International Atomic Energy Agency chief Rafael Grossi has been assigned round-the-clock security since June following a “specific Iranian threat,” The Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday.
Grossi was placed under the protection of Austria’s Cobra special forces unit, which is responsible for safeguarding top officials, including the country’s chancellor, and countering major threats such as terrorism.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), headquartered in Vienna, Austria, serves as the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog.
“We can confirm that Austria provided a Cobra unit but we cannot confirm where the specific threat came from,” IAEA spokesman Fredrik Dahl told the newspaper.
A person familiar with the matter told the Journal that Vienna had acted on intelligence outlining a specific threat to Grossi coming from Iranian-linked individuals. A second source said they had been told that the threat came from Iran and was being taken seriously by authorities.
In instances of credible threats against dignitaries, the Cobra unit deploys officers armed with submachine guns and at least two bulletproof vehicles around the clock, the Journal noted.
The Islamic Republic has accused Grossi of helping trigger the 12-day war with Israel in June, alleging his reports on its nuclear program were biased and filled with unsubstantiated claims. Senior Iranian officials have demanded he be tried in absentia and removed from his post.
On June 12, a day before Israel launched its preemptive attack against Tehran, the IAEA’s Board of Governors for the first time in nearly two decades declared Iran in violation of its non-proliferation commitments, paving the way for possible referral to the U.N. Security Council.
The move followed a long-standing dispute between Iran and the IAEA, which escalated after the United States under President Donald Trump withdrew from the JCPOA nuclear deal with Tehran in 2018.
In late June, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar called Iran a “mafia state” after one of its top lawmakers issued an apparent threat against Grossi.
“It would have been unbelievable if it weren’t about Iran. Now they’re openly threatening the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency. A mafia state!” Sa’ar wrote on X.
The foreign minister was referencing an earlier tweet by Ali Larijani, Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator, speaker of the Iranian parliament and a former brigadier general in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
“When the war is over, we will settle accounts with Grossi,” Larijani had written in Farsi.
Meanwhile, Iran’s semi-official Kayhan daily branded the IAEA head an Israeli spy and urged that he be arrested and executed.
IAEA nuclear inspectors left Iran in early July after the Islamic Republic implemented legislation halting all cooperation with the agency.
“An IAEA team of inspectors today safely departed from Iran to return to the Agency headquarters in Vienna, after staying in Tehran throughout the recent military conflict,” the nuclear watchdog said in a statement.
An Israel Atomic Energy Commission report concluded that the U.S. strikes that targeted Iran’s Fordow enrichment plant in June had destroyed critical infrastructure, rendering the strategically significant site “inoperable.”
The IAEC assessment noted that the American assault, “combined with Israeli strikes on other elements of Iran’s military nuclear program,” set back Tehran’s abilities to develop nuclear weapons “by many years.”
“The achievement can continue indefinitely if Iran does not get access to nuclear material,” continued the report, the conclusions of which were published by the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office and the White House.
