Nothing Will Be Left Of Israel If It Acts Against Iran – President Raisi

According to Swedish newspaper Expressen, the Stockholm District Court began Thursday planning for a meeting with the prosecutors and defense attorneys for the upcoming trial.

The details of the case against them are not very transparent as prosecutors Per Lindqvist and Mats Ljungqvist have commented very little on the substance of the allegations. Formal charges against the two are expected in the coming months and their trial will not be open to the public. Both brothers’ lawyers have so far maintained that their clients are innocent.

Both brothers, who were born in Iran but came to Sweden as children in 1994, are accused of spying activity from March of 2011 until their arrest in September and November of last year, and are currently kept in strict isolation at the Kronoberg prison. 

The Swedish paper did not mention their names but earlier reports at the time of their arrest disclosed their identities as Peyman Kia, now 42 years old, and his brother Payam, who is 35 years old.

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The older brother of the pair is said to have worked as an investigator and spent time in the Security Police (SÄPO) as well as working for military intelligence and the Office for Special Acquisition (KSI), one of Sweden’s most secretive intelligence agencies. The younger brother has also worked for SÄPO for a brief period. 

Tensions are relatively high between Iran and Sweden over a Swedish court’s sentencing of former Iranian jailor Hamid Nouri to life imprisonment over executions of political prisoners in 1988.

Axios correspondent Barak Ravid quoted a senior Israeli official as saying on Sunday that David Barnea will attend closed door classified meetings of House and Senate intelligence committees.

In remarks that were not coordinated with Prime Minister Yair Lapid, the spymaster described the emerging agreement "a strategic disaster" for Israel and the United States “is rushing into an accord that is ultimately based on lies,” referring to Iran’s claim that its nuclear activities are peaceful in nature.

Shortly after Barnea’s comments were published, Lapid called the Mossad chief, telling him he had gone off script in his criticism of the US and asking for a clarification.

Barnea’s visit is the latest effort by Israel to sway Western powers from returning to the landmark accord. 

Earlier in the day, Lapid said that Israel's “diplomatic fight” against the deal included its National Security Adviser Eyal Hulata and Defense Minister Benny Gantz holding recent meetings in the US.

“We are making a concerted effort to ensure the Americans and Europeans understand the dangers involved in this agreement,” Lapid said, reiterating that what was signed in 2015 was “not a good deal,” and that the one currently being discussed entails “greater dangers.”

Lapid and US President Joe Biden are likely to meet in September, Israel’s Kan news reported on Saturday, citing unnamed officials. 

Iran is currently reviewing the US response to its position earlier sent to the European Union, which acts as a mediator between the two sides.

Following their meeting on Saturday afternoon, President Ebrahim Raisi, Parliament Speaker Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf, and Chief Justice Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei warned against "media speculations" until the review of the case is completed by the judiciary.

Only the judiciary should review and assess the reports of the parliament’s investigation, and it is necessary to refrain from media speculations until these reports are scrutinized in judicial courts, they announced. 

Last week, a scathing report about an alleged $3 billion corruption case revealed massive irregularities and mismanagement in government-controlled Mobarakeh Steel Company, the largest steel producer in the Middle East and Northern Africa, which is located near the city of Mobarakeh, Esfahan Province. 

The over 250-page report says the company paid astronomical sums of money to various government entities including the Revolutionary Guard (IRGC), ministry of intelligence, police, state broadcaster (IRIB), Friday prayer imam’s offices, religious seminaries, and bribed others such as certain media outlets, individuals, and social media influencers.

The company, which has a share of around 1% in Iran's GDP, employs around 350,000 people directly and indirectly and feeds over 2,800 other large and small enterprises.

According to the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, the attack targeted a missile warehouse in the city’s Syrian Scientific Studies and Research Center (SSRC) complex that stored thousands of medium-range, surface-to-surface missiles assembled under the supervision of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard’s “expert officers.”

The observatory added that 14 Syrian civilians sustained injuries with varying levels of severity during the Masyaf airstrike, in addition to casualties reported among Iranian-backed militias guarding the research center– which is heavily damaged during the attack.

Moreover, several fires broke out in areas surrounding the city ignited by the shrapnel from the explosions of the warehouse, with nearby civilian houses and property suffering material damage, the report said. Secondary explosions continued for hours after the strikes, along with the blazes caused by them. Local residents were reportedly instructed to remain in shelters until the fires were brought under control.

In addition to the strikes attributed to Israel, the United States also engaged in a string of tit-for-tat attacks last week against Iranian militias in northern Syria who had targeted US forces with rockets and drones.

Iran-backed militias established a foothold in Syria while fighting in support of President Bashar al-Assad during Syria's civil war.

In a tweet on Sunday, Nour News, a website affiliated with the secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council (SNSC), Ali Shamkhani, said that “the precise examination of US's responses to Iran's modified pivots regarding the proposal of the European Union coordinator, is still ongoing at expert levels, and this process will continue at least until the end of this week.”

The Iranian week ends on Friday, September 2.

Meanwhile, Iran's hardline Kayhan Daily, affiliated with Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s office, has called on the government to leave the negotiations and proceed without reviving the landmark accord. 

“The path taken in these years has proven that with negotiations [Iran] cannot remove the sanctions, and with more negotiations only the scope of [other side’s] the demands will become wider,” the newspaper said.

The article noted that the capabilities of the Iranian government and the regional and global developments have provided the administration of Ebrahim Raisi with a good opportunity to correct the deviated path of the nuclear talks.

Removal of sanctions through negotiations is a bait that the US foreign policy officials have set on the hook, and the government can forget this bait and spend all its focus and energy on neutralizing the effects of the sanctions as it has been doing during the past year, the daily underlined. 

Unconfirmed parts of the US response to Iran have been leaked in Tehran, showing Washington’s rejection of three key Iranian demands.