The head of the UN’s nuclear watchdog has been guarded by a 24/7 security detail in recent weeks due to a specific Iranian threat against him, The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday, citing people familiar with the matter.

Rafael Grossi is being protected by the elite Cobra special services unit in Austria, where the International Atomic Energy Agency is based, according to the report.

The security attachment was assigned to Grossi in late June after Austrian intelligence was tipped off about a specific threat to him from people linked to Iran, a person familiar with the matter told the newspaper. A second source told the Journal the threat was believed to be from Iran, and that authorities are taking it seriously.

“We can confirm that Austria provided a Cobra unit but we cannot confirm where the specific threat came from,” Fredrik Dahl, an IAEA spokesman, told the Journal in response to the article.

Neither the Austrian Interior Ministry nor the Iranian mission commented in response to the story.

Grossi, an Argentine diplomat who is considered a potential successor to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, has faced threats from Tehran since the start of the 12-day Israel-Iran war in June.

The war, which Tehran partly blamed on the IAEA, saw Israel bomb sites related to the Islamic Republic’s nuclear and ballistic missile program, saying they posed immediate, existential threats to Israel’s security. Iran responded with deadly barrages of missiles and drones at both military sites and population centers in Israel. The war also saw the United States carry out strikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities.

A ceasefire between Iran and Israel has been in place since June 24.

Amid the June fighting, Ali Larijani, a close adviser to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, wrote on X: “When the war ends, we are going to deal with Grossi.”

A senior figure in Iran’s judiciary said after the war that Grossi could be put on trial in absentia.

And the semi-official Kayhan newspaper accused the IAEA chief of spying for Israel and called for him to be executed. Iran has claimed Grossi is operating on Jerusalem’s behalf, based on photos of the diplomat with a former Israeli official.

The war broke out shortly after a major IAEA report accused Iran of carrying out nuclear activities without declaring them to the UN watchdog group.

While many of the findings had been made before, the May report pointed more clearly toward coordinated, secret activities, some of which were relevant to producing nuclear weapons.

In light of the IAEA report, the US, UK, France, and Germany planned to seek a declaration by the agency’s 35-nation Board of Governors that Iran was in violation of its non-proliferation obligations.

The three European nations are also parties to the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, a deal between Iran and Western powers, in which the former agreed to limit its nuclear program and open it up to inspectors in exchange for sanctions relief.

On Tuesday, Iranian diplomats met representatives of the three countries in Geneva in an attempt to stave off so-called “snapback” sanctions under the JCPOA, which the European states have threatened to trigger based on Iran’s alleged noncompliance.

Prior to the war, Iran was negotiating with the US over its nuclear program; it received a 60-day deadline from US President Donald Trump to reach a deal, which by the American leader’s count expired the day before Israel attacked. On Sunday, Iranian state media published remarks by Khamenei saying Tehran’s conflict with the US over its nuclear program is “unsolvable.”

Grossi said Tuesday that Iran has allowed an initial team of IAEA inspectors to enter the country, after the agency’s representatives were evacuated when the war broke out in June. Their access to nuclear sites is not yet resolved, however.

Iran has consistently denied seeking to acquire nuclear weapons, but it has enriched uranium to levels that have no peaceful application, obstructed international inspectors from checking its nuclear facilities, and expanded its ballistic missile capabilities. According to Israel, Iran also took steps toward weaponization prior to the war.