NATO to deploy additional Patriot system in southern Turkey - ministry

Iran, Russia and China are the main external threats to Sweden, the country’s security service said on Wednesday, citing rising espionage, sabotage and influence activity.

The agency said Iran has increased its activity in Sweden, including using criminal networks to carry out violent acts against Israeli interests and perceived opponents.

“Iran, Russia and China are the foremost actors behind security-threatening activity directed at Sweden,” the security service said.

It said Russia remains the most extensive threat, with intelligence efforts aimed at undermining Nato unity, weakening Western support for Ukraine and acquiring technology, while becoming more risk-tolerant in its operations.

China poses a long-term threat through intelligence gathering, economic influence and cyberattacks, including targeting Swedish companies and diaspora communities, the agency said.

The service warned that foreign powers are using a wider range of methods, including proxies and cyber tools, and that the risk of sabotage and other incidents in Sweden remains.

Mizan said Keyvani was executed on Wednesday morning after his death sentence was upheld by the Supreme Court. He had been accused of passing “images and information of sensitive locations” to officers of Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency.

The report said Keyvani was arrested in Savojbolagh on the fourth day of the 12-day war in June. Authorities said the case had gone through legal procedures, but no independent evidence supporting the allegations was made public.

Later in the day, Swedish Foreign Minister Maria Malmer Stenergard said in a statement that a Swedish citizen was executed in Iran without naming him. However, it confirmed that the person was arrested in June.

The legal proceedings leading up to the execution did not meet the standards of due process, she added.

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  Sweden summons Iran envoy amid reports citizen faces death sentence

The semi-official Tasnim news agency said Keyvani had been detained by the Revolutionary Guards’ intelligence arm and was found with cash, vehicles and what it described as advanced communication and surveillance equipment.

Tasnim also reported that he had allegedly been recruited through online contact and trained abroad before returning to Iran, though these claims could not be independently verified.

Keyvani is the latest in a series of executions in Iran involving individuals accused of espionage for Israel, particularly since the outbreak of the June war.

Iran has one of the highest execution rates in the world and has long used the death penalty in national security cases, including allegations of spying. Following the conflict, rights groups and international media have reported a sharp increase in arrests and executions on such charges.

The Telegraph reported that executions in Iran have surged since the June war, citing data from human rights group HRANA indicating that the number of executions has risen significantly, including for those accused of links to Israel. The Sunday Times has also reported that dozens more people could face execution on similar charges.

Explosions were reported across several parts of southern, western and central Iran early on Wednesday, according to eyewitness accounts sent to Iran International.

Bandar Abbas, the southern Iranian port city on the Persian Gulf, saw a series of blasts near naval and port facilities. Around 8:00 a.m., explosions were heard from the direction of the navy area and Shahid Bahonar port. More blasts followed at about 8:15 a.m. in the Jahanbar area, and at 8:40 a.m. near the oil terminal and control tower at Shahid Rajaee port.

Ahvaz, the main city of Iran’s southwestern Khuzestan province, was shaken by a strong explosion around 9:30 a.m. in the Zeytoun Karmandi neighborhood, rattling windows in nearby homes.

An explosion was heard around 5:00 a.m. in Songhor, a town in Iran’s western Kermanshah province near the Iraq border.

Near Kazerun, a city in Iran’s southern Fars province, an explosion was heard at about 6:55 a.m.

In Malard, west of Tehran, multiple explosions were reported between 6:50 a.m. and 7:10 a.m. In nearby Fardis, in Alborz province west of the capital, several blasts were heard around 7:11 a.m., including in the Naz district.

That question has taken on added urgency after repeated suggestions by President Donald Trump this week that the war could end in the very near future.

Among the most instructive comparisons is the NATO intervention in Yugoslavia in 1999—a conflict that carried sharply different meanings depending on where it was experienced.

For many outside observers, the war began with NATO’s 78-day bombing campaign launched in March of that year after the collapse of peace talks. But for those on the ground in Kosovo, the conflict had already been unfolding for years.

It had taken shape not through airstrikes, but through a gradual tightening of control: checkpoints, dismissals from public jobs, the closure of Albanian-language schools and the growing presence of security forces.

By the time NATO intervened, many Kosovo Albanians saw the bombing not as the start of war but as a new phase of a conflict they had already been living through.

For many Kosovo Albanians, the bombing was accompanied by fear but also a measure of hope. By early 1999, large numbers of civilians were already fleeing violence, and accounts from refugee camps in Albania and North Macedonia often reflected a similar sentiment.

Fragments of those fears and hopes remain preserved in television reports from the time, now widely available online.

“We are afraid of the planes, but we are more afraid of the soldiers who burned our homes,” a young man from Prizren tells the BBC in one such report.

Another refugee says: “When we heard NATO had attacked, we thought maybe someone had finally come to stop this.”

For others, the calculus was more reluctant. A teacher later reflected: “We did not want war. But once it began, we felt it might be the only way for things to change.”

At the same time, civilians in Serbia experienced the war very differently.

In Belgrade, air raid sirens sent residents into shelters night after night as bridges, factories and military sites were targeted. In the early days, a sense of defiance took hold, with people gathering in public spaces despite the risk.

“We know it is dangerous, but we do not want to leave our city alone,” one student said.

As the bombing continued, defiance gave way to exhaustion. Power outages became more frequent, daily life more strained and uncertainty more acute.

“At first, people were angry. After a while, we were just tired,” one resident later said.

The Kosovo war illustrates how the same military intervention can carry entirely different meanings depending on lived experience.

For many Serbs, NATO’s campaign became a symbol of foreign aggression and national humiliation. For many Kosovo Albanians, it represented the possibility — however uncertain — that years of repression might finally end.

After 78 days, Yugoslav forces withdrew and international peacekeeping troops entered Kosovo. For many Kosovo Albanians, that marked the beginning of a return to homes that were often damaged or destroyed. For many Serbs, the war remained a defining national trauma.

The contrast endures in how the conflict is remembered.

“We hated the war,” one Kosovar later wrote. “But without it, we might still be living in that fear.”

A Serbian citizen offered a starkly different view: “For us, this war was neither freedom nor justice. It was simply bombing.”

As Iranians begin to consider what might follow the current conflict, the Balkan experience offers no simple answers—only a reminder that the meaning of war is rarely shared equally.

If the war does end soon, as Trump suggests, its consequences inside Iran may prove equally contested.

Iran’s position against developing nuclear weapons is unlikely to change significantly, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said on Wednesday, according to remarks relayed by Iranian media from an interview with Al Jazeera.

Araghchi said Iran’s new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, had not yet publicly expressed his view on the issue.

Late Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei's "nuclear fatwa" has served as a shield for Tehran's denial of nuclear weapon ambitions for two decades.

The Iranian foreign minister said fatwas depend on the Islamic jurist who issues them and added that he was not yet in a position to judge the new Supreme Leader’s jurisprudential or political views.