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A US federal jury has convicted a Pakistani national of smuggling Iranian-made advanced weaponry to Yemen’s Houthis and threatening witnesses, the Justice Department announced Thursday.
Muhammad Pahlawan, 49, was arrested in January last year after US Navy forces boarded an unflagged dhow in the Arabian Sea and discovered ballistic missile parts, cruise missile components, and a warhead. The weapons were consistent with those used by the Houthis in attacks on commercial and military vessels.
Prosecutors said Pahlawan worked with two Iranian nationals linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to move arms from Iran to Yemen via ship-to-ship transfers off the Somali coast. He was convicted on multiple charges, including providing material support to terrorists and Iran’s weapons of mass destruction program.
Pahlawan is scheduled to be sentenced on September 22.
Iran has ordered thousands of tons of ammonium perchlorate, a key ingredient for ballistic missile fuel, from China in a move to expand its missile arsenal while nuclear negotiations with the United States continue, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday.
The shipments, expected to arrive in the coming months, could be used to produce hundreds of missiles, with some material likely to be transferred to Iranian-aligned groups such as the Houthis in Yemen, the report said, citing people familiar with the matter.
The order was placed by an Iranian company through a Hong Kong-based firm. US officials estimate the material could support the production of up to 800 missiles. Iran has one of the region’s largest ballistic missile programs and has rejected any limits on its missile capabilities as part of nuclear talks.
US sanctions and growing concerns
The US has recently sanctioned multiple individuals and entities in Iran and China linked to missile propellant procurement. A State Department official told the Journal that Chinese support for Iran’s missile program and its regional allies remains a concern.
The shipments, expected to arrive in the coming months, could be used to produce hundreds of missiles, with some material likely to be transferred to Iranian-aligned groups such as the Houthis in Yemen, the report said.
The order was placed by an Iranian company through a Hong Kong-based firm. US officials estimate the material could support the production of up to 800 missiles. Iran has one of the region’s largest ballistic missile programs and has rejected any limits on its missile capabilities as part of nuclear talks.
The US has recently sanctioned multiple individuals and entities in Iran and China linked to missile propellant procurement. A State Department official told the Journal that Chinese support for Iran’s missile program and its regional allies remains a concern.
Previous shipments linked to missile fuel
The move follows earlier shipments of sodium perchlorate—used to manufacture ammonium perchlorate—also sent from China to Iran earlier this year, aboard two Iranian cargo vessels. According to Western officials cited by CNN, Financial Times, and the Associated Press, these shipments were bound for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and could fuel hundreds of mid-range missiles.
Explosion at Shahid Rajaei port still unexplained
In April, a deadly explosion occurred at Iran’s Shahid Rajaei port, where some of the imported materials were reportedly delivered. Iranian authorities have not confirmed the cause of the blast.
However, according to the private security firm Ambrey, the explosion was “reportedly the result of improper handling of a shipment of solid fuel intended for use in Iranian ballistic missiles.” Months later, officials have not publicly provided a detailed explanation.
Iran has ordered thousands of tons of ammonium perchlorate, a key ingredient for ballistic missile fuel, from China in a move to expand its missile arsenal while nuclear negotiations with the United States continue, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday, citing people familiar with the matter.
The shipments, expected to arrive in the coming months, could be used to produce hundreds of missiles, with some material likely to be transferred to Iranian-aligned groups such as the Houthis in Yemen, the report said.
The order was placed by an Iranian company through a Hong Kong-based firm. US officials estimate the material could support the production of up to 800 missiles. Iran has one of the region’s largest ballistic missile programs and has rejected any limits on its missile capabilities as part of nuclear talks.
The US has recently sanctioned multiple individuals and entities in Iran and China linked to missile propellant procurement. A State Department official told the Journal that Chinese support for Iran’s missile program and its regional allies remains a concern.
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Israel reassured the White House that it will not launch a military strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities unless President Donald Trump concludes that negotiations with Tehran have failed, Axios reported on Thursday, citing two Israeli officials with direct knowledge.
Israeli officials conveyed the message during a visit to Washington last week by Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer, Mossad Director David Barnea and National Security Adviser Tzahi Hanegbi, according to the report.
“We calmed the Americans and told them there is no logic in launching an attack if a good diplomatic solution can be found,”Axios quoted one Israeli official as saying.
“This is why we are going to give it a chance and wait with any military action until it is clear that negotiations were exhausted and [White House envoy] Steve Witkoff has given up.”
The report cited a senior Israeli official as saying that while the Israel Defense Forces are constantly training for a possible strike against Iran, the US and other countries had misread recent IDF activity ahead of strikes on the Houthis in Yemen as preparations for imminent action against Iran.
Despite legal and religious prohibitions, online gambling is quietly on the rise in Iran, offering an illusory hope of gain to many worn out by economic hardship.
The phenomenon is steeped in contradiction, with many platforms operating in plain sight despite the Islamic prohibition of gambling.
While supreme leader Ali Khamenei recently ruled that predicting sports outcomes for prizes is not inherently forbidden (haram), Iran’s judiciary continues to treat gambling as a criminal offense—punishable by lashes and imprisonment.
Still, with the national currency, the rial, in free fall and opportunities dwindling, many see gambling as one of the few remaining ways to beat inflation—or to reclaim a fleeting sense of freedom.
Bet to breathe
For Maryam, 49, a former schoolteacher, online poker began as a form of relief from daily suffocation.
"In Iran, we are prisoners—not just of the regime, but of our own despair," she says from her Tehran apartment. "The leaders want to drag us back to rules from 1,400 years ago, while the world moves forward. These games … they let me breathe."
She’s lost several months’ wages in a single night but insists the emotional release is worth it. "When I win, I feel like I’ve beaten the system. When I lose, at least I was free for a moment."
Mohammad, 35, a software engineer, sees gambling less as a thrill than as a necessity. "Look at our currency," he says. "You save 100 million rials today, and in six months, it buys half as much."
Using VPNs to access offshore sportsbooks, he trades in dollars or cryptocurrency to hedge against both inflation and sanctions. "Gambling isn’t a game here—it’s a financial tactic."
Loopholes, laundering, and lashes
The rise in betting has exposed a divide at the highest levels of authority.
While Khamenei’s office has carved out a religious loophole for prize-based predictions, senior Shi’a jurists like Ayatollah Makarem Shirazi maintain that all forms of monetary betting are haram.
Due to this inconsistency, perhaps, enforcement remains patchy and ineffective.
Although Iran’s Cyber Police (FATA) have shuttered over 1,500 gambling websites since 2021 and frozen 72 billion tomans in suspected gambling funds, many platforms operate freely, using registered banking gateways that suggest official indifference—or even complicity.
Tehran MP Mojtaba Tavangar recently called on Iran’s Central Bank to impose tighter controls on the country’s 3.8 million unregistered point-of-sale (POS) systems, which he says are conduits for illicit cash flows.
He blamed anonymous banking transactions for fueling the online gambling surge, asserting that $1 billion in gambling profits exited the country last year.
The warning was echoed by senior FATA official Ali Niknafs, who accused payment processors of enabling a “black-market economy” and faulted the Central Bank for what he called lax oversight.
A symptom, not a vice
Gambling is a rising concern in many societies, but in Iran, it thrives in the shadows—fueled by economic despair, filtered through VPNs, and punished with lashes.
What elsewhere may be a regulated vice has here become an act of defiance and desperation, shaped by repression and the absence of lawful outlets for risk or relief.
Experts say Iran’s gambling boom reflects a deeper breakdown.
"When people lose faith in banks and jobs, they turn to risky alternatives," says Stockholm-based economist Ahmad Alavi. "The regime blames Western decadence, but the real problem is their own mismanagement."
The growing habit is now affecting workplaces too.
"Employees gamble during work hours—some even stealing to cover losses," says an IT supervisor at a Tehran bank who asked not to be named. "We fire them, but new ones do the same thing."
Saman, another IT manager, says he has deployed firewalls and screen monitoring systems, only to see workers bypass them using secret Telegram channels and disguised apps.
With VPN usage at record highs and underground betting networks expanding, crackdowns—by officials or employers—appear increasingly futile. More and more people chase the dream in desperation, many aware it’s an illusion but not seeing any alternative.
"We’re trapped in a broken system," Maryam says. "So we roll the dice."
