Four men were hanged at dawn in Iran on Monday after being sentenced to death for collaborating with Israeli spy services in a plot to sabotage an Iranian defense facility, the Justice Department said.
The four convicts were arrested on July 23, 2022 while preparing an operation on behalf of the Mossad against a Defense Ministry center in Isfahan, a major city in central Iran, the Mizan Online agency said.
The Intelligence Ministry then announced that it had “identified a network of agents of the Zionist spy organization, all of whose members had been arrested,” according to Mizan.
They were sentenced to death in September 2023.
According to the Justice Department, these four men were recruited by the Israeli foreign intelligence agency Mossad “approximately a year and a half before the operation.” They were then sent to African countries for “training courses in the military centers of these countries.” Mossad officers were present at these training sessions, the agency said.
The two countries have been at war for years.
Israel accuses Iran of wanting to acquire the nuclear bomb, which it denies, and says it is trying by all means to prevent it. Israel also wants to counteract Iran's influence in the Middle East.
In return, Tehran accuses him of being behind a series of sabotage and assassination attacks against its nuclear program.
In August 2023, Iran claimed to have foiled a “very complex” project initiated by Mossad to “sabotage” its ballistic missile industry. A few months earlier, in February, Tehran accused Israel of being responsible for a drone attack on a military compound in Isfahan.