Ever since Israel’s attack, the Iranian authorities have asked citizens to alert them to anyone carrying bags, wearing sunglasses at night or even donning hats — an uncommon accessory in Iran.
They have urged the public to report stolen license plates, pickup trucks with covered beds, or vans traveling at odd hours. All of these, they warn, could be the telltale signs of enemies operating from within.
Reeling from the scope and scale of the Israeli strikes this month, Iran is conducting an intensive manhunt for suspected infiltrators and spies, and enlisting the public in the campaign. As authorities have swept up hundreds of people, the government has sped up trials and executions of alleged spies, and fast-tracked a law to broaden the use of the death penalty for anyone convicted of espionage.
Given the scale of the arrest campaign even after this past week’s cease-fire, some in Iran fear this could become another crackdown on political opponents by a government with a long history of repressing dissent.
“Like a wounded animal, the Islamic Republic is going after every perceived threat in the country with deadly force,” Hadi Ghaemi, the director for the Center for Human Rights in Iran, said in a statement on Thursday.
Iranian officials are not simply paranoid.
Israel has a history of successfully infiltrating Iran to gather intelligence and carry out assassinations and sabotage. Officials on both sides say that in the recent war, Israel flaunted its ability to build networks and launch widespread attacks from within Iran.
Iranian officials have recently reported a number of clues that they say point to Israel’s foreign intelligence service, the Mossad, being aided by operatives on the ground. They include evidence that Israeli missiles were assembled and deployed within the country, and the discovery of thousands of miniature attack drones in the capital, Tehran.
“It’s clear the Mossad has a very wide network inside Iran — and probably 90 percent of them are locals,” Mohammad Ali Shabani, an Iran analyst who edits the independent regional news site Amwaj.media, said this past week. “The big question is: Who are they? Fingers are being pointed all over the place.”
Within hours of first striking Iran on June 13, Israel demonstrated a stunning breadth and accuracy of intelligence by killing a string of top generals and nuclear scientists in their homes. The attacks also destroyed missile launchers and air defenses, and forced Iran’s supreme leader into hiding.
“We had a massive security and intelligence breach. There is no denying this,” Mahdi Mohammadi, a senior adviser to Iran’s speaker of Parliament, said recently in an audio recording assessing damage from the brief war.
For years, Iran’s theocratic government has struggled with the problem of intelligence breaches. Now, its nationwide spy hunt comes at a particularly sensitive time.
Iranians who spoke to The New York Times, including some government critics, have shown a degree of understanding for Tehran’s security concerns.
But Iranian officials have shown little inclination, at least publicly, to reckon with their sweeping intelligence failures, even as they pursue an aggressive crackdown that rights groups say is disproportionately affecting ethnic and religious minorities, opposition figures and foreigners.
These groups say many of those swept up over the past two weeks were detained without warrants and given no access to lawyers. Amnesty International has expressed concern over expedited, “grossly unfair trials” and executions in several cases, and called Iran’s recent actions “a misguided attempt to project strength.”
Iranian officials did not respond to a request for comment.
On Wednesday, the Mossad released a rare video of its director, David Barnea, praising a room full of agents, their faces blurred, for their work on Iran.
“We will be there, like we’ve been there so far,” he said.
Iran’s Intelligence Ministry has vowed that its “intelligence jihad will undoubtedly continue” against Israeli operatives. And the government, which has acknowledged shutting down Iran’s internet for days out of concerns over cyber attacks, is still pushing Iranians to eschew international social media sites and stick to domestic online platforms.
Foreign agents seeking to recruit in Iran would not be at a loss to find discontented citizens among the population of about 90 million.
For decades, Iran has witnessed periods of popular protest, which were met by lethal crackdowns. There could also be strong financial incentives to spy, with Iran mired in a deep economic crisis that stems from decades of Western sanctions and government mismanagement.
Soroor, 39, a resident of Tehran, said she believed there was a vast network of spies in the country. She asked to be identified by only her first name, fearing repercussions for speaking to international reporters.
“In our own neighborhood, we reported a safe house,” she said, adding that she watched the authorities arrest several people and remove drones from the site. “I saw it all myself.”
The Iranian authorities say Israel’s partners on the ground were using safe houses to assemble missiles and drones that were then secretly transported, launched and detonated. They have allowed local news media to film what they said were drone workshops and compartments to hide drones on truck beds.
The Times was not able to independently verify the videos.
Seeking help to uncover these cells, the Iranian authorities have published notices on social media and news websites, sometimes with caricatures of saboteurs wielding tools and cobbling together equipment.
“If you have rented out your property or house in recent months, either through conventional or unconventional means, under the guise of residential use to a company on a short-term or long-term basis, be sure to report the matter,” read one statement published by the government-affiliated Fars News Agency in the name Ahmad-Reza Radan, Iran’s police chief.
Since Israel attacked Iran on June 13, the Iranian authorities say they have uncovered more than 10,000 microdrones in Tehran alone, Fars reported. These miniature drones, sometimes operated by artificial intelligence, were used in some of the recent assassinations of scientists linked to the nuclear program, according to Iranian security officials quoted by Fars.
The Times could not independently verify these claims.
The authorities, seeking to encourage public cooperation, regularly announce when their arrests or weapons seizures came from what they say was assistance from ordinary Iranians.
“This is a public that usually does not want to have any contact with the intelligence ministry,” said Mr. Shabani, the Iran analyst. “In an authoritarian state, the less contact you have with those people, the better,” he added.
“But in an apparent new dynamic, some people seem to actually want to help them,” he added, arguing that the Israeli attack had mobilized a rally-around-the-flag effect.
Some moderate politicians have urged the authorities to build on public support with some soul-searching.
“The war and the unity among the people has created an opportunity to change our views on governance and the behavior of our officials,” President Masoud Pezeshkian told his cabinet, according to the state news media.
“This is a golden opportunity for change,” said Mr. Pezeshkian, who was elected on a campaign to improve the foundering economy and engage with the West.
Mohammed Reza, a 40-year-old resident of the city of Tabriz in northwestern Iran, said it was only a matter of time before the government broadened the crackdown to repress its political opponents.
“Right now, they want to make sure no one mocks the regime or has hope for regime change,” he said by text message. “The regime’s main fear is that people will perceive it as weak. Because if people know it lacks power, they will revolt.”
Kiana Hayeri and Leily Nikounazar contributed reporting.
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