Trump will reverse Iran's oil sale rises seen under Biden, says US energy minister

In its annual threat assessment, SAPO highlighted Iran’s efforts to monitor and suppress opposition movements abroad, exploit vulnerabilities within the Iranian diaspora, and acquire sensitive technology to circumvent sanctions.

"Iran's primary objective is to secure and strengthen its regime, closely linked to protecting the country from perceived external threats and circumventing sanctions," SAPO's statement said.

"These priorities influence the security-threatening activities carried out by Iranian security and intelligence services against Sweden."

SAPO reported increased Iranian activities in Sweden over the past year, including efforts to pressure opposition figures and their families.

Iranian intelligence services have reportedly used criminal networks to conduct violent acts targeting Israeli interests and groups perceived as threats.

"The use of criminal actors is not new or unique to Iran but has occurred to a greater extent over the past year, with notably younger actors involved during 2024," SAPO added.

Sweden has also been a target for Iran’s attempts to acquire advanced technology and knowledge to bypass international sanctions. SAPO warned that Iran is actively seeking dual-use products, including those that could support its weapons programs.

"Iran is heavily focused on acquiring knowledge and products for the development of weapons of mass destruction or delivery systems," the report said. "This acquisition spans several industries. For instance, machinery intended for civilian use can also be employed in the development of such weapons."

The warning comes amid heightened tensions between Sweden and Iran. Last month, the Swedish government accused Tehran of using a Shiite Muslim mosque in Stockholm to spy on Sweden and the Iranian diaspora there.

"There is a tangible risk that the security situation can deteriorate further and that can occur in a way that is hard to predict," said Charlotte von Essen, head of the security police.

SAPO’s assessment underscores the growing threat posed by Iranian intelligence activities and foreign influence operations in Sweden, as authorities work to counter hybrid threats from hostile state actors which also include Russia and China.

Last year, the relationship between the two countries reached a diplomatic crisis forcing a prisoner swap of Swedish diplomat Johan Floderus and a second Swedish citizen, Saeed Azizi, for an Iranian convicted in Stockholm of committing war crimes over his part in 1988 mass executions in the Islamic Republic.

The company is identified as Kimia Part Sivan Company (KIPAS).

“KIPAS officials have conducted unmanned aerial vehicle flight tests for the IRGC-Quds Force and have provided technical assistance for IRGC-QF UAVs transferred to Iraq for use in IRGC-QF operations,” the State Department’s Rewards for Justice program said in its announcement on Monday.

The company has also sourced key drone components from foreign suppliers, according to US officials.

The IRGC has provided funding and weapons to groups outside Iran, including Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis in Yemen and militias in Iraq. The US Treasury has linked the IRGC’s drone sales, including to Russia, to broader Iranian military financing.

In April, Washington sanctioned six senior KIPAS officials—Hasan Arambunezhad, Abolfazl Ramazanzadeh Moshkani, Mehdi Ghaffari Naghneh, Reza Nahar Dani, Abbas Sartaji, and Hadi Jamshidi Zavaraki—for acting on behalf of the IRGC-QF.

The Treasury had previously blacklisted KIPAS in 2021 for its role in supplying drones.

Under the sanctions, all assets linked to KIPAS and its designated officials within US jurisdiction are frozen. Financial institutions engaging with them could also face penalties.

The Trump administration listed the IRGC as a terrorist organization as part of his ‘maximum pressure’ after he withdrew from the JCPOA in 2018.

Last week, Rewards for Justice offered a reward of up to $20 million for information leading to the location, recovery, and return of Robert Levinson, who disappeared in Iran's Kish Island in March 2007.

The reward also included information "leading to the identification, location, arrest, or conviction of any person responsible for his disappearance."

Two Iranian intelligence officers (Mohammad Baseri and Ahmad Khazai) have been named by US authorities in connection to Levison's disappearance.

In 2020, the US treasury sanctioned Baseri and Khazai.

The trial in Manhattan federal court kicked off Monday with jury selection.

Federal prosecutors say Iran's elite Revolutionary Guard Corps hired accused members of a Russian crime group Rafat Amirov and Polad Omarov to kill the US-based journalist and activist, who is a vocal critic of the Islamic Republic.

Both Amirov and Omarov have pleaded not guilty to charges of murder for hire and attempted murder in aid of racketeering. Lawyers for both men have said it was "inaccurate" to refer to them as members of the Russian mob, according to Reuters.

Court documents do not name Alinejad, but she has identified herself as the victim on social media.

As a witness due to take the stand, Alinejad said she has been barred from speaking about the trial. Alinejad who has been the voice for many victims of the Islamic Republic and their families is asking for the public to now be her voice.

"I am very nervous to see the potential killers who tried to kill me, to look them in their eyes," Alinejad posted to X on the eve of the trial, "I want you to be my voice."

The alleged plot became known in 2022 after Khalid Mehdiyev - an alleged co-conspirator of Amirov and Omarov - was arrested outside Alinejad's Brooklyn home with a loaded AK-47 rifle.

Home surveillance footage, which Alinejad posted to X, shows Mehdiyev lurking outside her home. Investigators found ammunition and an assault rifle in his vehicle.

Exposing Transnational Repression

The trial could reveal new details on how Washington's Mideast adversary tries to quash dissent abroad.

The two-week trial could reveal important details about alleged ties between Iran's government and criminal organizations. Iranian-American activists, including Alinejad, have been pushing Western authorities to identify and prioritize tackling what they describe as Tehran's transnational repression.

High-ranking IRGC brigadier general Ruhollah Bazghandi, who is a senior counterintelligence officer, is accused of being a key organizers of the assassination attempt according to an unsealed FBI incitement. It alleges Bazghandi hired Amirov, a citizen of Azerbaijan and Russia, who was living in Iran at the time to kill Alinejad.

Bazghandi was also charged but is not in US custody.

Alinejad is no stranger to threats. In 2021, the FBI thwarted an alleged kidnapping plot against Alinejad.

Since the alleged assassination plot was thwarted, Alinejad been under police protection, moving from safe house to safe house in New York City.

"I could have been dead. I could have been killed," Alinejad said in a video post on X just hours before the trial got underway.

"Finally, I will face the men hired by the Islamic Republic to kill me, right here in New York. Of course, it’s not easy. But it’s a big day. I’m deeply grateful to my new country, the United States of America, for trying to keep me safe from the government of my birth country, Iran," proclaimed Alinejad on social media.

Despite possessing the world’s second-largest natural gas reserves, Iran faces domestic shortages due to insufficient investment in South Pars and holds only a small share of the global export market.

Iran’s Petropars, along with the Khatam al-Anbiya Construction Headquarters of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), MAPNA Group, and Oil Industries Commissioning and Operation, signed a $17 billion contract this week to implement pressure-boosting measures in South Pars. Notably, these same Iranian entities signed a similar agreement a year ago, but for undisclosed reasons, a new contract was signed again.

This shared field with Qatar, which holds 14 trillion cubic meters of gas reserves on the Iranian side, has entered the second half of its lifespan and has been experiencing pressure and production decline since 2024. Without the installation of pressure-boosting facilities, its output is expected to drop by 10 billion cubic meters annually, unable to meet even domestic needs.

Previously, France’s Total, China’s CNPC, and Iran’s Petropars had signed a $5 billion contract to develop Phase 11 of South Pars and install a pressure-boosting facility. However, after the US withdrew from the JCPOA nuclear deal in 2018, both Total and CNPC abandoned the project. Half of the contract’s budget was allocated for drilling wells and constructing offshore pipelines to produce 50 million cubic meters of gas per day (mcm/d) at phase 11, while the other half was designated for building a 20,000-ton platform—15 times larger than existing platforms in South Pars—equipped with two massive 60-megawatt compressors and other facilities.

To maintain current production levels, South Pars requires 15 massive platforms and 30 large compressors, valued at approximately $37 billion.

Following Total's exit, which, along with a handful of Western firms, possessed the technical capability to construct such equipment, CNPC also withdrew, leaving Petropars solely responsible for the development. Consequently, Phase 11 of South Pars currently produces far below the targeted 50 million cubic meters, as the Iranian company has failed even to drill the necessary wells.

In the past decade, Petropars also developed Phase 12 of South Pars, aiming for 85 mcm/d production capacity. However, a confidential document from the National Iranian Gas Company (NIGC), seen by Iran International, reveals that current production from this phase stands at half that amount. On the other hand, Petropars relocated one of Phase 12’s platforms to Phase 11 instead of construction of new platforms for Phase 11.

Aside from Petropars, which has demonstrated poor performance in Phases 11 and 12, the Khatam al-Anbiya has signed dozens of oil and gas contracts with the Iranian government over the past years, none of which have been successfully implemented.

MAPNA, Iran’s largest thermal power plant contractor, is responsible for manufacturing compressors under the $17 billion pressure-boosting contract. However, in recent years, due to its inability to build compressors for high efficient combined-cycle plants, many of the power plants it constructed could not be converted into combined-cycle type, leading to severe electricity shortages in Iran.

It remains unclear how a company that has failed to produce power plant’s turbine compressors intends to manufacture huge compressors for South Pars' pressure-boosting project.

Despite holding the world’s second-largest gas reserves after Russia, Iran faces a massive gas shortage, which will worsen as South Pars' pressure continues to decline.

A document from Iran’s Oil Ministry, reviewed by Iran International, indicates that even if the $17 billion contract with domestic companies is implemented, it will only slow down the production decline in the Iranian section of South Pars—but the decline will continue nonetheless.

The Challenge of pressure decline in South Pars

An Iranian-born offshore platform designer working with Western companies—who has been involved in projects in the Qatari section of South Pars since last year— told Iran International that pressure-boosting for such a massive field is extremely complex, and it is unlikely that Iranian companies have the capability to execute such a project.

Due to the sensitivity of the issue, he requested anonymity but explained that gas production from this field has so far relied on the reservoir’s natural pressure of 120 atmospheres. Iran has merely drilled wells and laid pipelines to directly transport gas and condensates to onshore refineries: "But now, massive platforms—15 times larger than the standard platforms currently operating in South Pars—must be constructed. These platforms must be equipped with gas-liquid separation facilities so that gas can be transported using massive compressors, while condensates are separately pumped to onshore refineries using high-power pumps. Additionally, power plants must be installed on these platforms to provide the necessary electricity for the compressors and pumps”.

He said that only a handful of Western companies possess this technology, such as France’s Total and Germany’s Siemens, both of which have implemented pressure-boosting in the Qatari section of South Pars.

Details of Iran’s $17 billion contract with the four domestic companies indicate that instead of constructing 20,000-ton platforms, Iran plans to build smaller 4,000–5,000-ton platforms but in greater numbers. Additionally, the compressors planned for these platforms will have a capacity of 30 megawatts—only half the size of the massive compressors required.

However, Iran has no prior experience even in building even 4,000–5,000-ton platforms, and officials have stated that they are still working on developing the necessary infrastructure for such construction.

Mohsen Rafiqdoost, a former bodyguard of the Islamic Republic's founder Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and an architect of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), made the comments in a recently surfaced video interview.

A bank account in Frankfurt was used to channel money for covert operations abroad, Rafiqdoost said, including for the killing of a former Iranian military commander General Gholam-Ali Oveisi in Paris in 1984.

“We had an account under the name KM,” he said in the video published Monday by Abdollah Abdi, the editor of independent outlet Abdi Media. “The money in that account was used for actions outside the country that could not be done with ordinary funds.”

He also linked the account to proceeds from arms sales during the Iran-Iraq war, recalling how a weapons purchase in Spain left a surplus of $10,000. “That was the beginning of moving funds into that account,” he said.

Rafiqdoost’s statements follow remarks he made on Saturday to the Iranian site Didban Iran, where he said he oversaw multiple assassination operations targeting dissidents. He named several figures killed in Europe, including Shapour Bakhtiar, the last prime minister under the Shah, and Fereydoun Farrokhzad, a singer and outspoken critic of the Islamic Republic.

“The Basque separatist group in Spain carried out these assassinations for us. We paid them, and they conducted the killings on our behalf,” he said.

Rafiqdoost's office disavowed the interviews, chalking the reported comments up to mental deficiencies after surgery and media distortions.

"Mr. Rafiqdoost underwent brain surgery in past years, which resulted in extensive complications and may have affected his recollection of certain memories and names. Therefore, his statements are not legally or historically reliable," it said in a statement.

"Media judgments regarding his statements are inaccurate. Only the official narrative of the events in question can be considered valid."

Khomeini critic silenced

US-based former Iranian ambassador to Germany Hossein Mousavian expressed surprise at the remarks, saying in a post on X that he had believed for decades that Farrokhzad’s killing was the work of Iranian opposition groups.

“After 32 years, for the first time, I learned the facts of the case from Mr. Rafiqdoust’s interview,” added Mousavian, now at Princeton University, New Jersey.

Farrokhzad was murdered in 1992 in Bonn, Germany. At the time, Iranian officials denied involvement, while reports suggested a professional-style hit.

German police found Farrokhzad's body in the kitchen of his apartment. A switchblade had been driven into his right shoulder from behind, and a longer kitchen knife was lodged in his mouth.

In exile, Farrokhzad had become a fierce and outspoken critic of Iran's clerical rulers. He repeatedly mocked Khomeini, portraying him as an illiterate, superstitious figure with sexual fixations in his writings.

Farrokhzad’s murder is often considered part of the so-called Chain Murders in Iran—an series of assassinations that saw numerous dissident intellectuals and activists either disappear or be killed between 1986 and 1998.

The Islamic Republic’s Ministry of Intelligence later admitted responsibility for some of the killings.

Mousavian said the Iranian embassy had even facilitated talks for Farrokhzad’s possible return to Iran.

“My colleagues and I at the embassy worked diligently for several months with full capacity, sincerity, and conviction to obtain the approval of the relevant Iranian authorities for his return and security,” he wrote.

Human rights organizations have long accused Tehran of orchestrating assassinations abroad. In a report published in December, the Abdorrahman Boroumand Center detailed four decades of extrajudicial killings tied to the Islamic Republic.