relying on relatively strong operational security measures to hide whos behind it, Facebook said.

The hackers created sophisticated fictitious profilesoften across multiple platformsin order to collect information, install malware, and trick targets into providing personal information. They pretended to be recruiters in American defense, aerospace, medical, travel, and journalism companies, including CNN. One of the fake job-recruitment sites was modelled on the job-search Web site for the U.S. Department of Labor. They even created fake accounts for branches of the Trump Organization. Microsoft, LinkedIn, and Alphabet also reported detecting operations by the Iranian group on their sites; Twitter said that it was investigating. The Facebook investigation traced a portion of the malware to Mahak Rayan Afraz, an I.T. company in Tehran linked to the Revolutionary Guard.

The alleged kidnapping and hacking operations come at a tenuous juncture for the Biden Administration, which in the spring reopened diplomacy to revive the 2015 nuclear accord between the worlds six major powers and Iran. Donald Trump had withdrawn the United States from the dealknown as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Actionin 2018. The negotiations, in Vienna, have been stalled since their sixth round, in June. Over the weekend, Iran announced that it would not participate again until after the inauguration of President-elect Ebrahim Raisi, the hard-line former chief of the judiciary, and the accompanying transfer of power, in early August.

U.S. officials are concerned that the next Iranian government will reject the deal currently on the tableand try to start from scratch, which is unacceptable to the Biden Administration. Tensions escalated over the weekend, after the lead Iranian negotiator, Abbas Araghchi, tweeted that the U.S. should not link the nuclear deal to an exchange of prisoners. Iran, the United States, and Britain could immediately exchange ten detainees, he claimed, without specifying how many from each nation or their identities. In the last major swap, in January, 2016, Iran released five Americans and the United States dropped charges against seven Iranians. The State Department spokesman Ned Price lambasted Irans delay as an outrageous effort to deflect blame for the diplomatic impasse. Araghchis comment about an imminent exchange of detainees, he said, was just another cruel effort to raise the hopes of their families. He added, If Iran were truly interested in making a humanitarian gesture, it would simply release the detainees immediately. The Administration is already facing calls by Republicans to suspend the negotiations altogether.

Meanwhile, Alinejad is still under police protection. The night of the U.S. announcement, she tweeted a video of herselfnow back at homesitting next to a window, with a police car, lights flashing, outside. The four Iranian intelligence agents indicted by the U.S. are still in Iran. The only person arrested was Nellie Bahadorifar, an Iranian-born woman living in California. She was charged with multiple counts of facilitating the plot by providing access to the U.S. financial system, paying the local investigators, and dealing with cash deposits of almost a half million dollars on behalf of the Iranian intelligence network. The prospect of real justice seems elusive. So does any respect for human rights by the Iranian regime.

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Irans Kidnapping Plot Exposes Its Paranoia - The New Yorker

Deterring the United States from "bullying and interventions" in Muslim countries is rewarding Jihad, Irans Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei tells the Muslim world in his Hajj message published Monday.

After months of negotiations with Washington and three European powers to revive the 2015 nuclear deal, Khamenei does not pull punches in a message he delivers annually on the occasion of Hajj, a sacred duty for all Muslims.

This years message is not so different in its content from previous years when the aging anti-Western cleric routinely lambasted the US for opposing his military and regional policies. But this year the message comes amid more than three months of serious talks in Vienna, when many in the West spoke of confidence building with the Islamic Republic to revive the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, JCPOA.

But most of all, this years message perhaps shows Khameneis frustration that the West insists on discussing Irans interference in regional countries. The United States has said time and again that restoring JCPOA is prelude to more talks to resolve regional issues. Khameneis message is full of references to young people rising against US domination and the West blaming Iran for the resistance.

Last year, Khamenei also unleashed a harsh attack on the United States, but that could be seen as a response to former President Donald Trump who imposed maximum pressure on Iran and in essence demanded capitulation on many fronts.

This year, President Joe Biden has adopted a different approach, calling for talks and compromise to resurrect the Obama-era agreement, which means at least most of the heavy sanctions imposed by his predecessor would be lifted, offering Iran a financial lifeline.

Khamenei called for strengthening the resistance forces against the United States a jargon for Islamic Republics allies and militant proxies in the region, such as the Hezbollah in Lebanon, Shiite militias in Iraq, Houthis in Yemen and Bashar al-Assad in Syria.

Khamenei in his message also repeated his anti-Western rhetoric, that backwardness of Muslim countries is the fault of the West because of their evil machinations, domination and arrogance against the Muslim world. Although this message has some receptive ears among Muslims, many Sunnis see Khamenei as a Shiite cleric whose rhetoric is crafted from the standpoint of his interests.

Others see that Khameneis view of history, at least in case of Iran is flawed. When Europe began to rise and mustered technology and military power, Iran was suffering from the domination of religious dogma and superstitions, with no secular education, corrupt and weak monarchies where science and good governance were lacking. In fact, it was Ottoman Sultans and Persian kings who realized that they had to emulate the West to maintain independence and compete.

Khamenei argued in his message that Muslim nations had no role and no say in the affairs of their countries in the past 150 years. But he blamed this on the West instead of questioning the authoritarian impulses of local rulers, such as himself. The Islamic Republics violations of human rights and campaign against dissidents is well documented.

Khamenei called for resistance against the United States and condemned inaction and incompetence among Muslim governments, while Iran is now in the grips of multiple crises. One clear example is its inability to vaccinate its population against Covid-19, while other Muslim countries with oil wealth are well ahead in the game with 30-75 percent of the population vaccinated.

Khamenei is known for his anti-Western impulses. In his political worldview Russia or China can do no wrong because they are also anti-Western. He never mentions Russian domination of millions of Muslims and their forced secularization, or in fact Communist indoctrination.

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Amid Negotiations, Iran's Khamenei Unleashes Attack On The US - Iran International

ISTANBUL (AP) Security forces in eastern Turkey have conducted a major operation against people traffickers bringing migrants across the Iranian border, the provincial governors office said Monday.

More than 1,450 migrants were found in abandoned buildings around Mount Erek, which towers over the city of Van, since July 10, Van governors office said.

Eleven organizers were detained, six of whom have been held in prison by a court order. The statement added that 11 barrack-style buildings for holding migrants had been demolished.

The operation comes amid concerns over a possible spike in migrants from Afghanistan before the U.S. pullout and intense fighting between the Taliban and Afghan government forces.

Describing earlier operations by police and border agents, backed by aerial drones, the governors office said 27,230 migrants had been caught crossing the Iranian border so far this year.

Turkeys border with Iran has long been a popular smuggling route for people, mainly Afghans, Iranians and Pakistanis, seeking to enter Turkey before heading west to cities such as Istanbul and Ankara.

The migrants typically hope to raise money in Turkey by working in the black market before heading on to Europe.

Turkey, which hosts around 4 million refugees, is currently building new security measures on its eastern border. Afghans are believed to be the second-largest refugee community after Syrians.

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Turkish operation on Iran border halts over 1,450 migrants - Associated Press

Outgoing Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif wrote in a report to parliament that the Biden administration has agreed to lift almost all U.S. sanctions on Iran to secure a mutual return to the 2015 nuclear deal.

Why it matters: The report includes details that hadn't been made public before now and is the most official and comprehensive Iranian account of the status of the indirect talks with the U.S.

According to Zarif's report, Biden is prepared to remove not only the sanctions reimposed by former President Donald Trump when he withdrew from the deal, but also most of the sanctions Trump later imposed under his "maximum pressure" strategy.

Zarif's report also covered the steps Iran would have to take to reach a deal, including implementing the additional protocol that allows stricter UN nuclear inspections, redesigning the Arak Heavy Water Reactor, limiting enrichment to 3.67% and turning over more than 300 kg of uranium enriched beyond that level.

What he's saying: Iran has proved it can revive its nuclear program very quickly if it needs to, sometimes even in less than a day," Zarif writes.

Between the lines: Zarif is a longtime advocate of diplomacy on the nuclear issue, and his report stresses what Iran stands to gain from a deal while downplaying any Iranian concessions.

Whats next: Zarif writes that a framework of possible agreement had been reached and he hopes what has been achieved so far will be completed in the beginning of the incoming Iranian government."

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U.S. prepared to lift nearly all Iran sanctions, Zarif tells parliament - Axios

In the long war between Iran and its rivals in the Middle East, most of it occurring beneath the surface, Tehran is increasingly using remotely piloted drones to mount attacks. In May and June the Iranians were behind at least five such attacks against American bases in Syria and Iraq.

Earlier, on May 18, while Israel was deep in the air war with Gaza, an Iranian drone was launched from Iraq, passed over Jordan and entered Israeli airspace before being downed over the Beit Shean Valley in the north.

Israel released few details on the downing of the aircraft, though both then-Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces, Aviv Kochavi, mentioned the stymieing of the drone in speeches at the end of the fighting with Gaza. Netanyahu views the incident as proof that Iran is the true patron of terrorism in the Middle East.

Gen. Kenneth McKenzie, Jr., the head of U.S. Central Command, warned in April that the region is becoming a proving ground for drones, most of them Iranian-made. Iran isnt the only player in the region that covets these weapons. For Hamas, which employed them liberally before and during the fighting in May, drones let the group, to some degree, respond to Israels vast air superiority a cheap substitute for an air force.

The moment that transformed the regions perception of drones occurred in September 2019, when Iran attacked Saudi oil facilities. The attack caused huge damage to a site of Saudi Aramco, the worlds biggest oil company, and disrupted oil exports from the kingdom for several months.

The Iranian Revolutionary Guards big success a coordinated strike of drones and cruise missiles on targets about 1,000 kilometers (621 miles) away stunned military experts in Israel and the West. To the Iranians, it didnt matter that many of their drones apparently didnt reach their target. The impact on the consciousness was more important.

The IDF believes that the choice to massively develop drones makes sense for Iran. It jibes with the old Iranian ethos linking scientific and technological progress, independent manufacturing and self-reliance within what Spiritual Leader Ali Khamenei likes to call the resistance economy.

The Iranians specialize in making replicas, good or less so, of advanced weapons systems produced in other countries, based on reverse engineering of these weapons. Some of the final products dont meet Western standards, but Iran believes the results are sufficient.

Operational and strategic constraints also play a part. For many years Iran invested in developing rockets and missiles of various ranges. The trouble is that a ballistic missile is heavy, awkward and inflexible. True, its an important deterrent, but its noisy, as it were, and doesnt allow for deniability as drones do. When Iran launched missiles at American bases in Iraq, after the assassination of the Guards Quds Force chief Qassem Soleimani, the Americans reacted fiercely.

But with a drone, a military source in Israel says, its easier to dream. The Iranians use of drones is influenced by what the Americans and especially the Israelis did with them earlier, in the so-called war between the wars.

From the operational angle, a chisel is sometimes preferable to a hammer. Drones are relatively easy to operate, require small launch crews and are easy to move between sectors and organizations. Its easy to train soldiers to operate them, and the drones can be launched in various ways and from a variety of platforms.

From the strategic angle, the adversary can be harassed without prompting a harsh response that will lead to war. Organizations that dont actually exist claimed responsibility for some of the drone attacks in Iraq, though it can be surmised that Shiite militias run by Iran were behind these efforts. Drones are also an alternative to Iranian fighter planes, which simply dont exist except for ancient American Phantoms dating to the shahs time.

According to a survey published this year on the website Iran Primer, in 2004 the Iranians started transferring drones and spare parts to their partners in at least four parts of the Middle East: Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen and the Gaza Strip. Drones were also smuggled to Venezuela, whose government is friendly with Iran.

The Iranian drones are divided between intelligence-collecting missions and attack/suicide missions. They have different ranges, from hovercraft with a range of 15 kilometers to drones that can fly 1,700 kilometers.

The attacks have targeted the United States, Israel, Saudi Arabia and extremist Sunni organizations in Syria and Iraq. In an article for the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies, the analyst Fabian Hinz describes the drone deliveries to the militias as part of Irans asymmetric strategy designed to offset the countrys military weaknesses. Hinz discerns an Iranian approach that combines arms smuggling, manufacturing in the target countries and the installation of precision kits to improve rockets.

In tweets at the beginning of July, Hinz discussed Khameneis visit to a Revolutionary Guards weapons exhibition in 2014 where new drones and missiles were on display. It turns out that some of these weapons were used in the attack on Saudi Arabia five years later. Hinz concludes that some of the systems are actually made by the Revolutionary Guards and not by Irans military industries.

The impression gleaned by the IDF is that the Iranians have completed the whole production chain in developing drones. Theyre developing all the basic components themselves the body of the aircraft, the engine, the navigation systems, the ability to ensure a low radar signature and to maneuver between the flight range and the weight of the load, a military source says.

The Iranians have sewed themselves a comfortable suit, with an effective means that can be used both in the war between the wars and in wartime. Theres no tiebreaker here: Drones are intended for harassment, collection and deterrence, not for victory. But their progress has been significant. Its no wonder the Americans, like us, are worried about it.

The next big thing

The urgent need for an enhanced response to drones and hovercraft has been raised in all the recent security meetings between Israel and the United Sates, including the Washington visits by Gantz and Kochavi. At the same time, intelligence and radar cooperation has been upgraded between Israel and Centcom, whose units are scattered throughout the region. It cant be ruled out that this was linked to the interception of the Iranian drone over northern Israel in May.

In addition, adjustments have been made to the Iron Dome system, which originally wasnt intended to battle drones, which fly at modest speeds. During the fighting in May, tweaks let Iron Dome intercept drones for the first time.

The challenge that the drones of Iran and its satellites pose to us is constantly increasing, a senior General Staff officer told Haaretz. Were working to improve our capability, but we arent yet sure that the response is complete.

Another officer added: The problem isnt only the meager radar signature that the drones leave, its that so many organizations operated by Iran already possess them. Along with improving our defense, we need to develop the possibility to identify Iranian responsibility for attacks.

At the moment, theyre under the mistaken impression that they have ... room for deniability that will blur their responsibility and prevent a response against them. That might have worked on the Saudis; it must not be allowed to work on us.

Drones great power was illustrated in the past year in two offensives that Israel took part in, one of them directly. The first was the Nagorno-Karabakh war between Azerbaijan and Armenia during the fall, the second was the fighting with Gaza.

In the six weeks of the war in the Caucasus, the Azerbaijanis had the upper hand, largely thanks to their massive use of Israeli- and Turkish-made drones. The Armenians had to ask for a cease-fire.

Military experts in the West believe that the drone attacks provided the Azerbaijanis with an immense advantage; they systematically hit Armenian infantry, armor and artillery. That success will likely step up the production of drones around the world, along with small hovercraft that fly lower.

As they did with the Iranians, the drones gave the Azerbaijanis a simple and cheap way to use precision munitions. Azerbaijan also published footage of its hits on Armenian troops.

The Washington Post wrote that the Nagorno-Karabakh war provided the most vivid illustration of drones ability to change a campaign hitherto dictated by planes and ground forces. The war also showed that even advanced weapons, from radar to tanks, are exposed to destruction from the air in the absence of a specific defense.

The Armenians aging Soviet antiaircraft systems couldnt cope, and the drone attacks opened a path for ground advances. According to various estimates, about a third of the Armenian tanks were destroyed in these attacks.

Israel took the use of drones and hovercraft one step further in the fighting in May. For the first time, swarms of drones attacked Hamas after rocket launchers were spotted. This method is based on a rapid analysis of information received via artificial intelligence to identify launch sites.

The swarms were set in motion with the drones communicating and coordinating among one another. Part of Israels progress will be presented to foreign air forces in a first international exercise of its kind that the air force will soon host.

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Irans drone revolution takes off - Haaretz