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Iran hits US targets in Gulf as Tehran targeted

Posted on by Keyvan Rafiee

France 24 – With global energy prices on the rise, Trump said the US Navy was ready to escort oil tankers through the Strait of the Hormuz, the vital chokepoint into the Gulf that Iran has threatened to seal off.

Risking more regional chaos, an Iranian drone attack struck near the US consulate in Dubai, starting a fire but inflicting no casualties, and the US military base at Al-Udeid in Qatar.

The attacks came a day after strikes on the US embassies in Riyadh and Kuwait City and on a US air base in Bahrain, as Washington ordered diplomats to evacuate.

“We are saying to the enemy that if it decides to hit our main centres, we will hit all economic centres in the region,” Islamic Revolutionary Guard General Ebrahim Jabbari said.

The United States and Israel launched the attack on Saturday and quickly killed Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, two days after US envoys had been speaking to Iran in Geneva on a nuclear accord.

Trump insisted that Iran wanted to resume talks but it was “too late”.

He also walked back a statement the day before from Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who said the US attack’s timing was precipitated by Israel’s plans to strike.

“If anything, I might have forced Israel’s hand,” Trump said as he met German Chancellor Friedrich Merz at the White House.

Trump boasted that “just about everything’s been knocked out” in Iran, including its navy, air force and air detection, and said the attacks had killed even leaders who could have taken over.

“Most of the people we had in mind are dead,” Trump said. “Now we have another group. They may be dead also, based on reports.”

According to Iranian media, US and Israeli strikes targeted a building on Tuesday in the holy city of Qom belonging to the committee that is to elect a new supreme leader. The Tasnim news agency reported that strikes had already targeted the body’s main headquarters in Tehran the day before.

 

Lebanon violence expands

The regional war also took a growing toll on Lebanon, where Hezbollah, the armed Shiite Muslim movement that long had Tehran as a benefactor, launched drones and rockets at Israel in retaliation for Khamenei’s slaying.

Hezbollah said it targeted the Israeli naval base in the northern city of Haifa and Israel said it struck Beirut’s heavily Shiite southern suburbs.

The United Nations said that more than 30,000 people were displaced in Lebanon, where dozens have been reported dead.

In a throwback to earlier wars, Israel said it was moving troops across the border to create a buffer zone inside Lebanon.

Loud explosions again hit Tehran, where photos showed damage to Mehrabad airport, which handles mainly domestic flights in Iran.

The Israeli military announced a strike on an underground facility on the eastern outskirts of Tehran where it said Iranian “scientists operated covertly to develop a key component for nuclear weapons”.

Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman said the UN Security Council “has a duty” to act to stop the war, even as its military remained publicly defiant in the face of the campaign.

Iran has vowed to take an economic toll in retaliation for the war and to make the United States pay a cost.

The United States ordered non-emergency personnel to leave embassies in much of the region and encouraged all Americans to leave if they can find commercial flights, although air travel has been severely disrupted.

Qatar said it had downed missiles targeting Hamad International Airport in Doha, while Oman reported several drones attacking the port of Duqm, and in the UAE falling debris from an intercepted drone caused a fire at an oil storage and trading zone, authorities said.

 

Ghost town

In Tehran, residents who have not fled remained shut away in their homes for fear of the US-Israeli bombardment.

The Iranian capital is normally home to around 10 million people, but in recent days “there are so few people that you’d think no one ever lived here”, said Samireh, a 33-year-old nurse.

Authorities had previously urged people to leave the city, and police officers, armed security forces and armoured vehicles have been stationed at main junctions, carrying out random checks on vehicles.

In the more upmarket north of Tehran, the meowing of cats and chirping of birds replaced the usual din of traffic jams.

The assault came weeks after Iranian authorities clamped down on mass protests, although Trump has said that regime change is not his main goal.

Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Saar urged foreign capitals on Tuesday to cut all ties with Tehran “following the Iranian regime’s attacks on all its neighbours and the massacre of its own people”.

China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi, according to the official Xinhua news agency, warned Saar in a call that Beijing opposes the strikes, saying the use of force “will only bring new problems”.

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HRA Urges Immediate Halt to Hostilities Amid Rising Civilian Casualties

Posted on by Keyvan Rafiee

Washington D.C – Human Rights Activists in Iran (HRA) condemns in the strongest terms the ongoing conflict between the United States/Israel, and Iran, which has resulted in tragic civilian casualties, including children, damage to cultural heritage sites, and critical civilian infrastructure.

As of today, March 3, 2026, HRA has documented 912 civilian fatalities and 2580 civilian injuries as a result of this conflict. Among those killed, at least 181 were children under the age of ten. An additional 880 reported deaths are currently under review for classification and verification. These figures reflect a devastating and escalating human toll and represent absolute minimums.

The protection of civilians is not optional. It is a binding legal obligation.

Under international humanitarian law, all parties to hostilities are obligated at all times to distinguish between civilians and combatants and between civilian objects and military objectives. They must adhere to the principles of distinction, proportionality, and precaution, which are binding and non-negotiable standards designed to protect human life. 

HRA has verified credible reports of attacks on at least seven medical centers and emergency health facilities. Hospitals, medical personnel, and health infrastructure are afforded specific and heightened protection under international humanitarian law. Attacks against them constitute serious violations of the laws of armed conflict. Damage to these facilities and the resulting disruption of healthcare delivery compound civilian suffering and breach fundamental legal protections.

HRA condemns any action that endangers protected civilian sites, even where they are not directly targeted. Incidental damage to hospitals, schools, residential areas, and essential infrastructure can constitute violations of international humanitarian law when parties fail to take all feasible precautions. The disruption of essential services further deepens civilian harm and undermines core legal safeguards.

HRA calls on all parties to immediately cease attacks on civilian infrastructure, particularly hospitals, schools, and residential areas, to ensure the protection of children and other non-combatants, and to comply fully and without exception with their obligations under international humanitarian law.

In addition to its humanitarian obligations, Iran remains bound by international human rights law. As US-Israeli strikes on Iran continue, Iranian authorities must ensure that civilians have access to information, communication, and emergency services. The continued restriction or shutdown of internet access during hostilities severely impedes civilians’ ability to obtain life-saving information, contact family members, access medical assistance, and document violations. 

Connectivity in conflict can be the difference between life and death. Iranian authorities must immediately restore full internet access and guarantee that civilians can communicate freely and safely. 

As one university student put it to HRA, “Ordinary people always pay the price for political decisions. We’re not at the negotiating table, and we’re not in the war rooms. But when missiles hit, it’s our homes that shake.” 

Armed conflict brings profound destruction and suffering to civilians and deepens humanitarian crises. HRA calls for an immediate cessation of hostilities and a renewed commitment to a peaceful resolution grounded in international law. The continued loss of civilian life, including that of children, underscores the urgent need to prioritize the protection of human life above all else. 

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First Thing: Conflict spirals in Middle East as NGO says at least 700 Iranian civilians killed

Posted on by Keyvan Rafiee

The Guardian – Iranian drones hit the US embassy in Riyadh as Tehran continued to launch waves of retaliatory strikes at the Gulf and Israel, while Israeli soldiers began operating in southern Lebanon on the fourth day of an increasingly regional war in the Middle East.

A near-total internet blackout makes verifying civilians deaths extremely difficult. But the Human Rights Activists news agency, a US-based NGO focused on Iranian human rights, says US-Israeli airstrikes have killed at least 742 civilians, including 176 children, with hundreds more cases under review. Elsewhere, the Iranian Red Crescent Society reported a death toll of 787 people, and the Norway-based Hengaw said its count of the death toll was at least 1,500, including 200 civilians and 1,300 Iranian military members. The numbers are likely to rise.

Donald Trump said on Monday that the US campaign had been projected to last four to five weeks but could “go far longer than that”. The US state department has urged Americans to immediately leave more than a dozen countries in the Middle East, including Saudi Arabia and the UAE, as the conflict worsens.

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Rights group says 742 killed in Iran after US-Israeli strikes

Posted on by Keyvan Rafiee

Middle East Eye – At least 96 people, including 85 civilians and 11 military personnel, were killed in the past 24 hours following joint US-Israeli strikes in Iran, the Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) said on Monday.

The Washington-based group said the latest deaths bring the total civilian toll to at least 742 since the attacks began on Saturday, including 176 children.

HRANA said Monday’s strikes hit multiple locations, including military bases, two residential areas and Shahid Bahonar Pier in Bandar Abbas.

Iran’s Red Crescent Society earlier put the overall death toll at 555.

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Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is killed in Israeli strike, ending 36-year iron rule

Posted on by Keyvan Rafiee

NPR – Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was killed in Israeli attacks, with U.S. support, on Saturday. He was 86 years old.

His death was confirmed by President Trump, who joined Israeli leaders in calling for the overthrow of Khamenei’s authoritarian regime as the U.S. and Israel launched airstrikes across Iran. The Israeli military said its forces killed Khamenei. The Iranian government confirmed the supreme leader’s death and announced 40 days of mourning.

During his 36-year rule, Khamenei was unwavering in his steadfast antipathy to the U.S. and Israel and to any efforts to reform and bring Iran into the 21st century.

Khamenei was born in July 1939 into a religious family in the Shia Muslim holy city of Mashhad in northeastern Iran and attended theological school. An outspoken opponent of the U.S.-backed Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, Khamenei was arrested several times.

He was surrounded by other Iranian activists, including Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who became Iran’s first supreme leader following the country’s Islamic Revolution in the late 1970s.

Khamenei survived an assassination attempt in 1981 that cost him the use of his right arm. He served as Iran’s president before succeeding Khomeini as supreme leader in 1989.

Alex Vatanka, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute in Washington, D.C., says Khamenei was an unlikely candidate. Then a midlevel cleric, Khamenei lacked religious credentials, which left him feeling vulnerable, Vatanka says.

“He knew himself. He didn’t have the prestige, the gravitas to be 
 the successor to the founder of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Khomeini,” he says.

“He spent the first few years in power being very nervous,” says Vatanka. “He really literally felt that somebody is going to, you know, take him down from the position of power.”

But Khamenei was cunning and able to outwit other senior political figures in the Islamic Republic, according to Ali Vaez, director of the Iran Project at the International Crisis Group. He says that with the help of the formidable Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Khamenei built up his power base to become the longest-serving leader in the Middle East.

“Ayatollah Khamenei was a man with strategic patience and was able to calculate a few steps ahead,” he says. “That’s why I think he managed — on the back of the Revolutionary Guards — to increasingly appropriate all the levers of power in his hands and sideline everyone else.”

Khamenei’s close ties to the Revolutionary Guards allowed Iran’s military to develop a vast commercial empire in control of many parts of the economy, while ordinary Iranians struggled to get by.

Vaez says Khamenei also began to build up Iran’s defensive policies, such as developing proxies like Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Gaza Strip to deter a direct attack on Iranian soil.

“And then also becoming self-reliant in developing a viable conventional deterrence, which took the form of Iran’s ballistic missile program,” Vaez says.

As supreme leader, Khamenei also had the final word on anything to do with Iran’s nuclear program.

Over time, Khamenei increasingly injected himself into politics. Such was the case in 2009, when he intervened in the presidential election to ensure that his favored candidate, the controversial conservative Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, won office.

Iranians took to the streets to protest what was widely seen as a fraudulent election. Khamenei brutally crushed those demonstrations, triggering both a backlash and more protest movements over the years.

Iran killed thousands of its citizens under Khamenei’s rule, including more than 7,000 people killed during weeks of mass protests that started in late December 2025, according to the Human Rights Activists News Agency, a U.S.-based organization that closely tracks rights abuses in Iran.

“Khamenei had always supported and endorsed repressive government crackdown, recognizing that these protests were damaging to the stability and legitimacy of the state,” says Sanam Vakil, an Iran expert at Chatham House, a London-based think tank.

But Khamenei was unconcerned about getting to the root of the protests, says the Middle East Institute’s Vatanka, and remained stuck in an Islamic revolutionary mindset against the West.

“He on so many occasions refused point-blank to accept the basic reality that where he was in terms of his worldview was not where the rest of his people were,” Vatanka says.

He adds that 75% of Iran’s 90 million people were born after the revolution and have watched other countries in the region modernize and integrate with the international community.

“The 75% he should have catered to, listened to and address[ed] policies to satisfy their aspirations,” he says. “He failed in that miserably.”

The International Crisis Group’s Vaez says after the Arab Spring uprisings in 2011, Khamenei did start worrying about the survival of his regime. Iran’s economy was crumbling, due in large part to stringent Western sanctions, fueling more unrest.

In 2013, Khamenei agreed to secret negotiations with the U.S. about Iran’s nuclear program, which eventually led to the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action nuclear agreement. Vaez says Khamenei deeply distrusted the U.S. and was skeptical about the deal.

“His argument has always been that the U.S. is always looking for pretexts, for putting pressure on Iran,” he says. “And if Iran concedes on the nuclear issue, then the U.S. would put pressure on Iran because of its missiles program or because of human rights violations or because of its regional policies.”

President Trump’s withdrawal from the nuclear deal during his first term in office gave some credence to Khamenei’s cynicism. Analysts say Iran increased its nuclear enrichment after that to a point where it was close to being able to build a bomb.

In early 2025, when Trump reached out to Iran about a new deal, Khamenei dragged out negotiations until they began in mid-April.

But time ran out. In June, Israel made good on its threat to neutralize Iran’s nuclear program, launching strikes on key facilities and killing scientists and generals. Iran retaliated, and the two sides exchanged several days of missile strikes.

On June 21, 2025, the U.S. launched major airstrikes on three of Iran’s nuclear enrichment sites. Trump said the facilities had been “completely and totally obliterated,” although there was debate among the White House and nuclear experts as to how serious Iran’s nuclear program had been set back.

Vakil, of Chatham House, says Khamenei underestimated what Israel and the U.S. would do.

“I think that Khamenei always assumed that he could play for time, and what he really didn’t understand is that the world around Iran had very much changed,” she says. “The world had tired of Khamenei and Iranian foot-dragging and antics 
 and so that was a miscalculation.”

But it was Iran’s use of proxy militias across the region that eventually led to Khamenei’s downfall.

When Hamas — the Palestinian Islamist group backed by Iran — attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing nearly 1,200 people and kidnapping 251 others, it triggered a cascade of events that ultimately led to Israel’s attack on Iran.

The day after the 2023 Hamas-led attack, Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon started firing rockets into Israel, triggering a conflict that led to the Shia militia’s top brass being decimated — including top leader Hassan Nasrallah.

Israel and Iran traded direct airstrikes for the first time in 2024 as part of that conflict.

Israel’s bombing of Iranian weapons shipments in Syria also helped weaken the regime of Syria’s then-dictator, Bashar al-Assad, an important ally of Iran. Assad fell in December 2024 and fled to Russia in early January 2025.

By the time Khamenei died, his legacy was in tatters. Israel had hobbled two key proxies, Hamas and Hezbollah, and had wiped out Iran’s air defenses. With U.S. help, it left Iran’s nuclear program in shambles.

What remains is a robust ballistic missile program, the brainchild of Khamenei. It’s unclear who will replace him to lead a now weakened and vulnerable Iran.

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At least 133 civilians in Iran were reportedly killed and more than 200 wounded in a joint U.S.-Israel airstrike

Posted on by Keyvan Rafiee

Maeil Business Newspaper –  At least 133 civilians in Iran were reportedly killed and more than 200 wounded in a joint U.S.-Israel airstrike.

According to foreign media such as the BBC and Politico on the 28th (local time), the Washington-based Iranian Human Rights Agency (HRANA) reported that at least 133 civilians were killed and more than 200 injured in the airstrike as of 8:45 p.m.

The death toll also included Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his family.

Some estimate that the death toll could reach up to 201 and the injured more than 700.

The airstrike took place intensively between 9:30 a.m. and 9:30 p.m. local time (Tehran) and 7 p.m. According to the means of attack, cruise missiles accounted for 73% of the total, and were used as the main force, and drones were reportedly mobilized about 10%.

The Pentagon said it “tried to minimize civilian damage by using precision-guided weapons,” but there were a number of civilian casualties there.

The U.S. Department of Defense has officially announced that there have been no reports of U.S. military or civilian casualties so far. There were some facility damage near the 5th Fleet Service Center in Bahrain, but it did not lead to casualties.

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Iran Casualties Rise After Joint U.S.–Israel Strikes; Conflicting Reports on Death Toll and Khamenei’s Status

Posted on by Keyvan Rafiee

Khoj Samachar – At least 133 civilians have been killed in Iran following joint military strikes carried out by the United States and Israel, according to the U.S.-based human rights news agency HRANA.

HRANA reported that more than 200 people were injured and that eight military officials were among those killed. The figures were cited by CNN, which added that the total number of casualties could increase as further information becomes available.

However, Iran’s state broadcaster Press TV reported higher figures, stating that 201 people were killed and 747 injured. The discrepancy between independent and state media reports has made it difficult to confirm the exact toll.

The strikes were reported across 24 provinces in Iran. U.S. and Israeli officials said the operation targeted senior officials and military infrastructure, maintaining that the focus was on strategic and security-related sites.

 

Trump Claims Khamenei Killed in Operation

U.S. President Donald Trump claimed that Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed in the strikes. In a post on his social media platform Truth Social, Trump described Khamenei as “one of the most evil individuals in history” and said his death represented justice.

Trump also stated that other senior Iranian officials were killed in the operation. Israeli sources were cited as reaching a similar conclusion regarding the deaths of high-ranking Iranian figures. There has been no official confirmation from Iranian authorities supporting those claims.

 

Iran Denies Leadership Deaths as Regional Tensions Rise

Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told NBC News that Supreme Leader Khamenei and President Masoud Pezeshkian remain safe. He rejected reports of their deaths. In a video message released after the strikes, President Trump urged the Iranian public to take control of the country’s leadership, calling the moment appropriate for change.

The strikes and the conflicting claims regarding casualties and leadership deaths have heightened tensions in the region. Independent verification of the reported figures and developments remains pending as international observers continue to monitor the situation.

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See where U.S., Israeli strikes have hit Iran and where Iran has retaliated

Posted on by Keyvan Rafiee

The Washington Post – Satellite images and videos provide the first window into where U.S. and Israeli strikes have landed across Iran, revealing targets that include the Tehran compound of the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who President Donald Trump said was killed in the major joint attack. Iranian state media reported explosions in cities across the country.

Khamenei was killed in an Israeli airstrike on his Tehran compound, according to four Israeli security officials briefed on the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive intelligence.

Strikes in Iran

Iran has retaliated and struck at least one U.S. military installation in the region, a navy base in Bahrain where the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet is headquartered. Dozens of U.S. military cargo and refueling planes were recently repositioned to bases in the region. Videos show explosions in the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait. All three countries along with Qatar and Jordan also said they engaged air defenses to intercept Iranian missile fire.

Trump told The Washington Post early Saturday that his principal objective is “freedom” for the Iranian people as the U.S. launched military strikes in the country. The operations are expected to run at least through the weekend, a U.S. official said.

The total number of casualties in Iran was not immediately clear, but satellite imagery and videos show damage to civilian areas.

Plumes of smoke rose in central Tehran on Saturday near Khamenei’s compound, which houses various government buildings, videos verified by The Post show. Residents honked their car horns, as the smoke eclipsed the sun in one video filmed from a busy intersection about a half mile from the compound. Two columns of gray smoke billowed into the air.

Multiple buildings across the compound were severely damaged or destroyed, satellite imagery shows. The once green gardens were shrouded in dust and debris.

Towers of smoke were visible across the city, including in a video filmed near the sweeping structure of Saman Tower in the east of the city.

A crowd frantically gathered around a school for girls in the coastal city of Minab in the country’s south, after Iranian state media reported that the school had been bombed. Debris, including shattered glass and a crumbled wall, carpeted the ground in visuals verified by The Post. One side of the building appears to have nearly collapsed, as wisps of smoke rose out of what remained.

Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations said the strike killed more than 100 children at the girls’ elementary school in southern Iran. There was no independent confirmation of the number dead.
The school is near what appears to be a military installation, according to satellite imagery and open source material.

“We are aware of reports concerning civilian harm resulting from ongoing military operations,” said Navy Capt. Tim Hawkins, a spokesman for U.S. Central Command. “The protection of civilians is of utmost importance, and we will continue to take all precautions available to minimize the risk of unintended harm.”

Two injuries were reported by Iran’s Human Rights Activists News Agency near a boys’ high school, the Hedayat School, in Tehran. One video verified by The Post showed the school had broken windows. Across the street, a building lined with burned cars had partially collapsed, another video showed, where workers dressed in orange jumpsuits scoured the rubble.

Satellite imagery showed smoke billowing from an Iranian naval vessel at the Konarak naval base in southern Iran. The warship is significant in the Iranian fleet for its ability to fire advanced anti-ship ballistic munitions, said Decker Eveleth, an associate research analyst at the nonpartisan non-for-profit research organization CNA.

Iranian officials have warned that Israel and U.S. military bases would be considered “legitimate targets” in the event of any attack. Iran’s supreme leader said Feb. 1 that U.S. strikes on Iran would lead to “regional war.”

Iran has targeted at least one U.S. base in the region, the U.S. naval base in Manama, Bahrain. In video from outside the base, a man films while driving toward a tower of dense black smoke that has enveloped the buildings just behind the gate. “This is truly unbelievable,” the video says in a caption.

Another video shows a moment of impact. “They got the NAVCENT building,” the narrator says, referring to U.S. Naval Forces Central Command. Dark smoke pours out of the base in the immediate aftermath, two other videos show. Bahrain’s state news agency reported that the attacks struck a service center on the base.

An additional video filmed after the initial explosions shows an Iranian Shahed-style drone hovering above before plunging down, creating a large fireball that gave way to a dark gray smoke plume. It struck a spherical structure that appears to be a radome, a common structure on military bases used to protect equipment.

The Bahrain strike underscores the challenging mission of air defense, a costly and finite resource that the Pentagon must stretch across many sites worldwide. Iranian-made Shahed drones are much slower than missiles, giving analysts more time and opportunity to track and intercept them, though their relatively low altitude can make detection challenging.

No U.S. service members have been reported injured in Iran’s initial retaliatory strikes against military facilities in the region, a U.S. official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to provide details not yet announced publicly.

Iran’s Fars News Agency reported that Iranian missile attacks targeted the naval base in Bahrain, as well as other U.S. military bases including al-Udeid Air Base in Qatar, Ali al-Salem Air Base in Kuwait and al-Dhafra Air Base in the United Arab Emirates. It was not immediately clear from available imagery if those bases were hit.

Targets of Iran’s retaliation

Smoke plumes were visible near Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan, where dozens of U.S. aircraft have massed in recent weeks. The Institute of War also reported smoke near the Sas al Nakhl Airbase in Abu Dhabi. It was not clear whether these bases were hit.

Iran struck at least three regional airports including Dubai International Airport, videos published to social media show. Smoke filled the airport’s crowded corridors as passengers rushed to evacuate. Earlier on Saturday, Iranian munitions sent glass flying through the check-in area at Kuwait International Airport and there was an explosion in the vicinity of Irbil International Airport in Iraq, according to videos. Parts of each of the airports are used for U.S. military personnel and air traffic.

Iran appears to have also hit only nonmilitary sites, including the Fairmont Palm, a luxury hotel in Dubai. Flames engulfed lower floors of the hotel, according to video published to social media Saturday. Towers of smoke dwarfed the palm-tree-lined sky. In Bahrain, a Shahed-style drone flew directly into a high-rise residential building, exploding fiery debris onto the balcony below, video shows. The explosion instantly cloaked the building in smoke and set at least three floors ablaze.

The United Arab Emirates Ministry of Foreign Affairs denounced the attacks “in the strongest terms” in a statement, noting the nation considers “these acts a flagrant violation of national sovereignty and a clear breach of international law.”

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Iran attempts to crush dissent with a wave of arrests after deadly crackdown

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NBC News – After a brutal crackdown on anti-government protests that left thousands dead, Iranian authorities are taking the next step to crush dissent: mass arrests.

Tens of thousands of people were arrested during the nationwide unrest, and security forces are still tracking down and detaining people they believe attended protests that called for an end to theocratic rule, according to human rights observers. But in recent weeks, authorities have also targeted specific groups perceived as threats to the regime, including reformist politicians, doctors, lawyers and journalists, rights groups say.

The arrests have not squashed the anti-government sentiment: Protests have broken out on a number of university campuses in recent days, according to state media and videos circulating on social media.

“What they have left is guns, prisons and the revolutionary courts. To kill and imprison people and in this way stay in power,” said Hossein Raeesi, a prominent human rights lawyer who practiced in Iran for 20 years and is now a professor at Carleton University in Ottawa.

President Donald Trump said Tuesday in his State of the Union speech that Iran had killed at least 32,000 protesters.

“They shot them and hung them,” he said. “We stopped them from hanging a lot of them, with the threat of serious violence. But this is some terrible people.”

The U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) put the number of people killed in the protests at more than 7,000 as of Monday, with nearly 12,000 cases “under review.”

The group says that it verifies each death with a network of activists on the ground in Iran and that its data goes through “multiple internal checks.”

The U.S. is conducting a huge military buildup in the Middle East, with Trump not ruling out an attack on Iran even as the two countries hold nuclear talks.

Another round of talks was taking place Thursday in Geneva, while Iran has warned of a significant response to even a limited attack.

But while the regime seeks to hold off that external danger, it appears to be rooting out perceived internal threats.

More than 53,000 people have been arrested since the protests began, HRANA said in its report Monday. The head of Iran’s judiciary, hard-line cleric Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejehi, labeled protesters “terrorists” and called for fast-tracked punishments.

Among the reformists who were swept up were Azar Mansouri, the head of the Reformist Front coalition; Javad Emam, a spokesman for the reformist faction; and Ebrahim Asgharzadeh, a hostage-taker at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in 1979-turned-regime critic, according to the semiofficial Iranian Students’ News Agency.

The arrests may have also been a message to President Masoud Pezeshkian, who is close to the reformists and had initially mentioned holding talks with protesters, analysts say. Mansouri, Asgharzadeh and Emam were all released on bail two weeks ago, according to the students news agency.

“The reformists themselves — bereft of popular trust — are no longer the real menace,” Ali Vaez, Iran project director at the International Crisis Group, said in an email response to questions. “It is any structure, any network, any embryonic capacity to organize that the regime truly fears.”

The volume of arrests has been so high that thousands of people have spent at least part of their time at “black box detention sites,” off-the-grid locations such as warehouses, truck containers and storage facilities, according to Esfandiar Aban, the director of research at the Center for Human Rights in Iran, a New York-based advocacy group.

Detainees at the black box sites, some of whom are seriously wounded, do not receive medical care, do not have access to proper toilet facilities and are not logged in official records, raising the chances of torture or even death, Aban said.

“We get so many texts from people saying: ‘This is the name of my child. We have no idea where they have been for 40 days,’” Aban said in a phone interview. “It’s terrible pressure for the family. They don’t know if they’re dead or alive.”

Some detainees are tortured to get information about other protesters or to get confessions, usually admitting to working with foreign governments, which are often televised, according to Aban, who has documented over 300 confessions carried in various state media outlets since the protests began.

The parents of some protesters who have been arrested have also been pressured to help get confessions, said Moein Khazaeli, a lawyer and human rights researcher with Dadban, a group of Iranian lawyers based outside the country who offer online legal advice and have monitored the wave of arrests.

“They’ll say, for example, go tell your son to confess and we’ll help him. Otherwise his sentence is execution, or his sentence is 20 years’ imprisonment, or we won’t release him anytime soon,” Khazaeli said, noting that other family members are also threatened with arrest.

He added, “Sometimes they have arrested the father of a detainee and taken him to jail and then bring the guy who’s in jail to show him and say, ‘Look, we’ve got your dad, so sit down and confess.’”

Many lawyers have been prevented from getting involved in cases, said Raeesi, the human rights lawyer based in Canada. Some who have offered their services pro bono on social media or have represented protesters in previous rounds of unrest have been arrested, he said.

Doctors and other medical personnel have also been arrested for providing medical care to protesters, according to human rights groups.

“The government has used different techniques to get rid of the doctors who protest the presence of security forces or who treat the patients” said Homa Fathi, a Canada-based activist and member of the International Independent Physicians and Healthcare Providers Association, who has been in touch with medical personnel in Iran and documented arrests.

“They just wanted people to die. It’s not very complicated. They just wanted to kill people. And if you are treating the people, you are a barrier in their way. It’s unfortunately as cruel and as simple as that.”

Human rights groups have documented the torture of detainees.

“Authorities have subjected detainees to torture and other ill-treatment. Those detained are at serious risk of death in custody, grossly unfair trials, and secret, summary, and arbitrary executions,” Human Rights Watch said in a report Tuesday.

The torture and ill treatment have included “severe beatings with batons; kicks and punches; sexual and gender-based violence; food deprivation; and psychological torture, such as threats of execution, and denial of medical care to those injured,” the group said.

It is unlikely that the regime will stop the arrests anytime soon, observers say.

“The regime is wielding fear as its principal instrument, hoping to terrify a weary nation into political hibernation,” said Vaez, of the International Crisis Group. “But fear is a blunt tool against a people who have exhausted their patience and, increasingly, their fear of the consequences.”

The post Iran attempts to crush dissent with a wave of arrests after deadly crackdown appeared first on Human Right Activists In Iran.

As thousands are killed in Iran, MIT remains silent

Posted on by Keyvan Rafiee

The Tech – I want to tell you about two universities.

At Sharif University of Technology in Tehran, students returned to campus this week for the first time since January’s massacres. They chanted over the names of the dead. At K. N. Toosi University, students trampled an image of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, an act that carries a prison sentence, possibly death. At the University of Tehran, students issued a statement: “We did not give our lives to compromise, nor to praise a murderous leader.” Security forces attacked them. By Monday, students at more than a dozen universities across Tehran, Mashhad, and Isfahan had joined them. They knew what would happen. They went anyway.

At MIT, where Iranian students are part of our community, the administration has not said a word.

I am Iranian. I have family in Iran. For weeks in January, I could not reach them. I am not the only one. Some Iranian students at MIT still have not been able to confirm that their families are alive. This is not an abstraction for us. This is Tuesday.

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Here is what has happened since December 28.

Nationwide protests erupted across Iran, the largest since the 1979 revolution. On January 8 and 9, under a near-total internet blackout, security forces opened fire on civilians. The Human Rights Activists News Agency has confirmed over 7,000 dead. Leaked internal government reports, cited by Time, The Guardian, and Iran International, place the figure above 30,000. Even Khamenei has acknowledged that “thousands” were killed. The United Nations Human Rights Council has called it the deadliest crackdown since the founding of the Islamic Republic. Amnesty International documented snipers on rooftops firing into crowds. On February 19, a senior regime official publicly confirmed that security forces delivered final shots to wounded protesters, an admission of extrajudicial execution from inside the system itself.

Tens of thousands have been arrested, including children. Many have been executed without due process. Human Rights Watch has documented mass enforced disappearances and coerced confessions broadcast on state television. Families across the country are now holding chehelom, the 40-day mourning tradition, and even these ceremonies are becoming sites of resistance: people dancing at funerals in defiance, chanting from rooftops. This week, universities reopened, and students in Iran are protesting again. These protests are happening at more than a dozen campuses across the country. These protests are happening under the shadow of a possible American military strike. These protests are happening under threat of arrest, expulsion, or worse. They are doing this knowing that their parents could be the ones mournfully dancing at their graves the day after.

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I bring up the students in Iran not to draw a false equivalence. No one at MIT faces the risks those students face. That is exactly the point. We have every freedom to speak, and we have used none of it.

Nearly a million Iranians in diaspora took to the streets on February 14. NYU students held a vigil on the steps of the New York Public Library. Northeastern, blocks from here, held a solidarity rally in January. The Graduate Employees’ Organization at UIUC issued a statement. The European Parliament, the UN Human Rights Council, Amnesty International, governments across the world, all have spoken.

MIT has not.

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Institutions cannot respond to every crisis. I understand that, and this is not a demand that MIT take a foreign policy position. But when members of your own community cannot reach their families for weeks, when students in your hallways are grieving because they do not know if their loved ones are alive, that is not a foreign policy question. That is a question of whether you see the people in your own house. And even for those who have reached their families: the images coming out of Iran, bodies in hospital corridors, mass graves, children shot in the streets, are not things you see and recover from. The dead are not strangers to us. They are our people.

There are students at MIT who have been carrying this for almost two months, largely alone. Some sit next to you in lecture. Some TA your classes. They are doing it without any institutional acknowledgment that what they are going through is real.

Silence, in a case like this, is not neutrality. It is a decision.

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What I am asking for is small relative to what is happening. A public statement from MIT acknowledging the scale of violence in Iran and its impact on our community. Direct support resources, counseling, academic flexibility, for students navigating weeks of severed family contact. This is not geopolitical commentary. This is what institutions do when their people are hurting.

And to the rest of the MIT community: if you know Iranian students, check in with them. If solidarity events happen on campus, show up. You do not need to understand the full politics of Iran to recognize that your classmate might be suffering.

Students in Iran are risking everything to stand up this week. We are being asked to do so much less.

The post As thousands are killed in Iran, MIT remains silent appeared first on Human Right Activists In Iran.