Throughout September, oil shipments from the Persian Gulf recovered substantially despite the ongoing war. According to shipping intelligence firms Kpler and Vortexa, Middle Eastern crude exports exceeded prewar levels on 14 days during the month, supported by increased Saudi and Iraqi shipments and alternative transportation arrangements. Oil flows through Hormuz recovered to approximately 80 percent of prewar levels, while a complex network of smaller vessels, transfers and alternative routes helped exporters circumvent some of the restrictions imposed by Iran.

The recovery coincided with renewed diplomatic efforts surrounding the United Nations General Assembly in New York. Iranian officials had expressed hopes that negotiations could produce an agreement, and Tehran proposed a framework under which Hormuz could reopen within seven days in exchange for steps addressing the American blockade, sanctions and the broader conflict.

Those expectations were not realized. President Donald Trump rejected Iran’s September proposal, while Washington continued its naval blockade of Iranian ports. Although negotiations continued through intermediaries, the United States maintained restrictions on Iranian oil exports even as other Gulf producers increasingly restored shipments.

The imbalance became an important issue inside Iran. While neighboring countries were again benefiting from oil exports, Iran remained largely excluded from international energy markets. Iranian officials and commentators questioned the effectiveness of restrictions on Hormuz if other producers could continue exporting while Iran’s own oil revenues remained severely constrained.

Since early October, however, the maritime situation has changed sharply. Iranian attacks on commercial shipping have intensified, with several tankers struck in and around Hormuz. On October 8, a vessel identified as the Acers was hit by projectiles approximately 90 kilometers north of Qatar, demonstrating that the danger was no longer confined to the strait itself.

Iranian military officials have also signaled an expansion of their operations. Mohammad Reza Naqdi, an adviser to the IRGC commander, warned that shipping routes Tehran considers unauthorized would soon be blocked. Iranian media subsequently reported explosions involving vessels allegedly striking naval mines in the Strait of Hormuz, although the circumstances could not be independently verified.

On October 9, the IRGC Navy reported striking an LPG carrier it accused of violating Iranian maritime restrictions. Iranian commanders have warned that vessels using unauthorized routes could face attacks beyond the immediate Hormuz area.

The escalation appears intended to demonstrate that the recovery in Gulf oil exports remains vulnerable to Iranian military pressure. According to Reuters, the recent attacks have already reduced shipping traffic and raised concerns among insurers and energy traders. Brent crude rose above $105 per barrel on October 8 before easing on Friday following Trump’s comments about continuing negotiations.

On October 8, the U.S. Treasury announced new sanctions against Iranian oil transportation networks, including 17 vessels, as part of its Operation Economic Outcast campaign. American officials argue that the blockade and sanctions are depriving Tehran of the revenues needed to sustain the war.

In an interview with BBC Persian, Treasury Under Secretary Erin Brown claimed that only approximately $1.5 billion worth of Iranian oil remained outside the blockade and suggested that Washington was approaching the point of eliminating Iran’s remaining oil revenue. However, these claims have not been separately substantiated. She also expressed hope that economic pressure would ultimately bring about the end of Iran’s current government..

Iranian officials offer a sharply different assessment. Central Bank Governor Abdolnaser Hemmati said Tehran had supplied $2 billion to the foreign-exchange market and moved significant foreign-currency resources into safer accounts. Yet the rial’s depreciation, with the dollar recently trading around 270,000 tomans, illustrates the severe pressure on Iran’s economy regardless of the government’s assurances.

The confrontation is therefore increasingly economic as well as military: Washington is attempting to restrict Iran’s access to oil revenues, while Tehran appears determined to demonstrate that other regional exporters cannot operate normally without an agreement.

A second source of pressure is developing in Yemen, where Saudi Arabia’s major military operation against the Iran-aligned Houthis has produced a contested outcome. Saudi-backed Yemeni forces, supported by extensive airstrikes, initially claimed to have recaptured strategic coastal positions near the Bab al-Mandab Strait. However, subsequent developments indicated that the Houthis had maintained their control over the strategic waterway, despite the Saudi-led offensive. Meanwhile, Houthi advances around Taiz have effectively encircled the long-besieged city and threatened the remaining government-aligned positions, raising the possibility of a major strategic gain for the movement. While the city has not yet fallen, the tightening siege further complicates efforts to dislodge the Houthis from strategic positions in southwestern Yemen.

The Houthis have also intensified attacks on Saudi airports and energy infrastructure. Missile strikes on Riyadh’s international airport on October 8 killed three people and damaged a Saudi passenger aircraft, according to Reuters. Continued threats to Saudi oil facilities could undermine alternative export routes, particularly the east-west pipeline system that allows Saudi Arabia to bypass the Strait of Hormuz.

Although direct Iranian coordination of the latest Houthi operations has not been established, the simultaneous threats to Hormuz and Red Sea shipping increase the potential economic consequences of a prolonged conflict. Saudi Arabia’s ability to export oil through the Red Sea becomes especially important when Gulf shipping is disrupted.

Despite these developments, diplomatic contacts between Tehran and Washington remain active. On October 8, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi confirmed that Iran was reviewing Washington’s response to its seven-day proposal and expected to submit its own reply within days. President Masoud Pezeshkian subsequently told Russian President Vladimir Putin that Iran had proposed amendments to American ideas and would continue negotiations through intermediaries. Putin offered Russian assistance in efforts to end the conflict.

The central disagreement appears to entail when and whether the United States will ease its blockade and whether the parties can reach any more tangible understandings on Iran’s nuclear program. Vice President JD Vance has called for meaningful reductions in Iran’s enrichment capacity, while Iranian officials insist that the country’s right to enrichment must be recognized. Atomic Energy Organization chief Mohammad Eslami has also ruled out surrendering Iran’s enriched uranium stockpile.

Military escalation still looms large. Axios and The Atlantic reported that the Pentagon had been preparing options for renewed large-scale strikes against Iran, potentially before the November 3 U.S. midterm elections. Trump subsequently described negotiations as productive and said he would not attack Iran before the elections. His statement temporarily eased oil-market concerns, but it did not resolve the underlying confrontation. Misdirection has been a major part of recent American and Israeli attacks on Iran.

The emerging pattern suggests that Tehran may be attempting to make continued confrontation more costly for Washington while keeping a negotiated settlement possible. Iran’s ability to disrupt regional energy exports provides leverage, but it also risks provoking further American military action and damaging relations with neighboring countries.

For Washington, the challenge is different: its blockade has severely constrained Iran’s oil exports, but the recovery of regional energy shipments remains vulnerable to renewed attacks. Neither side has demonstrated that economic and military pressure alone can produce its desired outcome.

The coming days may therefore prove consequential. Iran is preparing its response to the latest American proposal while simultaneously demonstrating that the economic costs of the war can extend far beyond its own borders. Whether these pressures accelerate an agreement or trigger another escalation remains uncertain.

Born in 1946, Ayyari began his professional career in feature films with Tanoureh Div in 1985. Over the following decades, he contributed to numerous productions, working with filmmakers who explored the complexities of Iranian society and everyday life. His notable credits include Women’s Prison (Zendan-e Zanan), The Paternal House (Khaneh Pedari), Three Women (Se Zan), The Girl in the Sneakers (Dokhtari ba Kafsh-haye Katani), and The Old Road (Jadeh Ghadim).

Ayyari’s importance extended beyond his technical achievements behind the camera. Many of his films addressed sensitive social issues, including women’s struggles, generational tensions, violence, and the pressures of traditional expectations. Women’s Prison examined the lives of incarcerated women, while The Paternal House confronted deeply rooted patterns of violence against women and became the subject of significant controversy and censorship. The Girl in the Sneakers explored the challenges facing young Iranians and the tensions between personal freedom and social restrictions.

Through his visual storytelling, Ayyari helped filmmakers transform these difficult subjects into compelling cinematic experiences. His work contributed to the tradition of socially-engaged Iranian cinema, which has earned international recognition for its ability to portray human experiences with depth, realism and emotional power.

His passing comes at a particularly difficult time for Iran, as war and economic hardship continue to affect the country’s cultural institutions and artistic community. His legacy underscores the importance of Iranian artists in preserving the country’s cultural identity and giving voice to stories that might otherwise remain unheard.

The National Iranian American Council (NIAC) extends its deepest condolences to Dariush Ayyari’s family, friends, colleagues and admirers in Iran and around the world. We honor his remarkable contributions to Iranian cinema and the generations of filmmakers and audiences who have benefited from his work. His artistic legacy will live on through the films and stories he helped bring to life.

The attacks took place in Nikshahr, Nosratabad, Jalq and Faryab over approximately 24 hours, marking another round of violence in the region. Iran Unfiltered has documented the recent escalation in armed confrontations in the southeast of Iran.

In Nikshahr, gunmen attacked a vehicle carrying personnel from the Iranian army’s 88th Armored Division on October 8. According to an army statement carried by Iranian media, the personnel were traveling between Nikshahr and Konarak in the Makran coastal region for a shift change. The army confirmed that Mohammadreza Okati was killed and three other personnel were wounded in the attack.

Haalvsh, a local outlet covering Sistan and Baluchestan, reported that the attack occurred near Kerin-Dok and involved two military vehicles. It identified five wounded personnel, including Ali Najafi, Mohammadreza Hosseini and Mojtaba Mir. The outlet also reported that additional casualties were transported by helicopter to medical facilities in Chabahar, Konarak and Iranshahr. Those additional casualties have not been independently confirmed.

A separate attack targeted a police patrol vehicle on the Lakhshak road near Nosratabad, in Zahedan County. The provincial police command confirmed that Third Lieutenant Vahid Enayat was killed when gunmen opened fire on the patrol. Police said officers returned fire, wounding several attackers who subsequently escaped. Authorities announced that efforts to identify and arrest those responsible were continuing.

Haalvsh reported a higher casualty toll, saying at least three security personnel had been killed and two wounded. It identified another reported fatality as Abbas Aghaei, originally from Qom. The additional deaths and injuries have not been independently verified.

The attacks followed an assault on the police headquarters in Jalq, the administrative center of Golshan County, on October 7. The People’s Fighters Front claimed responsibility for the Jalq attack, saying its members used explosives, rocket-propelled grenades and firearms against the facility. The organization claimed that six police personnel had been hit during the operation.

Iranian police acknowledged the attack and reported an explosion followed by gunfire near the headquarters. Authorities also said one attacker had been killed and others wounded. The number of police casualties remains unclear.

Haalvsh published accounts and footage described as showing the initial exchanges of gunfire and an attack on a police support vehicle. The footage has not been independently authenticated, and the armed group’s casualty claims remain unverified. The People’s Fighters Front also claimed responsibility for the attacks in Nikshahr and Nosratabad, according to Haalvsh.

In a fourth incident, Mehdi Jamshidi, a police official in Faryab County, Kerman province, was shot dead on October 8. Iranian media confirmed his death following an attack by unidentified gunmen. Haalvsh reported that Jamshidi was traveling in a private vehicle when he was shot seven times. The outlet also cited reports connecting him to a previous police operation involving protesting residents in Pashmuki village in June. Those allegations have not been independently established. No armed organization had publicly claimed responsibility for Jamshidi’s killing in the reporting reviewed.

Haalvsh estimated that more than 12 military and police personnel were killed or wounded across the four incidents, while official statements confirmed a smaller number of casualties and did not provide comprehensive figures for every attack. The differences are particularly pronounced in Nikshahr and Nosratabad, where local accounts describe additional casualties beyond those acknowledged by the army and police.

The latest attacks coincide with new data documenting a substantial increase in armed violence in Sistan and Baluchestan. According to the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data organization (ACLED), approximately 70 armed confrontations between insurgent groups and Iranian security forces have been recorded in the province since the beginning of 2026, exceeding the annual total for any of the previous ten years.

In an assessment published October 8, ACLED said 13 confrontations had occurred in the preceding two weeks alone. The organization noted that recent incidents have included targeted killings, roadside ambushes and attacks on patrols, checkpoints and fixed security installations. The figures cover Sistan and Baluchestan province and do not include the killing in Faryab, which is located in Kerman.

The People’s Fighters Front, formed in late 2025, has claimed responsibility for several recent attacks. Its involvement in the latest incidents follows earlier confrontations documented by Iran Unfiltered, although responsibility for all armed violence in the region has not been established. The October 7–8 attacks add to a growing record of armed confrontations across southeastern Iran, with confirmed fatalities among army and police personnel and unresolved questions about the full number of casualties.

According to Hamidreza Khan-Mohammadi, head of Iran’s School Renovation Organization, 1,288 schools across the country were damaged during the war, including 16 that required complete reconstruction or major structural repairs. The damage extended across several provinces, including Tehran, Isfahan, Khuzestan, Kermanshah, Lorestan, and Hormozgan.

On September 21 in Minab, Hormozgan province, Khan-Mohammadi said that most affected schools had returned to service, while the 16 schools requiring major reconstruction remained a separate challenge. In Hormozgan alone, 79 schools outside the province’s islands sustained damage, with officials reporting that most had been prepared for the start of the academic year. A new, temporary Shajareh Tayyebeh school opened in Minab on September 23, allowing surviving students to begin the academic year in a replacement facility. The temporary school is expected to operate for two years while a permanent educational complex is being constructed.

The financial cost of damage to Iran’s education system has also been substantial. Education Minister Alireza Kazemi estimated in June that 1,507 educational facilities had sustained damage, with reconstruction and repair costs reaching approximately 37 trillion rials (3.7 trillion tomans). Subsequent statements by education officials clarified that the larger figure included multiple educational spaces associated with 1,288 schools.

While authorities have emphasized the rapid repair of damaged buildings, the interruption of classroom instruction has created additional challenges. During the war, the Ministry of Education developed three methods to continue teaching: online classes through the domestic Shad platform, televised lessons, and printed educational materials for students without reliable access to digital technology.

Kazemi acknowledged that the suspension of in-person instruction had affected education, even as teachers and school administrators attempted to maintain contact with students and families. The decision to rely on televised and printed materials alongside online platforms also reflected the difficulties faced by children without adequate internet access or electronic devices.

The effects of interrupted learning are not necessarily resolved when classrooms reopen. Students returning after extended periods of remote instruction may need additional academic support, while teachers face the challenge of restoring classroom routines and addressing gaps in learning. The burden can be especially significant for younger children and students from lower-income households who have fewer educational resources available at home.

Provincial education authorities have also acknowledged the need to compensate for learning difficulties associated with virtual instruction. In Khorasan Razavi, officials announced preparations for more than 1.5 million students, including plans to equip new classrooms, organize teaching staff, and address educational setbacks from previous disruptions.

At the same time, the rising cost of school supplies has created another financial challenge for Iranian families already struggling with inflation and declining purchasing power. Domestic media reports ahead of the academic year described significant increases in the prices of notebooks, schoolbags, stationery, clothing, and other basic educational necessities.

Mehr News Agency reported that preparing a student for the school year could cost as much as 15 million tomans, depending on the supplies purchased. For households with multiple school-age children, these expenses can represent a considerable financial burden, particularly as families also face rising food, housing, and transportation costs. A September report by the Human Rights Activists News Agency, HRANA, similarly documented the difficulties facing low-income families as the prices of stationery, school uniforms, shoes, and backpacks increased. The report highlighted concerns that growing educational expenses could further widen inequalities between students from different economic backgrounds.

These pressures illustrate how the effects of war intersect with Iran’s broader economic difficulties. While damage to school buildings is visible and can be addressed through reconstruction projects, the consequences of interrupted education and financial hardship are more difficult to measure.

For millions of Iranian children, the beginning of the academic year has traditionally been associated with new classrooms, school supplies, and the return of familiar routines. This year, it has also been shaped by damaged schools, months of educational disruption, and the financial pressures facing their families. The condition of Iran’s schools offers a broader picture of how war continues to affect everyday life, extending beyond military targets and damaged infrastructure to the education, financial security, and future opportunities of the country’s children.

Reopening schools represents an important step toward restoring normal life, but physical reconstruction alone cannot reverse the educational and economic consequences of the conflict. Ensuring that students can continue learning requires not only functioning classrooms but also accessible educational materials, support for students who have fallen behind, and assistance for families struggling to afford basic school expenses.

The measures address different parts of the crisis. Tehran Municipality’s “Zero Inflation” program promises unchanged prices for selected foods for six months. The central bank’s intervention aims to ease pressure on the rial by making foreign currency available for purchase. Neither amounts to comprehensive protection against the rising cost of living.

The municipal program began on September 29. According to Tasnim’s account of the launch, Mayor Alireza Zakani said an initial basket of 12 essential products would be offered at 108 municipal produce markets, with 18 Shahrvand stores joining afterward. The basket includes rice, meat, cooking oil, sugar, pasta, dates, soy products and several varieties of legumes. Chicken, tomato paste and cheese are scheduled to be added during Aban, the Iranian month beginning in late October.

“Zero Inflation” refers to the intended price freeze for those products within the program, not to inflation across Iran. Purchases are subject to household allocations based on family size. Residents can buy in person or through the Shahrzad platform, using electronic food-voucher credit, bank cards or a combination of the two.

Rent, healthcare and medicines, transportation, clothing, education and utility bills remain outside the food-price arrangement. Even purchases of food beyond the covered products and household allocations remain exposed to market prices. Families could receive meaningful help with groceries while still facing a rising overall cost of living.

Nor does freezing prices restore earlier affordability; rather, it halts any further increases from an already-high mark. An October 5 report by Mehr listedfrozen beef or lamb at 1.545 million tomans per kilogram, Indian rice at 280,000 tomans per kilogram and Pakistani basmati at 335,000 tomans. Holding those prices steady would prevent further increases within the program, but households would still need enough income or voucher support to purchase them. By comparison, in October 2025, several Pakistani super basmati brands were roughly half as expensive, priced between 160,000 - 220,000 tomans per kilogram.

President Masoud Pezeshkian on October 4 ordered the formation of a committee to develop mechanisms for stabilizing prices of goods covered by the national electronic food-voucher system, known as kalabarg. Its members include the central bank governor, the agriculture and interior ministers, the head of the Plan and Budget Organization, and Tehran’s mayor. Mayor Zakani subsequently identified Urmia, Mashhad and Ahvaz as cities that had expressed readiness to adopt the model. That indicates plans for expansion, underscoring that the same benefits are not yet available nationwide.

The urgency is evident in official statistics. According to the Statistical Center of Iran, consumer prices in Shahrivar, the month ending in September, were 89.8 percent higher than a year earlier. Twelve-month average inflation reached 73.6 percent, while prices rose 4.2 percent during the month alone.

The central bank is meanwhile attempting to contain the currency’s decline through direct dollar sales of up to $10,000 per person. The program offers foreign currency for purchase at rates close to the market; it is not a cash payment or a $10,000 benefit distributed to households.

The dollar has recently traded around 270,000 tomans, 2.7 million rials, on the open market. This represents a continued slide in the purchasing power of Iranian currency, having passed the 200,000 toman to dollar mark in mid-August. At the central bank’s dollar sale rate, buying the maximum allocation would cost approximately 2.7 billion tomans, placing it well beyond the means of many families struggling with daily expenses. Its intended household benefit would therefore come indirectly, if greater dollar availability helped stabilize the exchange rate and reduce pressure on prices.

In an October 6 interview on Iranian state television, Central Bank Governor Abdolnaser Hemmati said the bank had secured $2 billion for the currency market. He described the intervention as a demonstration to President Donald Trump and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent that Iran did not lack foreign-exchange resources.

Hemmati attributed the currency’s rise primarily to inflation expectations, psychological pressure and capital flight, rather than a shortage of reserves. He said the market had reached relative stability following the intervention and that buyers under the new program had purchased an average of approximately $5,000 each. Those statements represent the central bank’s assessment; several days of trading cannot establish whether stabilization will last.

Hemmati also said Iran had provided $24.9 billion in foreign exchange from the beginning of the Iranian year through mid-Mehr, compared with $28 billion during the corresponding period a year earlier. He described the decline as roughly 12 percent, affecting some industrial needs while saying allocations for essential goods had not fallen and those for medicines had increased by 30 percent. These figures concern foreign-exchange provision. They do not, on their own, establish whether medicines or food have become more affordable or whether supplies have reached every community.

The governor said funds previously held through oil-trading intermediaries or insecure channels had been moved to safer locations. He also reported that approximately $21 billion in export earnings had not returned to the domestic economic cycle since the beginning of the previous Iranian year, with roughly $13 billion identified. His remarks highlight the importance of access to existing earnings alongside efforts to generate new revenue.

The government’s interventions are taking place under a physical blockade as well as escalating financial sanctions. Reuters reported on October 6 that Iranian oil exports had fallen to zero under the U.S. blockade, even as shipments from other Gulf producers recovered. The interruption of new exports constrains an important source of foreign currency and government revenue. Restrictions on banking and trade add further obstacles to financing and transporting supplies.

Against that background, the government’s economic coordination headquarters reviewed a proposed seven-point package on October 3. Tasnim reported discussions covering exchange-market instability, public revenue and expenditure, imports and essential goods, but its account did not provide a detailed breakdown of the package.

Municipal officials argue that advance purchasing, contracts with producers and fewer intermediaries can help sustain the food-price program. Economist Davoud Souri, speaking to Eghtesadnews in an interview carried by Iranian media, questioned its financing and what would happen after six months. His concern was whether the resources and financial consequences had been established before implementation.

A separate report about Russian financing illustrates the competition among immediate consumption needs, government revenue and investment in productive capacity. An October 6 report attributed to Fars and republished by Iranian outlets said Russia was ready to transfer a loan equivalent to $1 billion, but disagreement among Iranian agencies over its use had delayed Tehran’s submission of account details.

According to that account, the Plan and Budget Organization favored vehicle imports that would generate customs revenue. The Oil Ministry sought equipment for the petroleum sector, while the Agriculture Ministry wanted essential-goods imports. The report described the money as the first installment of a broader $20 billion loan understanding. It did not establish that the funds had reached Iran, and its explanation for the delay was not accompanied by responses from the agencies concerned.

Each proposed use serves a different objective. Food imports could support immediate household needs; petroleum equipment could help sustain or restore future earnings; vehicle imports could bring in customs revenue. No direct connection has been established between the Russian loan and funding for the food-price program. Together, however, the two stories show the difficult allocation decisions facing authorities under economic pressure.

For households, the test is practical: whether covered food remains available, whether support reaches beyond Tehran, and whether currency intervention produces lasting relief from price increases. A stable price for part of the grocery basket would help, but families must still pay for housing, treatment, transportation and the many other expenses outside the arrangement. The government’s response will ultimately be judged against that full household budget.

The provisions are part of a broader bill titled “Countering the Influence of Intelligence Services and Foreign Governments or Entities.” Under Article 22, approved by parliament on October 6 with 174 votes in favor, six against, and two abstentions, Iranian citizens can be punished for giving interviews or participating in discussions with media outlets or individual media figures publicly designated as “hostile” by the Ministry of Intelligence. The restriction also covers certain media organizations linked to foreign governments under classifications established by the bill.

Violations can carry sixth-degree penalties under Iran’s Islamic Penal Code, including imprisonment for six months to two years, 31 to 74 lashes, fines, and restrictions on certain social rights. Government officials are exempted from the provision. The measure gives the Ministry of Intelligence broad authority to determine which media organizations and individuals fall within the prohibited categories. Earlier this year, the ministry published a list identifying dozens of media organizations and individuals as “hostile.”

The legislation expands restrictions adopted following the June 2025 war that criminalized sending certain information, images, and videos to designated media organizations. The new provision goes further by potentially making participation in an interview or discussion itself a criminal offense, even when the communication does not involve classified information.

Giving a security agency the authority to determine which journalists citizens may communicate with, while attaching prison and corporal punishment to violations, raises serious questions about Iran’s international obligations on freedom of expression and creates substantial potential for arbitrary enforcement and self-censorship. Iran is a party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which protects the right to seek, receive, and impart information and ideas across borders. Any restrictions on these rights must meet requirements of legality, necessity, and proportionality.

The legislation also reflects a broader shift in the Iranian state’s approach to information during wartime. Since the June 2025 phase of the war, authorities have increasingly treated the movement of information itself as a security issue, amid concerns that photographs, videos, location data and contacts with foreign organizations could be used by hostile governments or intelligence services. Article 22 significantly widens that logic: instead of criminalizing the transfer of particular categories of sensitive information, it potentially criminalizes interviews or participation in discussions with designated media outlets regardless of whether sensitive or classified information is shared.

Parliament separately approved Article 20, which targets the unauthorized provision of unpublished official information, reports, data, or statistics to entities defined under the legislation as foreign agents. The provision applies to information obtained through a person’s professional responsibilities or contacts and can carry five to ten years in prison as well as permanent disqualification from the position through which the information was obtained or provided. Significantly, the information does not necessarily have to be formally classified as secret or confidential.

While it is expected that Iranian authorities would have concerns about espionage and the disclosure of sensitive information during wartime, the new provisions reach beyond classified information, potentially criminalizing ordinary communication based primarily on who receives it. Broad categories such as “hostile media,” “foreign agents,” and “unpublished official information” also leave considerable discretion to security and judicial authorities.

The consequences could extend well beyond professional journalists. Researchers, academics, civil society activists, public employees, witnesses to abuses, and ordinary citizens could face greater risks when communicating with journalists or organizations abroad. This could make it more difficult to expose corruption and misconduct, document human rights violations, report on labor and social grievances, or provide independent accounts of events inside Iran.

The restrictions could be particularly consequential during the current war, when access to independent information is critical to documenting both domestic developments and the consequences of the conflict. If citizens face criminal punishment simply for speaking with particular media organizations, witnesses could be deterred from sharing a wide range of information, including arbitrary detention, mistreatment, civilian casualties, and other potential abuses. The result is not only a restriction on individual expression but also a significant obstacle to public accountability.

The parliamentary vote advanced the provisions, but they are not yet enforceable law. The legislation must still complete Iran’s required legal review process, including review by the Guardian Council. The final scope of the restrictions will therefore depend both on whether the provisions survive that process and, if enacted, how security and judicial authorities interpret and enforce them.

The broader significance of the measure is not limited to foreign-based Persian-language media. If enacted in its current form, it would mark a further expansion of wartime security restrictions into ordinary civilian communication. The key change is that criminal liability would increasingly depend not only on what information an Iranian shares, but on whom they speak to, giving security authorities considerably greater influence over the boundaries of permissible contact between Iranian society and the outside world.

President Masoud Pezeshkian accepted Paknejad’s resignation on Sunday and appointed Hamid Bovard, the head of the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC), as acting oil minister. Mehdi Tabatabaei, a senior official in the president’s office, said Paknejad had asked to resign some time ago for “personal reasons,” but Pezeshkian initially rejected the request before accepting it after the minister renewed his insistence on leaving.

The timing, however, is significant. Paknejad leaves just weeks after parliament opened an investigation into NIOC and the mechanisms Iran uses to sell oil and collect the proceeds under sanctions. Lawmakers have raised questions about the selection of intermediaries, oil sold on credit without sufficient guarantees, unpaid revenues and the supervision of the network Iran increasingly relies upon to conduct transactions outside the conventional international financial system.

The controversy centers on what Iranians call trasti-ha, or trustees. These are companies, traders and financial intermediaries used to sell oil, receive payments abroad or transfer money for Iranian institutions when sanctions make ordinary banking transactions difficult or impossible.

The trustee system is, in large part, a product of sanctions. Iran’s exclusion from much of the international banking system, combined with restrictions on shipping, insurance and oil transactions, has forced the country to construct alternative networks for moving both oil and money. These arrangements have helped Iran maintain substantial exports despite sanctions, but their secrecy also makes oversight considerably more difficult.

Iranian officials themselves have acknowledged some of the risks. Zabihollah Khodaeian, head of Iran’s General Inspection Organization, said this summer that one trustee failed to return $200 million and subsequently left the country. He said some trustees had “betrayed” the system, while also warning against assuming that every unresolved foreign-exchange obligation represented stolen money.

The issue has become an increasing focus in parliament. Hossein Samsami, a member of parliament’s Economic Commission, said in September that more than 86 million barrels of Iranian oil had been transferred on credit to one individual without adequate guarantees. According to Samsami, around 30 million barrels had reached final buyers while the status of more than 56 million barrels remained unresolved.

That does not mean 56 million barrels of oil literally disappeared. Samsami’s claim is that their disposition and the associated financial obligations have not been properly accounted for. The allegation has not yet been established through a completed parliamentary or judicial investigation.

The scrutiny has since expanded beyond that particular case. Another parliamentary investigation, described by lawmaker Ahmad Bigdeli and now supported by more than 40 MPs, is examining the sale of roughly 80 million barrels of oil to four specific traders or trustees, as well as pricing, discounts, credit terms, guarantees and the collection of revenues. It also covers NIOC’s international trading subsidiary, NICO, and reviews oil-sale practices going back a decade.

Samsami has directly criticized Paknejad’s handling of the issue. When announcing the investigation in September, he accused the minister of failing for nine months to answer his questions about indebted trustees and said the delay had provided some intermediaries with opportunities to avoid accountability. These are Samsami’s allegations, and the investigation has not yet produced findings establishing responsibility.

Other lawmakers have raised separate questions about the money flowing through the trustee system. Hadi Ghavami, a member of parliament’s Planning and Budget Commission, said investigations had identified approximately $3 billion in what he called khali-khani involving problematic trustees and Iranian banks. Khali-khani refers to transactions in which funds are recorded or represented as having been made available even though the underlying money has not actually reached the bank or become accessible.

Ghavami cited one case involving $300 million through Tourism Bank and $400 million through Bank Melli that he said had not properly returned to the banking system. He has also pointed to other cases that lawmakers intend to examine, though it is important to note that these figures remain allegations by a member of parliament rather than the findings of a completed audit or court proceeding.

The Oil Ministry has strongly rejected the broader accusations against Paknejad’s management. In a statement issued before his departure, the ministry described reports that oversight of trustees had deteriorated during his tenure as false. It specifically rejected claims that trustees had been allowed into the oil trade without proper vetting, that their number had tripled under Paknejad, and that his management had caused continuing problems with oil sales and the return of revenues.

The ministry also emphasized that trustee companies did not originate under Paknejad and had developed over previous years as a response to sanctions. That distinction is important. The current controversy centers not on the creation of Iran’s sanctions-evasion system, but rather how that existing system was managed and supervised during his tenure.

Iran has become increasingly dependent on opaque intermediaries precisely because normal mechanisms for selling oil and receiving payment have been restricted by sanctions. But the same secrecy that helps transactions evade sanctions can also make it harder for Iranian institutions to determine where oil and money ultimately go.

Paknejad was also confronting problems beyond the trustee controversy. Iran continues to face a serious domestic energy imbalance, particularly in gasoline, natural gas and electricity. Gasoline consumption has risen beyond domestic production capacity, forcing the government to use imports to close the gap. Paknejad himself acknowledged that using the country’s resources to import gasoline was economically unsustainable.

Those longstanding structural problems have become considerably more difficult during the ongoing war. Iran’s energy infrastructure has suffered attacks, while the combination of war, U.S. sanctions and physical restrictions on maritime exports has made both selling oil and receiving the resulting revenue substantially more difficult.

This is an important change from the conditions under which Iran developed its sanctions-evasion networks. Before the war, the central challenge was finding ways around financial and commercial restrictions while continuing to move oil, particularly to China. Iran now faces the additional problem of physical restrictions on its ability to load and export crude. Even a functioning network of trustees cannot generate revenue from oil that cannot reach buyers.

Shortly before his resignation, Paknejad said revenues from oil already sold would continue to be collected. Iranian officials have also repeatedly maintained that the country has been able to keep its oil industry operating despite wartime attacks. But the combination of disrupted exports, sanctions and unresolved questions over previously sold oil places unusual pressure on a sector that remains one of the government’s most important sources of foreign currency.

That makes the dispute over trustees consequential beyond the Oil Ministry. When oil revenues are delayed, inaccessible or disputed, the effects can eventually reach government finances, the foreign-exchange market and Iran’s ability to pay for imports. In an economy already dealing with high inflation, a weakened currency, war-related disruption and intensified sanctions, even temporary interruptions in access to export earnings can carry significant costs.

Paknejad’s departure does not resolve any of these issues. Bovard inherits an oil industry simultaneously confronting wartime disruption, sanctions, domestic energy shortages and an increasingly contentious debate over how Iran’s most important source of foreign currency is managed. In the weeks prior to his resignation, parliament had launched investigations into NIOC and NICO, more than 40 lawmakers were supporting scrutiny of major oil transactions, and members of parliament were publicly raising questions involving tens of millions of barrels of oil and billions of dollars in revenues.

The larger story is therefore not simply why one Iranian oil minister left office. It is how sanctions have transformed the way Iran sells its most important export, creating a parallel system that has helped keep oil and money moving, but has also made some of the country’s largest financial transactions harder to monitor and increasingly controversial inside Iran itself.

Iran sent 305 athletes to Japan, including 95 women, for the competition that is held once every four years. Some of the biggest breakthroughs came in rowing. Fatemeh Mojallal became the first Iranian woman to win an Asian Games rowing gold, while Zeinab Norouzi and Kimia Zarei won another gold in the lightweight double sculls. Iranian women also collected additional medals in rowing, making it one of the strongest parts of the women’s delegation.

The breakthroughs extended well beyond rowing. Reyhaneh Karimi became the first Iranian woman to win an Asian Games medal in weightlifting, while Zahra Zarei took silver in the 400 meters, the first Asian Games medal ever won by an Iranian woman in a running event. Iran also returned to women’s artistic gymnastics at the Asian Games after an absence of roughly half a century. Saghar Moradi added another gold in taekwondo, continuing the rise of a women’s program that has already produced Iranian champions at the world level.

The results are significant not only because of the medals, but because several came in sports where Iranian women had little or no international presence a generation ago. For much of the period after the 1979 revolution, women’s participation in competitive sport was constrained by dress requirements, gender segregation, limited investment and restrictions affecting participation in particular disciplines.

That landscape has gradually changed. Iranian women now compete internationally in a much broader range of sports, participate more regularly in international tournaments and training camps, and have access to national-team programs that either did not exist or were considerably weaker two or three decades ago. Women’s professional and semi-professional leagues have also expanded, while female champions have become increasingly visible figures in Iranian media and popular culture.

The Asian Games provide one measure of that transformation. Iranian women gradually moved from limited participation toward medal contention in taekwondo, shooting, rowing, karate, wushu and other sports. At Jakarta in 2018, Iran’s women’s kabaddi team won the country’s first Asian Games gold in a women’s team sport. At Hangzhou in 2023, women collected numerous medals but failed to win a gold. However, Aichi-Nagoya produced three women’s championships and breakthroughs in weightlifting, track and field, rowing and gymnastics.

Weightlifting is particularly revealing. Iran has one of the world’s strongest traditions in men’s weightlifting, but organized elite competition for Iranian women is comparatively new. It has now produced its first female Asian Games medalist. A similar pattern can be seen in rowing, where sustained training, equipment, coaching and international competition have produced women capable of defeating the best athletes in Asia.

Zarei’s 400-meter silver may be even more revealing. Iranian women have previously achieved international success primarily in sports such as shooting, martial arts and rowing. Winning Iran’s first women’s Asian Games medal in a running event suggests that the expansion of elite women’s sport is beginning to reach disciplines where Iranian women have historically had a much smaller international presence.

These developments have occurred alongside broader changes in Iranian society. Women’s participation in organized sport has become considerably more normalized. Women’s leagues operate across numerous disciplines, female athletes increasingly have access to international competition, and women have gradually gained access to stadiums for some men’s sporting events after decades of restrictions.

For younger Iranian women, there is also now something that barely existed for earlier generations: a visible pathway from local sport to international competition. Olympic medalists, world champions and Asian champions provide models for younger athletes, while clubs, federations and national teams provide a more developed institutional pipeline.

It is not possible to attribute Iran’s improving results to social change alone. Coaching, federation investment, individual generations of talented athletes and the relative strength of Asian competition in each sport all matter. But the longer-term pattern suggests that as the practical space available to Iranian women in sport has expanded, so has the range of disciplines in which they are capable of competing and winning internationally.

That expansion remains incomplete. Iranian women are still absent from a number of sports contested by women from other Asian countries. Some of these absences reflect competitive priorities and limited resources, while others are connected to longstanding restrictions involving clothing, gender segregation and the organization of particular sports.

There is another important context for Iran’s performance in Aichi-Nagoya. These Asian Games took place while Iran was fighting a major regional war and facing a combination of U.S. sanctions, disruptions to transportation and trade, and severe economic pressure at home.

Those conditions would ordinarily be expected to make elite sport more difficult. International travel and training camps become more complicated, imported equipment becomes more expensive or inaccessible, and Iranian sports federations earning revenue in rials face much higher costs when competing abroad. Access to foreign expertise and regular international competition can also become harder.

Athletes themselves are not insulated from these conditions. Their families face the same inflation, economic uncertainty and wartime disruptions affecting other Iranians. Against this backdrop, finishing sixth in Asia with 19 gold medals suggests that Iran’s sporting system has so far proved more resilient than might have been expected under wartime conditions. Despite the effects of war and economic isolation, the Aichi-Nagoya results show that these pressures have not yet translated into a broad collapse in international performance.

At a moment when Iran is largely seen internationally through the lens of war, sanctions and political confrontation, Aichi-Nagoya offers a different view of changes taking place inside the country. Iranian women are entering areas of competitive sport that were largely closed or inaccessible to previous generations, and where sustained opportunities have emerged, some are already reaching the top of Asia.

On Thursday, the Treasury Department formally designated Iran’s automotive and rail sectors for sanctions and immediately applied the new authority to some of the country’s largest companies. The targets include Iran Khodro and SAIPA, which dominate Iran’s domestic automobile market, as well as Iran Khodro Diesel, Pars Khodro and Zamyad. Islamic Republic of Iran Railways, Raja Passenger Train Company and Railway Transportation Company were also targeted. The designations were made under Executive Orders 13902 and 13871 - both imposed in the first Trump administration - which target key Iranian industrial sectors.

Treasury alleged that “Iran’s automotive and rail industries have been coopted by the regime and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC),” and claimed that the automotive industry is a “lucrative cash cow for the IRGC to siphon funds from an ostensibly commercial venture.” However, some of these assertions seem questionable. Iran Khodro and SAIPA have been losing money for years and have huge debts. They have largely survived through government support, bank financing and accounting measures. While IRGC-connected figures could plausibly benefit from deals with each company, their financial outlook more closely resembles struggling companies kept alive by the state than a profitable source of funding to exploit.

Treasury noted that the automotive industry is Iran’s largest economic sector outside oil and gas, indicating that Iran Khodro and SAIPA together account for more than 90 percent of the domestic auto market. By designating the automotive and rail sectors themselves, Washington also created broader authority to sanction companies and individuals doing business with them. The same action targeted foreign suppliers in Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, Indonesia and Hong Kong.

The measures are the latest phase of Operation Economic Outcast, the campaign Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent launched in late August. Since then, Washington has rolled out successive rounds targeting Iran’s banking connections, airlines and their foreign suppliers, cryptocurrency and alternative payment networks, military procurement abroad and financial links with Russia. The aviation measures have already contributed to Iranian carriers losing access to several international destinations, directly affecting civilian travel.

This week’s move into automobiles and railways takes the campaign deeper into Iran’s domestic economy. The auto sector is particularly significant because of its size and the extensive network of manufacturers, parts suppliers, dealerships and workers connected to it. Millions of Iranian households also depend on domestically-produced vehicles and replacement parts in a market where imported cars remain expensive and restricted.

But the structure of the industry has changed considerably since earlier rounds of U.S. sanctions. European manufacturers once played an important role in Iran’s automobile industry, particularly French companies. Much of that presence disappeared after the United States withdrew from the nuclear agreement and restored secondary sanctions in 2018. Iran’s automotive industry is now considerably more dependent on China and other Asian suppliers than on Europe.

That shift is visible in Thursday’s sanctions themselves. Treasury targeted two Hong Kong-based companies that it says supplied parts to Iran Khodro and SAIPA, alongside companies elsewhere in Asia and the Middle East.

The rail sanctions come as overland transportation has also become more important to Iran during the war. With maritime commerce severely constrained, Tehran has increasingly looked toward land routes connecting Iran with China, Russia and Central Asia. Cargo trains traveling from Xi’an in central China to Tehran increased from roughly one per week before the war to one every three or four days after the U.S. blockade began, according to Bloomberg.

Iran has also continued developing north-south transportation links with Russia and Central Asia. These routes remain far too small to replace maritime trade, but their importance has increased as Iran searches for alternative ways to move goods. The new sanctions therefore reach both Iran’s domestic passenger and freight networks and infrastructure Tehran has increasingly relied on to adapt to wartime restrictions.

How far Washington can restrict those alternatives will depend heavily on countries outside Iran. China and Russia have both rejected important elements of the U.S. pressure campaign, and neither has indicated that it intends to enforce the latest unilateral sanctions. Beijing has repeatedly said it opposes U.S. sanctions imposed without authorization from the United Nations Security Council and has defended its economic relations with Iran.

China is particularly important. It remains Iran’s most important major economic partner, a principal buyer of Iranian oil and an increasingly important source of vehicles, manufactured goods, technology and industrial components. Reuters reported in September that Iran and China have used a mechanism linking Iranian oil revenues to purchases from Chinese suppliers, allowing billions of dollars in trade to take place outside conventional Western banking channels.

Washington can sanction individual Chinese companies and threaten firms with secondary sanctions. But without substantial cooperation from China, restricting Iran’s remaining international trade becomes considerably more difficult.

The widening sanctions campaign comes as disruption to global energy markets remains another major consequence of the war. Some energy cargoes continue to move through the Strait of Hormuz, including an increase in LNG shipments during September, but the broader disruption continues to affect fuel markets, particularly refined products such as diesel. Governments have discussed releases from emergency reserves while Washington has pressed partners to take measures to increase supplies.

At the same time, indirect negotiations between Iran and the United States continue. Qatar has maintained shuttle diplomacy between the two governments, and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi this week received Washington’s response to an Iranian seven-day confidence-building proposal. Discussions have included the Strait of Hormuz, economic measures and a possible path toward broader nuclear negotiations. No breakthrough has been announced.

The pace of the sanctions announcements shows the importance the Trump administration is placing on economic pressure alongside its military and diplomatic strategy. In little more than a month, Washington has successively targeted banking connections, aviation, alternative payment systems, foreign procurement networks, Russia-linked financial channels and now automobiles and railways.

The new sanctions are also being imposed on an economy already under unusually intense pressure. Unlike during earlier rounds of “maximum pressure,” Iran is now also facing a physical blockade that has sharply constrained its ability to export oil and conduct maritime trade, while U.S. sanctions simultaneously target banking, aviation, payment networks and now major transportation and industrial sectors.

Iran has developed more extensive trade and financial links with China and Russia to withstand sanctions, but those channels cannot fully compensate for the loss of normal oil exports and maritime commerce. The cumulative pressure has already affected government revenues, access to foreign currency, imports and the broader economy. The addition of automobiles and railways extends that pressure into sectors with direct connections to employment, transportation and household costs.

For now, Washington continues to add new layers of economic pressure while Tehran remains in negotiations without accepting the broader terms sought by the Trump administration. China and Russia, meanwhile, have shown no sign of joining the U.S. effort to economically isolate Iran.

Previous sanctions have demonstrated that Washington can impose substantial costs on Iran, including costs ultimately borne by ordinary Iranians. Yet that pressure has ultimately not been exchanged for concessions at the negotiation table. So far, both Washington and Tehran continue to negotiate while resisting key concessions sought by the other, leaving any path out of the confrontation dependent on reciprocal steps that neither side has yet agreed to take.

The judiciary announced on September 30 that Ali Hemmati Sistani and Majid Nikandish were executed after their death sentences were upheld by Iran’s Supreme Court. Both had been arrested following unrest on January 8 and 9 in the Tabarsi district of Mashhad, one of the locations where demonstrations escalated into violent confrontations.

Mizan, the judiciary’s official news agency, described the two men as organizers and active participants in the unrest. According to the judiciary’s account, protesters in the area damaged and set fire to shops, banks, buses and other public property, blocked streets and clashed with security forces. Four members of the security forces were killed during the violence. The government says Hemmati and Nikandish personally participated in some of the violence.

According to statements attributed to Hemmati by Mizan, he admitted that he and Nikandish attacked and set fire to a chain store and later encountered two Basij members who were being beaten by a crowd. Hemmati was quoted as saying that he stabbed one of them twice before Nikandish took the knife and stabbed the other. Nikandish was quoted as saying that he carried a knife and three Molotov cocktails during the unrest, filmed events and sent footage to a number outside Iran. The judiciary also accused him of setting fire to a bank, damaging public property and attacking the store alongside Hemmati. Authorities said merchandise taken from the store was subsequently discovered at Hemmati’s home.

These allegations are important for understanding the cases. The judiciary is not presenting Hemmati and Nikandish simply as protesters sentenced to death for demonstrating against the government. It alleges that they participated directly in serious violence during unrest in which four security personnel were killed.

At the same time, the public account leaves significant questions about the legal proceedings unanswered. Mizan says both defendants had lawyers, were tried in court and that their convictions were reviewed and upheld by the Supreme Court. But its report does not clearly identify the precise criminal charge that formed the legal basis for the death sentences or explain whether either defendant was convicted specifically of killing any of the four security personnel.

Much of the detailed public evidence presented by the judiciary also consists of confessions attributed to the defendants. Iranian human-rights organizations have repeatedly raised concerns about reliance on confessions in political and national-security cases, particularly when independent information about detention conditions and access to counsel is limited.

The executions come amid ongoing debates over the government’s response to the January protests. The demonstrations began in December 2025 and eventually spread across all 31 provinces and more than 200 cities, according to the United Nations Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Iran. Iranian authorities have put the death toll at 3,038, while the UN mission says it has substantial grounds to believe the actual number was significantly higher.

The UN investigators have accused Iranian security forces of using lethal force against protesters as well as bystanders, including children, and concluded that some documented acts - including killings, imprisonment and torture - amounted to crimes against humanity. Iranian authorities have disputed international accounts of the unrest and have portrayed the events as a foreign-backed effort to destabilize the country.

The protests started off predominantly peaceful, driven by widespread economic grievances. However, significant violence against security forces unfolded amid the protests as well, which appears to have been encouraged by outside actors. This led to a bloody crackdown on the protests that left thousands dead, including many innocents who wanted simply to make their voices heard.

The executions therefore illustrate one of the central difficulties in assessing the aftermath of the January protests: deep concerns about due process make it difficult to independently evaluate the government’s claims against individual defendants. While the government has charged defendants with serious crimes, the proceedings have been marred by rushed trials, limited access to lawyers, accusations of torture, coerced confessions and the widespread use of capital punishment before guilt has been definitively established.

The UN fact-finding mission has called on Iran to halt pending executions, establish a moratorium on the death penalty and release people arbitrarily detained in connection with the protests.

The executions of Hemmati and Nikandish also come as Iran continues to carry out death sentences in other national-security cases. In another recent case, the judiciary announced the execution of Hossein Pedaran, an Iranian citizen convicted of spying for Israel and allegedly providing Mossad with information about sensitive military facilities in Isfahan Province. His case was unrelated to the protests.

For the families of those arrested after January’s unrest, the executions in Mashhad demonstrate that the judicial consequences of the protests are still unfolding months later. They also underscore the need to distinguish between what Iranian authorities allege happened during violent episodes of the unrest and what can be independently established about individual defendants and the judicial process that ultimately sends them to the gallows.

On Thursday, a police officer was killed when gunmen attacked the Ahmadabad checkpoint in Rask. Around the same time, Iranian security forces fought a roughly four-hour battle against armed men inside a residential building in Manzelab, near Zahedan, eventually killing six people whom the Revolutionary Guards described as members of a “Takfiri terrorist team.” By Friday morning, another prolonged confrontation was underway near the villages of Bidadlad and Shushgim in Rask. Iranian media confirmed an operation against armed men in the area, while local Baloch sources reported heavy weapons, armored vehicles, drones and several hours of sustained fighting.

The latest confrontations are unfolding against an important change in the armed landscape of Sistan and Baluchestan: several of the province’s principal Baloch armed organizations are now operating under the People’s Fighters Front, an alliance formed in late 2025 that includes Jaish al-Adl, the Pada Baloch Movement, the Nasr Movement of Baluchestan and other armed factions. The coalition has already claimed involvement in several of the major confrontations documented by Iran Unfiltered, including the September battles in Saravan and, most recently, Thursday’s fighting in Manzelab near Zahedan.

This makes it increasingly difficult to view the recent violence simply as a collection of unrelated attacks by disparate armed groups. The formation of the coalition provides an organizational framework through which at least some of these operations are being conducted. At the same time, responsibility for several of the latest incidents - including the attack on the Ahmadabad checkpoint in Rask and a reported attack near Zahedan on Friday - has not yet been publicly claimed, making it premature to attribute every incident in the province to the coalition.

Thursday’s confrontation in Manzelab provides some of the clearest evidence of the intensity of the latest violence. According to the IRGC’s Quds regional headquarters, security forces identified a six-member armed cell that was preparing attacks in the province. A joint operation involving the IRGC and police ended with all six alleged members killed and explosive devices recovered.

Local accounts described a much larger security operation than the brief official announcement suggested. Haalvsh reported that dozens of security personnel surrounded a residential building beginning around 6:00 a.m., positioning forces on nearby rooftops while exchanging fire with the men inside for approximately four hours. Videos from the area showed extensive damage to the building. Local residents reported hearing sustained gunfire and explosions, including what they described as RPG and mortar fire.

The People’s Fighters Front subsequently said its members were involved in the Manzelab confrontation. This follows the coalition’s acknowledgment of involvement in the major September confrontations in Saravan and provides further evidence that the alliance is playing an active role in at least part of the recent escalation.

The location is again significant. Iran Unfiltered noted last week that armed confrontation had reached Zahedan itself, weakening the argument that the escalation could be understood primarily as cross-border militancy around Saravan and the Pakistani frontier. The Manzelab battle now provides another example of prolonged armed confrontation in and around the provincial capital.

Rask has simultaneously emerged as another center of violence. On Thursday, gunmen attacked the Ahmadabad checkpoint, killing police officer Alireza Sanchouli. Provincial authorities said the attackers fired from the direction of a nearby river and withdrew after security forces returned fire. No organization immediately claimed responsibility.

Less than a day later, security forces launched another operation near Bidadlad and Shushgim in Rask County. Iranian media confirmed that security forces were engaged with armed men in the area but initially provided few details about their identities or casualties. Haalvsh reported that the fighting began around 5:30 a.m. Friday and continued for more than six hours.

The outlet also reported the deployment of armored vehicles, reinforcements, heavy weapons, surveillance quadcopters and explosive drones. Those details have not been independently confirmed. Reports of casualties among IRGC personnel have likewise circulated locally but had not been officially confirmed at the time of writing.

Among the unconfirmed reports that should be treated with caution, Haalvsh reported Friday that at least five members of the Fatemiyoun, an Afghan Shiite militia closely associated with the IRGC’s Quds Force, were killed when their vehicle was struck by an explosive device and then came under gunfire in the Rudmahi area near Zahedan. Iranian authorities have not confirmed that Fatemiyoun members were involved, though the IRGC acknowledged a roadside bombing in Sistan and Baluchestan that killed one of its personnel, without identifying the location or the deceased as connected to Fatemiyoun. It remains unclear whether the two accounts describe the same incident.

There have also been recent local reports and videos purporting to show armed Fatemiyoun personnel operating around Rudmahi and elsewhere in the province. Haalvsh reported another attack in the same area in September that it said killed four members of the group. These reports have not been independently verified, and there is not yet sufficient evidence to determine the scale or purpose of any Fatemiyoun presence in Sistan and Baluchestan.

The reports are nevertheless worth watching. Fatemiyoun is composed largely of Afghan Shiites and has historically recruited heavily among Afghanistan’s Hazara community. Its confirmed deployment in a predominantly Sunni Baloch province could introduce an additional ethnic and sectarian dimension into an already sensitive conflict. That does not mean sectarian confrontation is inevitable, or that the current violence is primarily sectarian. But using an externally recruited Shiite force in security operations in Sistan and Baluchestan could deepen local perceptions of alienation and create new tensions if the reports of its presence are substantiated.

Taken together, the latest events strengthen the picture that emerged in Iran Unfiltered’s previous reports: the escalation is becoming more sustained, more geographically dispersed and increasingly organized. The People’s Fighters Front has provided a common organizational structure for several previously separate Baloch armed organizations and has acknowledged involvement in repeated major confrontations with Iranian security forces. At the same time, not every attack has been claimed, and the extent to which the coalition is directing or coordinating the wider pattern of violence remains uncertain.

The September battles in Saravan demonstrated that armed organizations could sustain hours-long confrontations while inflicting losses on local IRGC commanders. The events since then add another dimension: repeated fighting around Zahedan and the emergence of Rask as another center of sustained violence.

The firmer conclusion is that the security situation has continued to deteriorate since Iran Unfiltered’s last report. Within roughly a week, senior IRGC officers have been killed in Saravan, police have come under attack in Rask, members of the People’s Fighters Front have fought another prolonged battle near Zahedan, and another major security operation has unfolded in Rask.

The formation of a broader Baloch armed coalition makes the current phase different from one in which authorities faced only fragmented militant organizations carrying out isolated attacks. But the extent of coordination across the latest incidents remains unclear, as does the significance of reports that Fatemiyoun personnel are now operating in the province. What is increasingly clear is that armed confrontation is becoming a recurring feature across several parts of Sistan and Baluchestan rather than an occasional flare-up confined to Iran’s borderlands.

The campaign’s visibility comes as Iran’s economic situation worsens. On October 1, the dollar approached 260,000 tomans - 2.6 million rials - on Tehran’s open market. The increase continued despite the central bank’s announcement a day earlier that it planned to supply $2 billion in banknotes, beginning with $1 billion distributed through selected banks and bank-affiliated exchange offices.

The rial’s latest decline has coincided with Washington’s intensified economic pressure campaign and the continuing U.S. naval blockade. The falling rial is further eroding the purchasing power of salaries, as higher costs for imported goods and production inputs feed into prices across the economy. According to the Statistical Center of Iran, consumer prices in Shahrivar, the Iranian month ending in September, were 89.8 percent higher than a year earlier. Prices rose 4.2 percent during that month alone, while twelve-month average inflation reached 73.6 percent.

For teachers and nurses, a nominal salary increase can go along with a declining standard of living. Food, transportation, clothing and other necessities absorb more income, while saving for housing or unexpected expenses becomes increasingly difficult. While public-sector employees generally retain some protection through regular salaries and employment benefits, the hardship is even more severe for people unable to find work or relying on part-time and irregular jobs, who face the same rising prices without a dependable income.

The question raised by the campaign is whether years of training and public service still offer a realistic path to financial security. The economic hardship extends well beyond teachers and nurses, affecting broad sectors of Iranian society.

U.S. sanctions and the blockade are intensifying the economic constraints facing both public-service workers and the institutions employing them. Restrictions on export earnings limit access to foreign currency, while obstacles to banking and transportation can make essential supplies more expensive. Reduced public revenue can also constrain the government’s ability to fund salaries and services. Decisions about how available resources are allocated remain the responsibility of Iranian authorities.

For hospitals, economic pressure affects the affordability of supplies as well as the ability to retain staff. Nurses face rising expenses at home while working in institutions under financial strain. Schools face a similar challenge: continuing to educate depends on employees whose own livelihoods are becoming less secure.

The resignation campaign turns these pressures into a public appeal, with participants speaking on camera to draw attention to an economic crisis that extends beyond their professions. Low compensation, delayed payments, unequal resource allocation and punitive treatment of labor activists are longstanding grievances now unfolding amid deepening economic pressure.

One woman with a decade of experience teaching recalled in Iranian media that her early earnings, though modest, had previously allowed her to save toward major purchases with her husband. Her concern was that the widening gap between income and prices had since made that kind of planning increasingly unrealistic.

Teachers’ representatives argue that the departures reflect accumulated grievances over both livelihoods and the treatment of their profession. In a statement circulated by Iranian media, the Coordinating Council of Iranian Teachers’ Trade Associations described experienced educators leaving jobs to which they remained deeply attached. The council attributed the situation to inadequate wages, educational inequality, excessive bureaucracy and security measures against teachers engaged in labor activism, including dismissal, suspension and detention. It rejected explanations centered on foreign instigation and held the authorities responsible for the conditions driving dissatisfaction.

Education Minister Alireza Kazemi offered a sharply different account on September 30. Speaking to education administrators in Isfahan, he said approximately 650,000 classrooms were functioning with teachers. According to state news agency IRNA, he dismissed the controversy as material circulated by four people whom he said were not teachers.

Kazemi placed the issue within a broader campaign of cognitive and cultural warfare against Iran and urged administrators to prevent such narratives from influencing teachers, students and families. His reported remarks did not include a national tally of resignations. He also acknowledged recruitment constraints. Education authorities, he said, had not recruited 30,000 personnel through one recruitment channel this year and had not received an allocation of 5,000 military-service teachers. Nevertheless, he maintained that the school year had begun smoothly.

In nursing, professional representatives warn that formal resignation statistics capture only part of the workforce problem. Mohammad Sharifi-Moghadam, secretary-general of the Nurses’ House, told Iranian media that temporary employees who decline to renew contracts, or nurses who leave during service placements, may not be recorded as having resigned. Deputy Health Minister for Nursing Abbas Ebadi identified understaffing as a driver of burnout and departures, saying retention depended on financial, professional, organizational and social conditions. He reported that 12,000 nursing recruitment authorizations had been obtained during the previous year, although authorizations do not establish how many nurses were ultimately hired.

Nursing representatives at the same gathering raised low compensation, delayed payments, insecure employment and unequal resource allocation. Their complaints highlight why additional funding must be accompanied by improvements in working conditions and the distribution of healthcare resources.

For patients and students, persistent staff losses threaten the quality and continuity of essential services. When departures exceed replacement, remaining workers absorb more responsibilities. New recruits may replenish headcounts without immediately replacing experienced colleagues’ knowledge.

The immediate importance of the campaign is its warning: people responsible for teaching children and caring for patients are publicly questioning whether they can afford to continue. The falling rial, inflation and external economic restrictions are making longstanding workplace grievances harder to bear. Addressing that pressure requires both relief from the measures constricting Iran’s economy and domestic decisions that make remaining in these professions a sustainable choice.

The 2026 Iran War — February 28, 2026 to the Present

A cross-verified analytical report | Primary sources:

International Energy Agency (IEA) · Bloomberg · CNBC · Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) · Associated Press (AP) · Reuters · Al Jazeera · BBC Persian · UN News · Center for American Progress · The Globe and Mail · WarCosts.org · Conflict and Environment Observatory (CEOBS) · Iran News Update · Rystad Energy · Goldman Sachs · International Monetary Fund (IMF) · Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) · Donya-e Eqtesad · Iranian Labour News Agency (ILNA) · The New Humanitarian · UNHCR

Introduction: The Legal Standard and What This Report Documents

Civilian infrastructure is protected under international law. Articles 52 through 56 of Additional Protocol I to the 1949 Geneva Conventions prohibit attacks on civilian objects - including economic infrastructure - unless those objects make an effective contribution to military action and their destruction offers a definite military advantage. The proportionality principle further requires that anticipated harm to civilians not be excessive relative to the expected military gain. A state cannot lawfully destroy the infrastructure on which a civilian population depends for survival and livelihood - its water systems, hospitals, food supply chains, power networks, and the industrial base that provides employment - simply because that infrastructure also generates revenue for the government it opposes.

The United Nations has applied this standard directly to the U.S.-Israel war against Iran. Responding to strikes on Iranian bridges and transport hubs, a spokesperson for Secretary-General António Guterres stated that the Secretary-General was deeply concerned about attacks on civilian infrastructure in Iran and across the region, and that “Such attacks are unacceptable.” In a subsequent statement, the UN reiterated that “vital infrastructure on which civilians rely for survival” - including hospitals and water supplies - “must be spared.” The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), Médecins Sans Frontières, and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights likewise condemned strikes on water facilities, hospitals, and university campuses, even where attacking parties characterized those facilities as “dual-use.” UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk went further, stating that attacks targeting civilian objects or infrastructure indispensable to civilian populations “constitute serious violations of international humanitarian law and amount to war crimes.” ¹

That standard applies to all parties. Iranian retaliatory strikes damaged civilian infrastructure across the region - a power and water desalination plant in Kuwait was hit repeatedly, and civilian sites were struck in Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Oman and Jordan - and killed civilians, among them a child in Kuwait. The Secretary-General’s statement addressed attacks on civilian infrastructure in Iran and across the region, and the High Commissioner for Human Rights applied the identical formulation to Iranian strikes on Gulf states and Jordan: attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure must end, and “if they are deliberate, such attacks may constitute war crimes.” The Security Council condemned Iran’s attacks on its neighbours in Resolution 2817 of June 3, 2026. This report documents damage inside Iran because that is its subject; the legal standard it applies is not one that distinguishes between belligerents, and some of the regional consequences of Iranian strikes are set out in Section XIV. ²

This report is the second volume in a series on the impact of the war. Its companion, Civilian Casualties and Housing Damage in Iran (NIAC Iran Unfiltered Special Edition, July 16, 2026), documents the war’s direct human cost in the first 39 days: as many as 2,362 civilians killed, including 254 to 376 children, more than 26,500 injured, and over 125,000 residential units damaged or destroyed. The present volume documents the destruction of the infrastructure Iranian civilians depended on and traces its economic and social consequences. ³

Since February 28, 2026, United States and Israeli forces have conducted sustained air operations against Iran, concentrated in separate waves: an initial 39-day campaign (February 28 – April 8, 2026) and a renewed campaign in July 2026 that included 13 consecutive nights of US strikes across southern Iran. A third campaign of U.S. strikes began on August 30, 2026. Hostilities did not cease between these waves of strikes: the April 8 agreement was a two-week pause announced by Pakistan and later extended. The United States imposed a naval blockade of Iranian ports on April 13, and on May 7 US forces struck Bandar Abbas and Qeshm Island. The blockade was lifted under the Islamabad Memorandum of June 14 and reimposed on July 14. This report treats the period from February 28, 2026 onward as a single continuous conflict of varying intensity, not as separate wars.

Before the renewal of active hostilities in late August, the war had: taken roughly 70 percent of Iran’s refining throughput offline at its peak, by one open-source estimate; and — by Israel’s own claim — destroyed 70 percent of Iran’s steel production capacity; struck more than 80 energy facilities region-wide; damaged 27 of the country’s airports, one of them — Bushehr International — destroyed outright; damaged 12 bridges and two tunnels; struck more than 210 health centers and knocked six hospitals out of service - including a children’s cancer hospital in Ahvaz rendered inoperable; damaged or destroyed at least 1,288 schools, of which 16 required fundamental reconstruction after direct hits, along with 32 universities; deepened an internet blackout the Iranian government had already imposed during the January 2026 protest crackdown, driving access down to 12 percent of pre-war levels; eliminated more than one million jobs; and pushed food inflation above 100 percent in a country where 40 percent of the population was already below the absolute poverty line. Iran’s government has estimated total damage at approximately $270 billion. The chapters that follow document each of these findings in turn, identify who conducted each strike and what each facility is, and - wherever sources permit - present the human beings behind the numbers.

Evidence, Methodology, and Scope

This report applies a two-tier evidentiary standard. Tier 1 figures are verified by at least two independent sources using distinct methodologies. Tier 2 figures derive from official Iranian government statements or single sources not yet independently audited, and are cited with explicit attribution. All figures should be read as minimum thresholds: the Iranian government’s internet blackouts, its restrictions on media access, and its suppression of independent reporting - in place before the war and intensified during it - have constrained documentation throughout. That constraint was described by residents themselves: a Bandar Abbas resident told IranWire that no independent photographer was permitted near the bombed sites, leaving residents to infer what had been hit from the direction of fire and smoke. ⁴

Scope: one conflict, separate phases of major operations. Phase I: the initial US-Israeli air campaign of February 28 to April 8, 2026 (the ‘39-day war’). The ceasefire that followed was partial and repeatedly breached; hostilities continued at lower intensity through the spring, including U.S. strikes on Bandar Abbas and Qeshm Island on May 7. Phase II: intensified warfare in mid-2026, centered on the Strait of Hormuz crisis, including a U.S. campaign of strikes over 13 consecutive nights against targets across southern Iran in July. An additional third phase of the war appears to be underway at the time of publication.

The Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding, mediated by Pakistan and signed on June 14, 2026, declared an immediate end to the war, opened a 60-day window for a final agreement, lifted the U.S. naval blockade, authorized the resumption of Iranian oil exports, and committed the United States and regional partners to a reconstruction plan for Iran worth at least $300 billion. Its economic provisions were not delivered: Iran exported $6 billion in oil but did not receive the $12 billion in frozen assets it expected, or any subsequent investments for reconstruction. U.S. strikes resumed on July 8, and on July 18 Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister announced the suspension of Iran’s commitments under the memorandum, citing US breaches. No successor agreement had been concluded at the time of publication. Except where noted, damage figures reflect the cumulative effect of the conflict from February 28, 2026, to the time of publication. ⁵

Section I: Energy Infrastructure

1.1 Oil, Gas, and Refining

Iran’s oil and gas sector - the country’s primary source of hard currency - was a principal target of both US and Israeli air campaigns.

Abadan refinery, Khuzestan (early and mid-March 2026): Iran’s largest and oldest refinery, with crude processing capacity of 430,000–500,000 barrels per day, supplying approximately one quarter of national fuel demand. Witnesses in Iraq’s Basra governorate reported a heavy strike shortly after 1 a.m. local time, with fires visible across the Shatt al-Arab; it was the first reported attack on Iranian petroleum infrastructure of the war. Subsequent reporting cited additional strikes on or near the Abadan refinery in March, although the extent of damage to the facility was not independently established. WarCosts.org, an open-source damage tracker, attributed the taking of 70 percent of national refining capacity offline to a March 19 strike - the single source of the 70 percent figure used throughout this report, which has not been independently corroborated. By September, the Abadan refinery was demonstrably producing and offering petroleum products, although public reporting reviewed for this report does not establish its current crude throughput or whether it has returned to its pre-war processing capacity. More broadly, Iran’s oil minister said in early September that a large portion of reconstruction work at oil and gas refining facilities damaged during the war had been completed. He said debris removal had begun within two to three days of the attacks, although he did not provide facility-by-facility capacity figures that would allow independent assessment of how much refining capacity had actually returned to service.⁶

What the 70 percent figure represents. The 70 percent figure should be understood as WarCosts’ estimate of refining capacity taken offline at that point in the war, rather than an estimate that 70 percent of Iran’s refining infrastructure had been physically destroyed. Iran had ten operating refineries with a combined capacity of roughly 2.6 million barrels per day. Several factors could help explain the scale of the reported disruption: units damaged at Abadan, which accounts for roughly 17 to 19 percent of national refining capacity; strikes on the Lavan Island refinery and fuel-storage facilities associated with the Tehran refinery; the Persian Gulf Star refinery in Bandar Abbas — Iran’s largest gasoline producer at 360,000 barrels per day, supplying roughly 35 percent of national gasoline output — starved of the South Pars condensate it receives by pipeline once Asaluyeh was struck, though the refinery itself was never hit; and missile strikes on fuel storage depots in Tehran and Alborz provinces on March 7. The National Iranian Oil Refining and Distribution Company (NIORDC) stated that fuel supply and distribution remained stable and uninterrupted nationwide, and that stocks had been deliberately drawn down in advance to minimize losses - a Tier 2 official claim recorded here for completeness.⁷

Asaluyeh complex (March 18, 2026 - Israeli drone strike): Israeli forces struck gas processing facilities at Asaluyeh, a city on Iran’s Persian Gulf coast that serves as the operational center of the South Pars gas field — the world’s largest non-associated natural gas reserve, shared between Iran and Qatar. Four gas processing units went offline. Asaluyeh, together with the Bandar Imam Khomeini port complex, accounts for more than 70 percent of Iran’s petrochemical production capacity — a separate measure from the refining figure above.

Reconstruction update (September 2026): The scale and duration of the disruption have become clearer as reconstruction has progressed. Oil Minister Mohsen Paknejad said war damage had reduced Iran’s natural-gas production by approximately 95 million cubic meters per day, concentrated largely at gas-processing facilities in Asaluyeh. Some of the loss was offset by redirecting processing to other refineries. By September, Paknejad said reconstruction was continuing simultaneously at four damaged gas refineries and at liquid-fuel storage and loading facilities in Tehran. Paknejad said part of the remaining lost capacity was expected to return by March 2027, with the rest during the following six months. ⁸

Mahshahr–Bandar Imam petrochemical zone (April 4–7, 2026 - US-Israeli strikes): Mahshahr, in Khuzestan Province on the Persian Gulf, hosts Iran’s largest concentration of petrochemical plants - dozens of interconnected production complexes built around the Bandar Imam Khomeini port. In the main wave of US-Israeli strikes on this zone, the following plants were hit: Fajr 1 and Fajr 2 (utility plants supplying power and steam to the entire zone), Bandar Imam Khomeini Petrochemical, Razi (fertilizers), Karoon, Tondgouyan (polyethylene terephthalate), BouAli Sina, Ghadir, Maroon, and Persian Gulf Energy. Six workers were killed - three at Fajr 1 and three at Fajr 2 - and 19 others were wounded across the zone.

Shiraz, Marvdasht, and South Pars (April 6–7, 2026): Strikes also targeted petrochemical facilities elsewhere in Iran. The Shiraz petrochemical complex was hit by multiple projectiles and rockets, knocking several units out of production, per the company’s public relations office. The Marvdasht petrochemical plant sustained a strike whose resulting fire was contained within minutes, with damage described by the local governorate as minor and no casualties. A unit of Amirkabir Petrochemical in the Special Economic Zone was struck on the night of April 7 with no reported casualties or chemical leaks. Two petrochemical plants in the South Pars zone were also targeted by aerial attack, per the Bushehr deputy governor.

Cumulative damage: The International Energy Agency (IEA) stated that more than 80 energy facilities across the region had been struck since the war began, with more than one-third sustaining severe damage. IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol described the crisis as “the greatest global energy security threat in history.” Rystad Energy estimated repair costs for damaged energy infrastructure at $34–58 billion, and the IEA projected that restoring output to pre-war levels could take up to two years. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights addressed these strikes specifically. “Attacks on energy infrastructure - including South Pars in Iran and Ras Laffan in Qatar - will only compound hardship,” Volker Türk said in March 2026. “Disastrous humanitarian, economic and environmental consequences will be triggered if such attacks continue, resulting in deep harm to civilians - potentially for years to come.” ⁹

^{Read the full report on NIAC’s website…}

Inside Iran, that calculation is fueling a debate over whether to remain open to a deal or intensify the confrontation. Calls to increase pressure before the U.S. midterm elections, confront the United Arab Emirates, and withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty are emerging alongside Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi’s continued pursuit of mediation.

On Monday, September 28, IRNA reported that the Iranian delegation in New York had no talks with U.S. officials scheduled and was awaiting a response to positions conveyed through Qatar. Later that day, IRNA reported that Araghchi would meet Qatari mediators. This indicated that indirect diplomatic exchanges were continuing, even without a scheduled meeting between Iranian and American officials.

The gaps between Washington and Tehran include both the scope of a settlement and the sequence of concessions. In an interview that aired Sunday on NBC’s Meet the Press, Araghchi laid out Iran’s demands for an agreement to end the war. “First of all, we want to end this war — this war of aggression,” said Araghchi. “They started this war eight months ago with the hope that in two, three days, you know, they can win the war. It’s now eight months. And we want it to be ended. We want our moneys, our assets, which are illegally frozen, to be released. We want, you know, to be able to sell our oil. So we want certain things that U.S. has already committed itself in the previous, you know, deals.” He reiterated that Iran was willing to open the Strait of Hormuz within seven days, and noted that Iran had not heard a formal rejection from the Trump administration through mediators despite widespread reports to the contrary.

Speaking on CNN’s State of the Union, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz put the blame on Iran for the impasse and said Iran was “asking for everything up front.” He continued, saying Iran was “asking for relief from billions and billions of sanctions,” along with “snapback sanctions from the United Nations” and for “access to billions in frozen assets.” He suggested this would not have been in return for concrete concessions, but instead a promise to talk. He also suggested Iran violated the original Memorandum of Understanding bu firing at ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz. Iran wants tangible relief before surrendering its pressure on shipping, while Washington wants confidence that relief will secure concessions extending beyond Hormuz. Each side fears giving up its bargaining position before the other delivers.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has presented the economic squeeze as a reason for Washington to wait. Speaking to Fox News, he claimed that only around 15 million barrels of Iranian oil remained in transit and that Iran could deliver its final shipments to China within roughly two weeks. That is a claim by a party to the conflict, rather than an independently established deadline for Iran’s economic exhaustion. Even a severe reduction in oil receipts would not automatically determine when, or whether, Tehran changes its negotiating position.

The domestic costs are nevertheless increasingly visible. Khabar Online reported the dollar at 240,500 tomans on Monday, while a later Eghtesad Online report put it above 244,000 tomans. Separately, Tejarat News, citing Central Bank figures, reported urban consumer prices in September were 83.8 percent higher than a year earlier. Currency depreciation raises business costs while eroding household purchasing power. The government’s capacity to prolong a confrontation is not the same as the population’s capacity to absorb its consequences.

Iran’s medicine shortages show how this pressure reaches patients. The Financial Times, citing Iranian pharmacists and health officials, reported shortages of around 60 medicines used to treat life-threatening conditions. Although medicines are generally exempt from sanctions, payment barriers, shipping restrictions, and banks’ reluctance to process transactions can obstruct access. Domestic policy has compounded the problem: the removal of subsidized foreign exchange for many medicines has increased costs. For patients, prolonged confrontation will mean interrupted treatment and essential drugs becoming unaffordable.

The pressure also extends outward. Reuters reported Brent crude at $106.60 a barrel on Monday morning in New York, up 2.2 percent, after Trump rejected Iran’s proposal. Sustained high oil prices increase costs for energy consumers and complicate efforts to contain inflation. For advocates of escalation in Tehran, those international costs are a source of bargaining power. But higher prices do not necessarily benefit Iran when restrictions prevent it from exporting freely or accessing the proceeds.

Economist Majid Shakeri has articulated the argument for waiting more explicitly. Speaking on Iran’s state television news channel, IRINN, he argued for maintaining or increasing pressure ahead of the U.S. midterm elections. In this assessment, reducing the economic costs of the confrontation would benefit Trump. Araghchi has publicly taken a different position, saying that American elections do not determine Iran’s interests and that opportunities for peace should be pursued.

The UAE has become a focal point because of its role, as described by Shakeri and other Iranian advocates of escalation, in keeping oil moving through the Strait of Hormuz. In their account, the UAE is buying oil from Gulf producers and chartering tankers, assuming or accommodating insurance-related risks that would otherwise discourage shipments. Transportation becomes more expensive, but some exports continue, although below prewar levels. Their concern is that Emirati arrangements are making the risks commercially manageable and weakening Iran’s ability to translate disruption into economic pressure.

That argument underpins calls to widen the confrontation. Shakeri and others contend that targeting individual tankers cannot preserve Iran’s leverage if the UAE continues organizing shipments and absorbing additional costs. They advocate directly targeting the UAE instead, presenting this as a way to keep the Strait of Hormuz an effective Iranian bargaining instrument.

Mostafa Najafi made a related case in a post on X. He accused the UAE of facilitating other countries’ oil shipments, obstructing an Iranian-Omani agreement on managing Hormuz, and lobbying Washington and Israel to attack Iran. He also alleged direct Emirati participation in attacks and portrayed Netanyahu’s visit to Abu Dhabi as evidence of an anti-Iranian agenda. These are Najafi’s allegations, not independently-established findings about Emirati actions or the visit’s outcome.

Najafi argued that Tehran should move its handling of the UAE beyond exclusively political and diplomatic measures. His post illustrates the push for escalation without establishing an official decision to attack. The broader danger is that, as commercial arrangements reduce the effectiveness of pressure on shipping, advocates demand action against the country sustaining those arrangements. That could widen the war and expose Iran to further retaliation.

Calls to withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty add another potential route to escalation. Didban Iran reported that 32 former officials, including former intelligence minister Heydar Moslehi and former vice presidents and ministers, urged the government, parliament, and Supreme National Security Council to begin the withdrawal process. Their argument is that membership and cooperation have failed to protect Iran’s security.

The letter represents a political demand, not an announced government decision to withdraw or develop nuclear weapons. Its signatories also stated that they continued to support peaceful nuclear energy. Nevertheless, pursuing withdrawal could make agreement on nuclear monitoring and assurances more difficult precisely when Washington is demanding greater confidence about Iran’s nuclear intentions. It could deepen the obstacle American officials already cite as a reason to withhold economic relief.

Reports on Monday emphasized that the U.S. is seeking greater assurances on Iran’s nuclear program, which is an issue that was largely deferred in the June Memorandum of Understanding. While potentially favorable, it is far from clear if U.S. demands are reasonable and if Tehran has a fully-developed position on whether and how to compromise on the nuclear program.

Having made preventing an Iranian nuclear weapon central to his justification for the war, securing something on the nuclear program - such as restored International Atomic Energy Agency inspections - could provide Trump the offramp he needs to conclude the war. Tehran, however, has insisted on proof of concrete economic benefits up front, including usable access to frozen assets, the ability to sell oil and receive payment, and relief from the blockade. The Memorandum of Understanding provided a framework that could deliver each, albeit with scant details on forthcoming nuclear negotiations.

Qatari mediation preserves an opportunity to explore these arrangements. But that opening remains fragile while Washington expects economic attrition to deliver greater concessions and influential voices in Tehran expect global energy pressure to do the same. Breaking the deadlock requires turning existing pressure into enforceable reciprocal commitments before the pursuit of additional bargaining power expands the war.

Ramin Kashef Azar, chief executive of Imam Khomeini Airport City, told Iranian media that Najaf airport had stopped accepting Iranian flights at 2 a.m. Friday and that no decision had been made to resume them. His remarks, reported by Saat24, confirmed that another major connection between Iran and Iraq - and a fallback that Iranian authorities had only recently proposed - had closed. Reuters subsequently reported, citing two sources, that Erbil and Sulaimaniya were also suspending Iranian flights from Friday.

Passengers were already encountering the consequences. According to BBC Persian, officials at Najaf prevented travelers from boarding a Meraj Airlines flight to Mashhad, leaving the aircraft to return without passengers. The incident illustrates how restrictions on airport services can prevent a journey even when an aircraft is available.

The cancellations extend restrictions that have already affected several nearby destinations. Iranian newspaper Rah-e Emrooz reported on September 24 that services to the United Arab Emirates, Georgia, Azerbaijan and Oman had been canceled. The disruption follows Washington’s expansion of sanctions against Iranian aviation. After designating 27 Iranian airlines earlier in September and canceling key authorizations allowing overflights and U.S.-origin aircraft to travel to Iran, the administration announced a September 23 deadline for its effort to deny them overseas support.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent threatened exclusion from the dollar system for companies providing Iranian carriers with fuel, airport services or ticket sales. The pressure extends beyond the airlines themselves to the foreign companies whose cooperation is necessary for international passenger flights.

Iranian officials have responded by threatening the operation of airports elsewhere in the region. On September 23, Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, warned on Iranian state television that neighboring countries cooperating with U.S. aviation sanctions would find their own airports unable to operate.

Mohammad Mokhber, an adviser to Iran’s supreme leader, reinforced that warning on September 25. In a statement published by Iranian outlets including Khabar Online and Etemad Online, he said that if Iran lost access to flights and airport services, other countries in the region would lose that ability as well. Neither statement identified specific targets, a timetable or an operational order. They nevertheless raised the possibility of a confrontation affecting civilian aviation beyond Iran, as neighboring governments face both U.S. financial pressure and Iranian threats.

Despite the expanding restrictions, some international connections remain operational. The situation differs by country, airline and route. Turkey provides the clearest example. Mahan Air’s earlier suspension of Istanbul and Ankara services did not end every Iranian airline’s access to Turkey. BBC Persian reported that aircraft operated by Iran Air and Qeshm Air landed at Istanbul International Airport on September 25. Iranian domestic reporting also continued to list Turkey among available destinations.

China remained on the active-route list published by Rah-e Emrooz on September 24, alongside Russia, Armenia, Pakistan, Belarus and Afghanistan. These reports describe a continuing network, although they do not establish that every scheduled flight subsequently operated. Malaysia’s diplomatic mission in Tehran also publicly confirmed that direct connections remained available. Speaking at a tourism promotion event in Tehran on September 24, Malaysia’s chargé d’affaires and head of mission said flights between Iran and Malaysia, as well as connections with Southeast Asia, were continuing. Iranian transport outlet Tinn reported his remarks.

The diplomat expressed hope that the services would continue and that more Iranian tourists would visit Malaysia. His statement provides an official account of continuing connectivity, although it does not confirm the operation of each scheduled departure. Separate reporting based on flight tracking had also recorded Iranian services to Thailand after Washington’s announced deadline.

A flight to Tajikistan demonstrates another way airlines are attempting to preserve international access: changing the route when permission to cross a country’s airspace is denied. A Varesh Airlines service bound for Dushanbe returned to Tehran on September 24 after Turkmenistan refused permission to cross its airspace. According to airline sources cited by BBC Persian, the journey was subsequently completed through Azerbaijani, Kazakh and Uzbek airspace before reaching Tajikistan.

More than 90 passengers traveled on the rerouted outbound service. The return flight departed Dushanbe at approximately 1 a.m. Friday with another 90 passengers bound for Tehran. The episode highlights the distinction between permission to land and permission to cross another country’s airspace. A destination can remain accessible even when the usual route becomes unavailable. Conversely, a flight appearing on a departure board does not establish that all the necessary permissions and services are in place.

For passengers, the result is an extremely unpredictable system, leading to canceled flights, unexpected delays and deep frustration. The Najaf case involves travelers reportedly prevented from boarding; the Dushanbe case involves a return to the departure airport followed by an alternative flight path. Both provide concrete examples of disruption beyond announcements of future restrictions.

Fewer direct connections and longer routes can create additional expenses for replacement tickets, accommodation and onward travel. The available reporting does not yet provide a reliable measure of those costs. Their impact will depend on the route, the availability of alternatives and passengers’ ability to meet transit or entry requirements.

These restrictions affect journeys for family visits, education, medical care and religious travel. For Iranians living abroad, they can also make reaching relatives in Iran more difficult. The immediate burden falls on passengers whose travel depends on the airport services and financial arrangements being targeted.

The latest developments show shrinking air options rather than a complete halt to international travel. Iraqi alternatives have closed, while some connections through Turkey, China and other destinations continue. Airlines are trying to preserve access through remaining airports and different flight paths. Tehran’s threats now add the risk that restrictions already disrupting Iranian civilian travel could escalate into a broader confrontation over regional aviation.

A week ago, Iran Unfiltered examined a series of violent incidents in Iran’s Baloch and Kurdish regions and asked whether the country’s widening regional war could intensify longstanding conflicts on its periphery. Since then, the situation in Sistan and Baluchestan has deteriorated further.

The most consequential incident came on September 23 in the Jahadabad area of Saravan, where Iranian security forces and members of the People’s Fighters Front engaged in several hours of heavy fighting. The confrontation came only eleven days after the nine-hour battle in the city’s Bakhshan area previously reported by Iran Unfiltered. According to the Revolutionary Guards’ Quds regional headquarters, the operation was jointly conducted by the IRGC, the Intelligence Ministry and police. Iranian authorities said five members of what they described as a “terrorist-Takfiri” group were killed and that weapons and ammunition were recovered from their hideout.

The fighting also inflicted significant losses on the local IRGC command. The Quds headquarters confirmed that Brigadier General Hossein Zarifi, commander of the IRGC’s Shahid Sajjad operational headquarters in Saravan, and Major Ahmad Herati Zeraati, the headquarters’ intelligence chief, were both killed. Haalvsh, a Baloch outlet that closely covers the province, reported that at least 13 other security personnel were seriously wounded, although that figure has not been independently verified.

The People’s Fighters Front separately confirmed that its members were involved. The group said Iranian security forces attacked a location where its fighters were based in Jahadabad, prompting reinforcements to enter the fighting in support of those who had been surrounded. It said four of its fighters were killed — three from the original group and one from the reinforcements. The competing accounts of how the confrontation began and the overall casualty toll cannot be independently verified.

Videos circulated on social media showed heavy gunfire, flames and black smoke rising from a residential building. The Balochistan Human Rights Documentation Network reported that security forces used a quadcopter to locate the armed men and blocked roads around the fighting while using light and heavier weapons.

This was the second prolonged battle between Iranian security forces and the People’s Fighters Front in Saravan in just eleven days. In both cases, the armed group says it sent additional fighters to support members surrounded by security forces. The latest confrontation ended with two senior figures in the local IRGC command dead. Two battles are not enough to establish that the People’s Fighters Front has developed fundamentally greater military capabilities or can sustain a broader insurgent campaign. But repeated, hours-long engagements involving reinforcements and substantial security-force casualties raise the possibility that the conflict around Saravan is moving beyond a pattern dominated by ambushes, assassinations and hit-and-run attacks.

The escalation is also no longer confined to Saravan. On September 18, armed violence reached Zahedan, the provincial capital and largest city in Sistan and Baluchestan. According to Iranian state media, IRGC forces patrolling near University Street encountered a suspicious vehicle, leading to a gun battle in which two occupants were killed and another arrested. Local reports described sustained shooting and a substantial security deployment in the surrounding area.

The location is significant. Zahedan is the political, administrative and security center of the province and, unlike Saravan and many areas historically associated with cross-border militant activity, is not an immediate border city. Armed confrontation inside the provincial capital makes it harder to explain the recent escalation primarily as a problem of infiltration or insecurity along the Pakistani frontier.

The violence has also extended farther west. On September 21, gunmen opened fire on a vehicle carrying police officers on the Bazman-Iranshahr road. Police Captain Alireza Mehrabi was killed and three other officers were wounded. Provincial police described the shooting as a terrorist attack. No organization had publicly claimed responsibility when the incident was initially reported.

The two Saravan battles can be linked because the People’s Fighters Front has acknowledged its involvement in both. There is no evidence, however, that the Zahedan confrontation or the attack near Iranshahr involved the same organization or formed part of a centrally coordinated campaign.

What has changed since Iran Unfiltered examined the issue last week is the combination of frequency, geography and intensity. The September 12 Saravan battle could have been an unusually intense but isolated confrontation in a volatile border area. Eleven days later, the same armed coalition was involved in another hours-long battle there, while armed incidents were also occurring elsewhere in the province.

Notably, the Iranian government is portraying the escalation through the lens of the wider regional war. Following the latest Saravan confrontation, the IRGC’s Quds regional headquarters accused the United States and Israel of seeking to activate and strengthen what it called “terrorist-Takfiri groups” in southeastern Iran after failing to achieve their objectives in the war.

Iranian authorities have not publicly presented evidence establishing that Washington or Israel directed or supported the recent attacks. Baloch armed opposition also long predates the current regional war. The People’s Fighters Front itself was formed before the latest escalation through the consolidation of several existing armed organizations. Instability in Sistan and Baluchestan has deep domestic roots. The province contains a much wider spectrum of religious, political and civil activity that should not be conflated with armed militancy. Longstanding Baloch grievances include economic marginalization, discrimination, inadequate development, political representation, Sunni religious rights and the conduct of security forces.

As violence increases, it is important to distinguish some of these grievances. A broader security response that treats peaceful political activity, civil society and armed militancy as part of the same threat could deepen existing tensions rather than contain them.

The regional war nevertheless changes the environment in which these longstanding conflicts are unfolding. Iran is simultaneously confronting external military pressure, protecting critical infrastructure and shipping routes, managing severe economic strains and trying to prevent armed organizations from exploiting vulnerabilities inside the country. For armed groups already fighting the Islamic Republic, that environment could create opportunities; for Tehran, it creates greater pressure to prevent local violence from developing into a larger internal security challenge.

The escalation in Sistan and Baluchestan is becoming harder to dismiss as an isolated flare-up as it becomes more active, geographically dispersed and costly for Iranian security forces. Whether this is a temporary escalation or the beginning of a more sustained phase remains unclear. But the events of the past two weeks provide stronger reason to watch Sistan and Baluchestan as one of the places where Iran’s external war and its longstanding internal conflicts could increasingly intersect.

Iran’s House of Cinema announced his death on Monday, saying Ebrahimzadeh had died “away from his homeland” after an illness. Iranian media did not initially provide details about the nature of his illness.

Born in Ardabil in 1937, Ebrahimzadeh belonged to a generation of Iranian performers whose careers bridged the country’s dramatically different cultural periods before and after the 1979 revolution. He studied English language and literature at the University of Tehran before traveling to Britain to continue his education in theater. He later returned to Iran and became active across theater, radio and television. His professional work in Iranian broadcasting began in the late 1960s, and his first major film appearance came in Ali Hatami’s “Hassan Kachal” (Hassan the Bald), the influential 1970 musical that became Iran’s first musical feature film.

Over the following decades, Ebrahimzadeh appeared in a wide range of Iranian films, including “Sattar Khan,” “Kamal-ol-Molk,” “Hamsar” (The Spouse), “Chehreh,” “Hotel Carton,” “Mosafer-e Rey,” “Shami dar Bad” and “Moomiaei 3.” His television work included popular series such as “Arayeshgah-e Ziba,” “Velayat-e Eshgh,” “Cactus,” “Ashpazbashi” and “Sakhteman-e Pezeshkan.” That range made Ebrahimzadeh recognizable to several generations of Iranian audiences. His career moved between historical drama, comedy and popular television, while his distinctive voice and delivery became one of his most recognizable characteristics.

He was also more than a screen actor. Ebrahimzadeh’s roots were in theater, and he worked as a playwright, writer and director in addition to performing. His stage career included both Iranian works and productions connected to the European dramatic tradition, while he also performed radio adaptations of major works of theater and literature.

One of the major formal recognitions of his film career came in 2000, when he received the House of Cinema’s Golden Statue for Best Supporting Actor for “Moomiaei 3,” a popular comedy directed by Mohammadreza Honarmand. His later screen appearances became less frequent. The last film featuring him to receive a theatrical release was “Orange Taxi,” directed by Ebrahim Vahid-Zadeh, in 2008, although Iranian audiences continued to encounter him through television and reruns of older productions.

Ebrahimzadeh’s death is notable beyond the loss of a familiar actor. His career represented a generation of Iranian artists who developed in the country’s pre-revolutionary theater and broadcasting institutions but continued working after 1979, adapting to profound changes in Iranian cinema, television and cultural life.

From Ali Hatami’s early cinema to popular television decades later, Ebrahimzadeh remained part of Iran’s cultural landscape across more than half a century of political and social transformation. His death removes another figure from a generation whose careers connect several distinct eras of modern Iranian cultural history.

The National Iranian American Council (NIAC) extends its condolences to Ebrahimzadeh’s family, friends and the Iranian artistic community, and honors his more than five decades of contributions to Iranian theater, cinema and television. His work connected generations of Iranian audiences across periods of profound social and cultural change, leaving a lasting place in Iran’s contemporary cultural memory.

Speaking one day after President Donald Trump used the same UN podium to threaten Iran with further military escalation, Pezeshkian repeatedly returned to the question of power. He argued that Iran’s experience during the war had demonstrated the consequences for countries unable to adequately defend themselves, while distinguishing defensive strength from aggression.

“We want power to defend ourselves, not to invade other countries,” Pezeshkian said. At another point, he put the argument more starkly: in today’s international system, without power, “we will be crushed.” Pezeshkian opened his speech with a direct response to Trump’s portrayal of Iran a day earlier. Holding up photographs of Iranians killed during the conflict, including children killed in the U.S. strike on the Shajareh Tayyebeh school in Minab, victims of the bombing of a sports facility in Lamerd, and Iran’s late Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, he rejected the characterization of Iran as a terrorist state.

“We are not terrorists. We are victims of terrorism,” Pezeshkian said, arguing that Iran had been attacked by the United States and Israel and had responded in self-defense. He said Iran had not attacked another country in roughly two centuries and questioned why Iran was accused of terrorism while Iranian civilians, political leaders and infrastructure had been targeted. Pezeshkian credited the Iranian public with preventing those efforts from succeeding.

The broader argument running through the speech was that the war had strengthened Tehran’s belief in deterrence rather than weakened it. Pezeshkian said Iran’s defensive systems exist so that “no one imagines that bombing Iranian cities will go unanswered,” adding that Iran would not seek anyone’s permission to defend itself. At the same time, he emphasized that Iran does not seek regional domination. Its objective, he said, is sufficient strength to defend the country and pursue development, not to invade its neighbors.

That distinction shaped Pezeshkian’s message to surrounding countries. He argued that Iran’s security cannot ultimately be separated from the security of its neighbors and called for cooperation, shared security and economic development. His message also carried a warning: Iran and its neighbors could build peace and security together, or ultimately share the consequences of regional insecurity. Despite his emphasis on military strength, Pezeshkian repeatedly left the door open to negotiations.

“For our defense, we do not fear war, and for peace, we do not run from negotiations,” he said. Pezeshkian said Iran had demonstrated its willingness to pursue diplomacy but would not negotiate under military coercion. “We are ready for dialogue with the world, but we will not accept the language of force.”

The remarks directly answered Trump’s speech a day earlier, in which the U.S. president paired the possibility of an agreement with threats of military “annihilation.” Pezeshkian argued that such threats violate the principles of the UN Charter and would not force Iran to surrender. The exchange highlighted a central obstacle facing renewed diplomacy: Washington is seeking to use military and economic pressure as leverage, while Tehran insists that meaningful negotiations cannot take place under the threat of additional attacks.

Pezeshkian also addressed Iran’s nuclear program, reiterating that Tehran does not seek nuclear weapons but will not surrender its nuclear knowledge or peaceful nuclear technology. Iran, he said, wants nuclear energy for development and does not accept that nuclear science should effectively remain the exclusive domain of a small number of countries. His formulation was straightforward: “No nuclear weapon, but no deprivation of Iran from nuclear knowledge.”

Pezeshkian contrasted Iran’s treatment with that of Israel, which is widely believed to possess nuclear weapons but is not a member of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. “The atomic bomb is in Israel, but the inspectors are in Iran,” he said. He argued that Israel has not subjected its nuclear program to the inspection system applied to Iran while Tehran continues to face sanctions and scrutiny. “Israel kills, but Iran is sanctioned,” Pezeshkian said, presenting the comparison as an example of what Iran views as a double standard.

Pezeshkian also connected sanctions directly to their impact on ordinary Iranians. He argued that U.S. sanctions disproportionately harm the sick, the poor and other vulnerable people, rather than simply putting pressure on the government. He also pointed to Iran being attacked while engaged in negotiations, arguing that Tehran continues to face military pressure and sanctions even as it maintains that it is prepared for diplomacy.

Another major portion of the speech concerned the Strait of Hormuz, which has become both a military flashpoint and an important source of Iranian leverage. “We cannot allow everyone to benefit from the Strait of Hormuz while Iran is deprived of it,” Pezeshkian said. He argued that Iran could not be expected to accept restrictions on its own commerce while weapons, missiles and military supplies continued to move through the same waters. “They close the way to Iran and then move weapons, ammunition and missiles through the strait to destroy countries. This is not possible, and we will not allow it.”

The remarks came as indirect contacts between Iran and the United States continued in New York. Tehran has linked the future of navigation through the Strait of Hormuz to U.S. military pressure and restrictions on Iranian ports, while signaling that diplomacy remains possible.

The speech also came amid a broader Iranian response to Trump’s UN address. Earlier Wednesday, Supreme National Security Council Secretary Mohsen Rezaei said Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi had been authorized to communicate Iran’s conditions through intermediaries in New York. The announcement suggested that despite escalating rhetoric, Tehran continues to authorize diplomatic engagement.

At the same time, Rezaei emphasized Iran’s military and geographic leverage. He described the Strait of Hormuz as an instrument for securing Iran’s rights in negotiations and warned that Tehran would respond to further U.S. attacks. He also warned neighboring countries against allowing their territory, airspace or infrastructure to be used for military operations against Iran.

Rezaei separately made claims about Iran’s military capabilities, including that an Iranian missile had been detonated above the aircraft carrier USS George Washington and that Iran was reverse-engineering a U.S. autonomous underwater vehicle. Those claims have not been independently verified. Iran’s military leadership delivered an even sharper response. The General Staff of the Armed Forces and the Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters said Iran was prepared to answer new attacks with “more severe, more crushing and unpredictable blows.”

The military’s language was considerably more confrontational than Pezeshkian’s. The president instead sought to combine deterrence with an explicit willingness to negotiate. Taken together, however, the messages point to a two-track Iranian strategy: demonstrating military leverage while keeping diplomatic channels open.

Pezeshkian also addressed the humanitarian consequences of war in the region, particularly in Gaza. He cited the large number of Palestinians killed and displaced and argued that international institutions had failed to protect civilians. He said it was impossible to speak credibly about peace while the Palestinian conflict remained unresolved and argued that resistance could not simply be eliminated through bombing.

For Pezeshkian, the lesson of Iran’s own experience appeared similar: military pressure can impose enormous costs on civilians, but Tehran does not believe that pressure alone will produce political capitulation. His address therefore presented military strength and diplomacy not as competing approaches, but as interconnected elements of Iran’s strategy after seven months of war. Pezeshkian’s central argument was that credible defensive power is necessary for diplomacy to occur on more equal terms.

His message to Washington was that Iran remains willing to negotiate but will not accept negotiations framed as surrender. To neighboring states, he argued that their security and Iran’s are ultimately intertwined. On the nuclear issue, he rejected both nuclear weapons and demands that Iran abandon peaceful nuclear knowledge. And on Hormuz, he made clear that Tehran does not believe freedom of navigation can mean unrestricted access for others while Iran itself faces blockade and economic exclusion.

One day after Trump paired diplomacy with threats of further military force, Pezeshkian offered Iran’s response from the same UN podium: Tehran intends to strengthen its ability to defend itself while leaving a path open for negotiations. “We do not fear war,” Pezeshkian said, “and we do not run from negotiations.”

President Trump, in his remarks before the General Assembly, framed Iran as unwilling to strike a deal, a consistent terrorist threat to the U.S., and the globe and his war as justified. He repeated a recent refrain suggesting he can choose between a deal and annihilation. “I have a big decision to make: Will a deal be made with Iran that lets them rebuild and create a far greater country than it ever was before, maybe one of the greatest in the Middle East or even the world?” Trump continued, “Or do I annihilate the Islamic Republic, and do it quickly, never giving them a chance to kill and destroy people and countries again? Do I drive them into hell, with no chance of survival and no hope of future greatness or generations? But I believe we’ll make a deal right after the election…they’re waiting to see how I do in the midterm election. What they don’t realize is I did that already…I’ll be here for two and a half years.” He suggested he will give no credence to the midterms influencing his approach toward Iran, and declared the U.S. has more munitions than ever before.

Trump also suggested that Iran had killed 72,000 of its own people - roughly 10 times the figure produced by the Iran human rights group HRANA after the protests and 24 times the figure announced by the Iranian government. Moreover, without explanation, Trump suggested that 10,000 Iranians had been killed recently. While dozens of individuals who have been accused of violence in the protests have been executed, there is no indication of recent widespread protests or a crackdown on such a scale.

Trump’s frame raises a question as to whether the President might be preparing for a climb down or an escalation. Heated, genocidal rhetoric accompanied the pivot to a ceasefire in April. This rhetoric echoes a similar tone, though the President has defied easy predictions on Iran for years.

On Tuesday, Reuters reported that Iran is prepared to reopen the Strait of Hormuz within seven days if the United States eases military pressure and lifts its blockade of Iranian ports. According to a senior Iranian official who was not identified, Tehran’s proposal for ending hostilities was conveyed to Washington through intermediaries on September 16. The official said Iran’s delegation in New York has full authority to revive diplomacy and that details of an agreement could be discussed there through mediators, although a direct meeting between Pezeshkian and President Donald Trump is not planned. Iran has not publicly confirmed the seven-day proposal in these terms.

The timing is significant because Tehran has spent the past several days publicly signaling an interest in negotiations without backing away from its leverage in Hormuz. Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, said on September 19 that Iran had conveyed seven conditions to Washington for the beginning of negotiations. Rezaei did not publicly enumerate all seven in his statement. In an interview with Al Jazeera, however, he identified three principal demands: an end to the war “on all fronts,” the release of Iran’s frozen assets and an end to the U.S. naval blockade. He said Qatar had transmitted Iran’s conditions to Washington and that Tehran was awaiting Trump’s response.

The complete list remains undisclosed, but the reported seven-day proposal suggests a potentially important change in sequencing. Previous Iranian statements presented reopening Hormuz as something that would follow fulfillment of Tehran’s conditions. The latest proposal, if accurately reported, appears more incremental: Washington would formally commit to diplomacy and take tangible steps to reduce military pressure and end the blockade, after which Iran could reopen the strait within seven days while negotiations over a broader settlement proceed.

That would amount to an action-for-action process rather than requiring every outstanding dispute to be resolved before Hormuz reopens. The stakes remain enormous. Preliminary shipping data showed only two large commercial vessels crossing the strait on Monday, down from ten the previous day and roughly 125 per day before the war began on February 28. The figures do not include ships that may have crossed with their tracking systems switched off. Two vessels were also attacked in separate incidents around the strait, although responsibility had not been established.

The disruption gives Tehran leverage, but sustaining the confrontation is imposing serious costs on both sides. Trump is approaching the November 3 midterm elections amid record diesel prices, stubborn inflation and growing voter dissatisfaction over the cost of living and the Iran war. His approval rating has fallen to 32 percent, the lowest of his political career in Reuters/Ipsos polling, while some Republican candidates in competitive races are openly calling for the war to end quickly.

Iran is under severe pressure of its own. The U.S. naval blockade and intensified sanctions have constrained oil exports and access to foreign currency, while sharp currency fluctuations, inflation and import pressures are further eroding household purchasing power. Iranian officials have increasingly acknowledged that the economy and people’s livelihoods have become a central challenge of the war. Those pressures do not guarantee compromise, but they give both governments powerful reasons to explore an arrangement that preserves core interests while ending an economically costly conflict.

Another important piece is a separate Iran-Oman framework for navigation through Hormuz. Iranian officials say Tehran and Muscat have developed a plan for reopening shipping through the strait. The proposal surfaced prominently during Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi’s visit to Beijing on September 16, the same date on which Iran’s latest proposal was reportedly transmitted to Washington.

According to the Chinese Foreign Ministry’s account of Araghchi’s meeting with Foreign Minister Wang Yi, the Iranian side said Iran had reached a plan with Oman to open the Strait of Hormuz and argued that the United States should fulfill commitments it had made. Wang urged Iran and the United States to exercise restraint, return to the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding, rebuild a negotiating mechanism and begin substantive consultations. China also explicitly called for effective measures to reopen Hormuz as soon as possible.

The Beijing meeting is significant because it shows that the Hormuz arrangement and a broader return to negotiations were already being discussed at a high diplomatic level immediately before the latest Iranian initiative became public. It also places China directly inside the diplomatic picture at a moment when Beijing is communicating with both Tehran and Washington.

Inside Iran, Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf has also begun speaking unusually explicitly about avoiding an indefinite conflict. On September 20, he criticized two competing approaches: one that advocates continued war without offering a mechanism for ending it and, by rejecting diplomacy, risks pushing Iran toward “attrition and endless war”; and another that, in his view, underestimates Iran’s capabilities and favors accepting unilateral American demands. Ghalibaf instead argued for combining military pressure with diplomacy and converting what Iran considers its battlefield leverage into political gains. His comments provide further evidence of an increasingly public discussion within Iran’s political establishment over how the war should end, rather than a simple choice between fighting and negotiating.

China may now become particularly important to that process. Beijing wants the Strait of Hormuz reopened and international energy flows stabilized but has simultaneously called for negotiations based on reciprocal steps rather than unilateral Iranian concessions. China is also a major economic partner of Iran and has significantly more leverage than smaller regional mediators. In its official account of the September 16 meeting, Beijing said it was prepared to play a “constructive role” in resolving the conflict while supporting Iran’s legitimate rights and interests and urging both Tehran and Washington toward substantive negotiations.

What happened immediately afterward makes the Chinese channel more noteworthy. On September 17, one day after meeting Araghchi, Wang spoke by telephone with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio. The Middle East was among the issues discussed, and Beijing again called for restraint, renewed negotiations and a reopening of the Strait of Hormuz. Within roughly 24 hours, China’s foreign minister had therefore been in direct communication with senior officials from both Tehran and Washington as diplomatic activity around the war intensified.

The diplomatic calendar creates another opportunity. Chinese President Xi Jinping is due to visit the United States from September 23 to 25 and meet Trump in Washington. Their agenda extends far beyond Iran, encompassing trade, artificial intelligence, Taiwan and the broader U.S.-China relationship, but the Iran war is also expected to be discussed.

This gives China a potentially distinctive role. Qatar and Oman can carry messages and develop practical arrangements; Beijing has direct access to Tehran, a major economic relationship with Iran and simultaneous high-level access to Washington. Washington could seek Chinese help in encouraging a stable reopening of Hormuz, while Tehran may see Beijing as a major-power channel supportive of reciprocal implementation rather than surrendering its principal leverage before negotiations begin.

The sequence is therefore notable: Araghchi discussed Hormuz and negotiations in Beijing; Wang spoke with Rubio the following day; Iran says its conditions have been conveyed through regional intermediaries; Pezeshkian is now heading to New York; and Xi is preparing for talks with Trump in Washington.

Major obstacles remain. Iran insists Washington must take concrete steps before Tehran relinquishes its leverage in Hormuz. The Trump administration continues to threaten renewed military action, while maritime attacks and broader regional fighting have not stopped. The full seven Iranian conditions remain undisclosed, and Washington has not publicly accepted either Tehran’s reported sequencing proposal or the Iran-Oman framework.

Pezeshkian is therefore not arriving in New York with an announced peace agreement, and a meeting with Trump is not currently expected. What makes this UN gathering different is the diplomatic activity surrounding it: Iran has transmitted conditions for negotiations, senior officials in Tehran are publicly discussing how military leverage could be converted into a political outcome, a concrete proposal for Hormuz has reportedly reached Washington, and governments with access to both sides are actively engaged.

The coming days may show whether these separate channels remain another round of indirect messaging or begin to form a workable negotiating process. Pezeshkian’s presence in New York provides an immediate venue for testing that possibility, while Xi’s talks with Trump could determine whether China assumes a larger role in the diplomacy surrounding the war.

Mahan Air announced this week that it would suspend flights between Tehran and Muscat, Oman, beginning September 17, followed by its routes to Istanbul and Ankara, Turkey on September 21. Flights to Georgia are also set to stop on September 21. The airline attributed the suspensions to decisions by aviation authorities in those countries.

The cancellations come less than two weeks after the United States dramatically expanded sanctions on Iran’s aviation industry, designating all Iranian airlines under sanctions along with the foreign companies that provide them with cargo, sales, aircraft and logistical services. Key sanctions licensing that allowed for overflights of Iranian airspace and U.S. origin aircraft to fly into Iran have also been revoked. The effect is to increase the risks for companies outside Iran that provide the basic infrastructure Iranian airlines need to operate internationally.

The timing is particularly significant in Turkey. On September 8, the U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned two Turkish companies it said had provided services to Mahan Air. S Sistem Lojistik Hizmetler was accused of coordinating shipments including drone components and industrial equipment destined for Iran, while Mes Cargo was identified as a general sales agent that coordinated shipments for Mahan. Treasury also targeted companies and intermediaries in several other countries as part of what it calls “Operation Economic Outcast.”

Mahan itself has been under U.S. sanctions since 2011. Washington accuses the airline of providing transportation and logistical support to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and its Quds Force, including the movement of personnel, weapons and military equipment. But Mahan is also a major civilian carrier used by ordinary Iranians for domestic and international travel.

That dual role exposes a central problem with Washington’s escalating aviation sanctions: measures justified as a way to disrupt Iranian security logistics are also restricting the civilian infrastructure on which millions of Iranians depend.

The latest measures are significantly more consequential than simply adding another Iranian airline to a sanctions list. By targeting foreign companies that sell tickets, handle cargo, provide aircraft or otherwise enable Iranian carriers to operate abroad, Washington can make international passenger service into and out of Iran significantly more difficult to sustain.

And this pressure is being applied while Iran is already at war and its civilian aviation system is under extraordinary strain. Foreign carriers including Turkish Airlines and flydubai have stopped serving Iran amid the security risks created by the war, while European aviation authorities continue to advise operators against entering Iranian airspace. Iran’s own carriers, meanwhile, struggle with an aging fleet, shortages of spare parts and decades of sanctions restricting access to aircraft and aviation equipment. According to data from aviation analytics company Cirium cited by the Financial Times, roughly one-third of flights scheduled to operate in Iran on a recent day were cancelled or did not operate. Iran Air, the country’s flag carrier, reportedly has only nine operational aircraft.

The loss of connections to Turkey and Oman are particularly important. Istanbul and Gulf hubs are gateways for Iranians traveling onward to Europe and North America. These routes connect families separated across borders and are used by students, business travelers and people seeking medical treatment abroad. When those connections disappear, the consequences are straightforward: fewer seats, more complicated itineraries and greater costs for travelers.

Signs of that pressure are already appearing inside Iran. Following Mahan’s announcement, Iran’s Civil Aviation Organization warned airlines, travel agencies and charter operators against sharply increasing ticket prices for routes to Turkey and Oman. The agency said it had received reports of significant price increases and threatened violators with penalties, including temporary suspension of their flight allocations on those routes.

Price controls, however, cannot replace lost flight capacity. If sanctions make it increasingly risky for airports, service providers and other foreign companies to work with Iranian airlines, Tehran has limited ability to prevent the resulting contraction in international travel.

The Trump administration says the sanctions are aimed at preventing Iran from using civilian aviation networks to support military activities. The Treasury Department says Iranian aviation has been used to transport weapons, personnel and sensitive technology, and its latest measures specifically identified foreign companies it says helped move drone components and other equipment.

But the civilian consequences of the policy are increasingly difficult to separate from its stated military objectives. Ground handling, ticket sales, aircraft maintenance, financial services and access to foreign airports are not primarily military functions. They are also the infrastructure that allows an Iranian student to reach a university abroad, a family to visit relatives in another country, or a patient to travel for medical care. Sanctioning that infrastructure inevitably creates costs far beyond the Iranian government and military.

This has long been one of the most consequential features of sanctions on Iranian aviation. Restrictions on aircraft purchases, financing and access to parts have contributed to the isolation of a civilian aviation system already struggling to maintain an aging fleet. Although U.S. regulations have provided mechanisms for licensing some transactions related to civil aviation safety in the past, the broader sanctions environment has repeatedly made legitimate commercial activity involving Iran difficult and risky.

A disturbing video on Tuesday showed a Sepehran Airlines flight from Mashhad to Kermanshah experiencing a mid-air emergency, with portions of the cabin buckling. Thankfully, the airline was able to make an emergency landing and all passengers were ultimately safe, but it underscored the risk to ordinary civilians of unsafe air travel. As sanctions escalate, more emergencies - potentially fatal ones - could become increasingly difficult to avoid.

The consequences could also extend beyond passenger travel. Medical goods are roughly seven times more dependent on aviation linkages than Iranian imports overall, according to Esfandyar Batmanghelidj of the Bourse & Bazaar Foundation, making medical supply chains particularly vulnerable to further disruption.

That vulnerability is already being felt inside Iran. Patients contacted by Iran Unfiltered say they have been unable to obtain influenza vaccines as flu season approaches. Further restrictions on aviation and air cargo could therefore affect not only Iranians trying to travel for medical treatment, but also access to time-sensitive medicines, vaccines and other medical supplies inside the country.

Mahan Air still operates international routes, including connections to Russia and China, and other Iranian airlines continue flying to some regional destinations. Iran has not been cut off from all international air travel yet. But the developments of the past week illustrate how isolation can deepen incrementally: one service provider, one airport and one route at a time.

That matters particularly in the context of the current war. Washington is simultaneously applying military and economic pressure against Iran, while ordinary Iranians are living with the consequences of both. Air travel provides a particularly visible example of how economic measures aimed at weakening Iran’s capabilities can reach far beyond government institutions.

Less than two weeks after the latest aviation sanctions were announced, the civilian consequences are already becoming visible: Iran has fewer international connections, passengers are facing pressure on ticket prices, and one of the country’s largest civilian carriers is losing access to neighboring destinations that serve as crucial gateways to the rest of the world.

For Iranian travelers, this is not an abstract debate about sanctions architecture. It means fewer ways to leave the country, higher costs for staying connected to family and the outside world, and another aspect of everyday life being squeezed by a confrontation they have no ability to control.