A combination picture shows satellite images over Fordow underground complex, before and after the US struck the underground nuclear facility, near Qom, Iran, June 20, 2025, left, and June 22, 2025. Photo: Reuters/Maxar Technologies

Central Intelligence Agency Director John Ratcliffe on Wednesday said a body of credible intelligence indicated that Iran’s nuclear program was severely damaged by recent U.S. strikes, and that it would take years to be rebuilt.

“This includes new intelligence from a historically reliable and accurate source/method that several key Iranian nuclear facilities were destroyed and would have to be rebuilt over the course of years,” Ratcliffe said in a statement.

Iran’s Shiite cleric leadership is working to stop a revolution in the country before it can start. The efforts come in the wake of Israel’s and the United States’ attacks on a number of the country’s nuclear facilities.

Following a fragile ceasefire with Israel, Iranian authorities have intensified an internal crackdown — executing three people accused of spying for Mossad and arresting more than 700 others on charges that range from espionage to political dissent.

The executed individuals were allegedly caught smuggling assassination equipment into the country, according to a news agency connected to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. State-affiliated Mizan News Agency described those arrested as “Mossad spies.”

The regime ordered increased security operations across the country, particularly in Kurdish regions, following the Israeli strikes. Military and militia units have increased street patrols, set up checkpoints and conducted home searches.

Why is Iran targeting Kurdish and opposition groups?

Officials cite threats from separatists, foreign intelligence agents and the exiled MEK, a leading Iranian opposition group. Kurdish activists say more than 500 people have been arrested since Israel’s June 13 airstrikes.

Analysts view the current response as consistent with previous crackdowns after mass protests, including the 2009 Green Movement and the 2022 “Woman, Life, Freedom” uprising.

Sanam Vakil of Chatham House told NBC News that the repression was “inevitable” and “prolonged,” reflecting a regime that historically acts to suppress unrest before it gains momentum.

Following the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Iran’s clerical leadership prioritized internal control with a state-wide security infrastructure. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has maintained this model, particularly in response to rhetoric from U.S. and Israeli leaders discussing possible regime change.

What actions are Iranian security forces taking?

Security forces have ramped up operations in minority regions, deploying IRGC and Basij units to conduct raids, search homes and block roads. Activists report that schools and civilian buildings have been used as staging grounds.

According to the Human Rights Activists News Agency, 705 people have been arrested since mid-June. Amnesty International warns that detainees, especially among ethnic minorities, face torture, coerced confessions and secret trials without legal safeguards.

Advocacy groups around the world have condemned the executions and mass detentions, calling them pretexts for silencing dissent. Critics warn of due process violations and say Iran’s use of capital punishment and sexual violence remains unchecked.

How does this reflect Iran’s record on human rights?

The current crackdown builds on years of systemic abuse. After violently suppressing the 2022 protests, Iranian authorities ramped up surveillance, imposed stricter veiling laws and increased executions. Amnesty has documented secret trials, rape and torture against detainees, including minors, with no independent investigations.

Iran is pushing through sweeping legal reforms to toughen penalties for alleged collaboration with foreign governments, following the end of a brutal 12-day war with Israel and the United States. The conflict, which claimed over 600 lives in Iran, ended with a ceasefire on Monday but has triggered a wave of internal crackdowns.

In a national address on Tuesday night, President Masoud Pezeshkian declared a “historic victory,” vowing that attempts to divide the Iranian people would fail. Meanwhile, Iran’s parliament passed legislation to intensify punishment for espionage and cooperation with what it terms “hostile governments” primarily Israel and the US.

The new bill, approved on Monday, would broaden the legal definition of espionage and allow certain actions to be punished as “corruption on Earth,” a charge that carries the death penalty. The law targets intelligence sharing, financial transactions including those made with cryptocurrencies, and individuals connected to weapons or tools deemed capable of causing chaos.

Alireza Salimi, a senior parliamentary official, said the proposal would give security forces greater freedom to arrest and prosecute suspected collaborators. Judiciary spokesperson Asghar Jahangir added that Iran’s current espionage laws are outdated and insufficient for the threats the country faces.

The crackdown has already led to a string of executions. On Wednesday, three men were executed in Urmia, accused of smuggling assassination equipment into Iran. The judiciary linked the case to the 2020 killing of nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, which Tehran blames on Israel. Since the war began on June 13, three other men have been executed for alleged espionage involving Israel.

Authorities report at least 700 arrests nationwide, with dozens of indictments already issued. Arrests include 115 in Kermanshah, 53 in Fars, and 36 in Gilan province. Prosecutors in Khuzestan announced charges against 23 people for “sabotage and propaganda” against the state.

International watchdog Amnesty International condemned the swift executions, warning that Iran is using the death penalty as a tool of fear and repression. The group also raised concerns about unfair trials and lack of due process.

Digital censorship is also escalating. Iranians have reported receiving warnings from the judiciary’s crime prevention department for following or engaging with pro-Israel social media pages. The message threatened punishment unless users removed supportive content and unfollowed such accounts.

Legislators are also clamping down on drone use, following reports that Israel deployed small explosive drones inside Iranian territory during the conflict. A new bill sets harsh penalties for owning unlicensed drones.

In a separate development, parliament approved a move to suspend cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), accusing the watchdog of complicity in US-Israeli strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities.

Lawmakers shouted anti-American and anti-Israeli slogans during the vote and expressed support for withdrawing from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty if necessary.

According to US media, recent airstrikes failed to destroy Iran’s heavily fortified nuclear sites, frustrating President Donald Trump. The IAEA has since stated it does not know the current location of over 400 kilograms of Iran’s 60% enriched uranium, a stockpile close to weapons-grade material.

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A report on Iranian state television on June 13, 2025 said that six men had been arrested as Israeli spies planning attacks in Iran. The weapons supposedly seized from the men are all widely available in Iran; none appeared to be of Israeli manufacture.

Iranian state media announced on Wednesday that Iran’s security forces have arrested more than 700 people on suspicion of belonging to an “Israeli spy network” since Israel’s June 13 attack.

The reports show men in prison jumpsuits confessing that they were recruited as Israeli spies, along with weapons they were supposedly planning to use. Analysts say the confessions are probably coerced, and an analysis of the images by the FRANCE 24 Observers team found no evidence of any Israeli-made weapons among the supposed seizures.

For its part, Iran is attempting to present itself as successfully arresting Israeli operatives and confiscating their weapons. The so-called “seized weapons” and arrested “Mossad agents” appear to be staged, as there is no credible evidence to substantiate these claims.

The 12-day war between Iran and Israel was, among other things, a devastating blow to Iranian intelligence. The Israeli military had precise intelligence on high-ranking generals, allowing them to successfully target and killing of at least 29 of them. And Israel’s intelligence agency, the Mossad, apparently succeeded in recruiting large numbers of Iranians to serve as agents on the ground in the deployment of guided missiles and FPVs.

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The Iranian intelligence services have not, however, shown any conclusive evidence to date of weapons they seized intact, before their deployment by supposed agents inside Iran.

State-affiliated media in Iran have published reports interviewing purported Israeli agents and showcasing ‘seized’ weapons.

However, in two instances where state media have presented images of these confiscated weapons, the photographs appear to be either fake or staged.

Read more on FRANCE 24 English

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FRANCE 24 verifies: Is Tehran’s ‘Israel doomsday’ clock still ticking?

Images and eyewitness accounts from Tehran’s Evin Prison after an Israeli strike

People attending a gathering to support Iran’s armed forces, after US President Donald Trump announced a ceasefire between Israel and Iran, in Tehran, Iran, on June 25. PHOTO: REUTERS

– US President Donald Trump revelled in the swift end to war between Iran and Israel, saying he now expected a relationship with Tehran that would preclude the rebuilding of its nuclear programme despite uncertainty over damage inflicted by US strikes.

As exhausted and anxious Iranians and Israelis both sought to resume normal life after the most intense confrontation between the two foes, Iran’s President suggested the war could lead to reforms at home.

Mr Trump, speaking in The Hague where he attended a North Atlantic Treaty Organisation summit on June 25, said his decision to join Israel’s attacks by targeting Iranian nuclear sites with huge bunker-busting bombs had ended the war, calling it “a victory for everybody”.

He shrugged off an initial assessment by the US Defence Intelligence Agency that Iran’s path to building a nuclear weapon may have been set back only by months, saying the findings were “inconclusive” and he believed the sites had been destroyed.

“It was very severe. It was obliteration,” he said.

He was confident Tehran would not try to rebuild its nuclear sites and would instead pursue a diplomatic path towards reconciliation, he said. “I’ll tell you, the last thing they want to do is enrich anything right now. They want to recover.”

If Iran tried to rebuild its nuclear programme, “we won’t let that happen. Number one, militarily we won’t”, he said, adding: “I think we’ll end up having something of a relationship with Iran to see (to) it.”

Iran president hints at domestic reforms

Israel’s bombing campaign, launched with a surprise attack on June 13, wiped out the top echelon of Iran’s military leadership, killed its leading nuclear scientists and targeted nuclear sites and missiles. Iran responded with missiles that pierced Israel’s defences in large numbers for the first time.

The Iranian authorities said 610 people were killed and nearly 5,000 injured in Iran, where the extent of the damage could not be independently confirmed because of tight restrictions on media. Twenty-eight people were killed in Israel.

Hours after Mr Trump announced the ceasefire, he claimed credit for preserving it by ordering Israel to halt further attacks with its planes already in flight. He used an obscenity on live television to say that the enemies had been fighting so long they did not know what they were doing.

Both Iran and Israel declared victory: Israel claiming to have achieved its goals of destroying Iran’s nuclear sites and missiles, and Iran claiming to have forced the end of the war by penetrating Israeli defences with its retaliation.

But Israel’s demonstration that it could target Iran’s senior leadership seemingly at will poses perhaps the biggest challenge ever for Iran’s clerical rulers, at a critical juncture when they must find a successor for Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, now 86 and in power for 36 years.

President Masoud Pezeshkian, a relative moderate elected in 2024 in a challenge to years of dominance by hardliners, said the atmosphere of national solidarity during the Israeli attacks would spur domestic reform.

“This war and the empathy that it fostered between the people and officials is an opportunity to change the outlook of management and the behaviour of officials so that they can create unity,” he said in a statement carried by state media.

Still, Iran’s authorities have moved swiftly to demonstrate their control. The judiciary announced the execution of three men on June 25 convicted of collaborating with Israel’s Mossad spy agency and smuggling equipment used in an assassination.

Iran had arrested 700 people accused of ties with Israel during the conflict, the state-affiliated Nournews reported.

During the war, Mr Netanyahu and Mr Trump publicly suggested it could end with the toppling of Iran’s entire system of clerical rule, established in its 1979 revolution.

But after the ceasefire, Mr Trump said he did not want to see “regime change” in Iran, which he said would bring chaos at a time when he wanted the situation to settle down.

Relief, apprehension, exhaustion

In Iran and Israel, residents expressed relief at the end of the worst confrontation ever between the two longstanding sworn enemy nations, but also apprehension over the future.

“We came back after the ceasefire was announced. People are relieved the war has stopped, but there’s a lot of uncertainty about what comes next,” said Madam Farah, 67, who returned to Tehran from Lavasan near the capital where she had fled to escape Israeli bombing.

Her grandchildren were worried that the authorities would respond by imposing more severe enforcement of dress codes and other restrictions on social freedoms, she said by phone: “The world will move on and forget about the war – but we’re the ones who will live with its consequences.”

In Tel Aviv, Ms Rony Hoter-Ishay Meyer, 38, said the war’s end brought mixed emotions – relief that children could return to school and normal life resume, but exhaustion from the stress.

“It’s very much tiring. Those past two weeks were catastrophic in Israel, and we are very much exhausted, and we need to get back to our normal energy.”

A rapprochement between Tehran and the West, however, would still require a deal governing Iran’s long-term nuclear ambitions in return for the lifting of US and international sanctions.

Iran has always denied seeking an atomic weapon, which Western countries have accused it of pursuing for decades.

The head of the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog, Mr Rafael Grossi, said his top priority was ensuring international inspectors could return to Iran’s nuclear sites, dismissing what he called the “hourglass approach” of trying to assess the damage in terms of months it would take Iran to rebuild.

“In any case, the technological knowledge is there, and the industrial capacity is there. That, no one can deny. So we need to work together with them,” he said.

Emergency personnel working amid debris at an impacted residential site, following a missile attack from Iran on Israel, in Be’er Sheva, Israel, on June 24. PHOTO: REUTERS

Iran had notified the watchdog during the war that it was taking special measures to protect nuclear material, but in order to verify what had happened to it, inspections must resume, he said.

Mr Trump’s Middle East envoy, Mr Steve Witkoff, said late on June 24 that talks between the US and Iran were “promising” and Washington was hopeful for “a long-term peace agreement that resurrects Iran”.

Iran’s Parliament approved a Bill on June 25 to suspend cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency, Nournews reported, but it added that such a move would require approval of Iran’s top security body. REUTERS

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