June 27, 2025
By: The Juice Editorial Team

In response to a dozen days of Israeli and US airstrikes aimed at wiping out Iran’s nuclear program, the theocratic regime has launched a widespread crackdown on its own people to smother dissent and ferret out alleged collaborators with its foreign adversaries.

The oppressive Middle Eastern government executed three people in Urmia near the Turkish border on Wednesday. It has arrested hundreds more since Israel launched its bombing campaign on June 13. The regime’s targets are political dissidents, ethnic minorities, and separatist groups. In many cases, the detainees, including the three who were put to death, are accused of spying for Israel.

“This crackdown was inevitable,” Sanam Vakil, who directs the Middle East and North Africa program at the Chatham House think tank in London, told NBC News. “I think it’s going to be quite extensive and quite prolonged.”

Vakil and others say the Iranian government is eager to erase any appearance of weakness amid deepening public discontent with the regime due to rising economic hardship and ongoing political repression. Opposition groups had hoped the airstrikes on Iran’s Revolutionary Guard and security apparatus, as well as on nuclear sites, would trigger a massive revolt. So far, that has not happened.

“We are being extremely cautious right now because there’s a real concern the regime might use this situation as a pretext,” an unidentified rights activist in Tehran, jailed in 2022 during mass protests, told The Guardian.

The three who were executed were accused of working with Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency. Iran’s state media, the Fars News Agency, reported that the government had arrested more than 700 “Israeli mercenaries.” The regime’s suspicions about foreign infiltration aren’t entirely without merit, however. During the Israeli air attacks, Mossad released videos of agents firing missiles at Iranian targets from within the country.