Following 12 days of fighting between Iran and Israel, the Ayatollah regime in Tehran has significantly increased its repression of its citizens to a degree not seen for years.

The face of the capital, Tehran, has changed: the city streets are filled with military checkpoints, Revolutionary Guards armed forces, and the Basij militia, and the police raid homes, arresting citizens for no apparent reason, as reported by Walla.

Javad, a 36-year-old software engineer living in Tehran, told the UK’s Telegraph that since the end of the war, he has to wake up half an hour earlier every morning just to get through the series of checkpoints on his way to work, in scenes reminiscent of Baghdad or Damascus. “They stop me at the same checkpoint every day—armed, in every square,” he said. “They pick up people randomly, just to terrorize them.”

Following the ceasefire in June, Iran launched an unprecedented wave of arrests. The authorities claim to have uncovered Mossad spy networks operating within the country, and hundreds of residents have been arrested on suspicion of collaborating with Israel.

At least six residents have already been executed in what the Amnesty human rights organization has described as “trials conducted in a ridiculous and unfair manner.”

Even senior regime officials do not feel safe. Abdullah Shahbazi, a former senior intelligence official, said that the situation today is “beyond imagination” compared to the situation before the war with Israel. “Senior government officials at the highest levels exchange safe houses every night and avoid using telephones for fear of assassination,” he said. “What has become clear to all of us is that there is extensive Mossad activity on the ground inside Iran.”

(YWN Israel Desk—Jerusalem)