Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei said in a speech that Iran faces a campaign by its enemies aimed at public opinion and cultural identity to bring about regime change which a US-Israeli war in June failed to achieve.
“We are in a propaganda war and a spiritual war,” Khamenei said during a meeting in Karaj on Monday which local media published the next day.
“The enemy understood that seizing this land and this country through pressure and military tools is not possible.”
Khamenei said Iran’s adversaries had shifted their focus to influencing public opinion and culture. His remarks appeared to refer to the United States and Israel.
Iran's two nemeses launched a surprise attack in June, culminating in US attacks on three key nuclear facilities. Though US President Donald Trump said the raids obliterated Tehran's capability, a dispute festers over Iran's nuclear ambitions.
Tehran denies seeking a bomb but the United States along with other Western countries and Israel deny its intentions. Trump has vowed to attack Iran again if it restarts uranium enrichment and Iran has denied a punishing response in any war.
“If they want to interfere and achieve success, they must change hearts and minds,” he said. He said pressure on Iran was ongoing in the military, economic and media realms as well as in cyberspace and the foreign press.
“All of this is focused on one point, and that point is pressure on the resistance of nations, with the Iranian nation foremost,” he said. Khamenei said the ultimate goal of such efforts was to erode Iran’s revolutionary and religious identity.
“The enemy’s objective in our country is to gradually turn people away from the revolution, its goals and its memory,” he said. He called on supporters of the Islamic Republic to recognize what he described as the adversaries’ strategy and to strengthen Iran’s cultural and media response.
The veteran theocrat, 86, has long accused Tehran's adversaries of seeking regime change by sowing the seeds of protest and discontent. Iran for over a quarter century has quashed repeated rounds of widespread unrest with deadly force.
Authorities stepped up a crackdown on dissidents and alleged spies in the wake of the June conflict even as it has relaxed enforcement of certain Islamic cultural rules in the theocracy in a move opposed by some hardliners.
Khamenei's remarks come as Iran’s Revolutionary Guards spokesman said last month that Tehran's archenemy, Israel, is in no position to launch a new war against the country, describing current rhetoric as psychological pressure rather than a genuine military threat.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards confirmed an armed clash on the Zahedan-Fahraj road, saying “three law enforcement personnel and one ordinary citizen” were killed.
In a statement issued early Tuesday, the Guards’ Qods Ground Forces headquarters said security and intelligence agencies were investigating the incident.
The IRGC headquarters for the southeast is one of ten regional commands and oversees the largest geographic area, covering the provinces of Sistan-Baluchestan and Kerman, and commanding multiple provincial Guards units and key combat brigades in the region.
The rights group Haalvsh, which monitors unrest in the region, earlier reported that the Fahraj incident occurred at a checkpoint in neighboring Kerman province and said four security personnel – two intelligence officers and two police – were killed, with several others wounded. The group published video footage showing injured officers and bodies being transferred from the scene.
At the same time, a second confrontation involving armed assailants and Iranian forces was reported in the city of Iranshahr, also in Sistan-Baluchestan province.
In Iranshahr, Haalvsh said gunmen targeted three military vehicles in the early hours of Tuesday, killing and wounding an unspecified number of security personnel.
The group cited local sources and said roads leading toward Zahedan were blocked by military forces, leaving travelers stranded with no indication of when routes would reopen.
Iranian authorities have not released casualty figures for the Iranshahr attack, nor have they commented on the identity or motives of the attackers. No group has officially claimed responsibility for either incident.
The attacks are the latest in a series of armed confrontations in Iran’s impoverished southeast, which borders Pakistan and Afghanistan and has long been plagued by violence involving Sunni Baluch militant groups and Iranian security forces.
Pattern of attacks and militant regrouping
In recent months, similar clashes have intensified. Last week, the Guards said four of their members were killed and three wounded in an attack by what they described as “terrorist and hostile groups” in the Lar area near Zahedan.
A day later, Haalvsh reported that a newly formed coalition calling itself the “Popular Fighters Front” claimed responsibility, saying it had ambushed a Guards convoy.
The Popular Fighters Front announced its formation earlier this month, presenting itself as a merger of several Baluch political and militant factions, including the PADA Baluch Movement, Harakat Nasr Balochistan, Jaish al-Adl, the Mohammad Rasulallah group led by Haji Vahed Bakhsh, and self-described “spontaneous Baluch fighters.”
In a video message posted online, a masked spokesman identified as Mahmoud Baluch said the coalition aimed to increase the effectiveness of resistance against what he described as oppression by Iran’s ruling system.
While the group’s manifesto emphasized civil, media and political action, it did not renounce armed operations and claimed responsibility for recent attacks.
Jaish al-Adl – designated a terrorist organization by both Iran and the United States – has emerged as the dominant force within the coalition, analysts say.
The group formed around 2012 after the execution of Abdelmalek Rigi, the leader of its predecessor, Jundullah, and has since carried out bombings, ambushes and suicide attacks against Iranian police, border guards and the Revolutionary Guards.
Iranian state-linked media have sought to downplay the significance of the merger, portraying it as a rebranding of weakened factions aimed at attracting foreign backing. Some outlets have alleged links to Israeli intelligence, a claim the groups deny.
Shift in strategy
Security analysts say the emergence of the Popular Fighters Front reflects an attempt by Baluch militants to broaden their appeal beyond a narrowly defined Sunni ethnic insurgency.
Recent statements from the group have adopted more inclusive language, addressing Kurds, Arabs, Turks and other minorities and framing their struggle in terms of shared political and economic marginalization.
The shift follows years of intensified counterinsurgency operations by Iranian forces in Sistan-Baluchestan, including arrests, cross-border pressure near Pakistan, and heightened surveillance. Despite this, militant groups have continued to demonstrate the capacity to stage deadly attacks.
Iran’s southeast remains one of the country’s poorest regions, with longstanding grievances over discrimination, underdevelopment and heavy-handed security policies.
These tensions flared during the nationwide protests of 2022, when security forces carried out lethal crackdowns in Baluch and Kurdish areas.
According to an article by US-based Al-Monitor news website this week, while transforming a Baluch-based insurgency into a national movement would require organizational depth and cross-ethnic networks that militant groups have historically lacked, the new coalition “adds a layer of political complexity” for Tehran.
Nazemi was detained during a memorial service in the northeastern city of Mashhad for Khosrow Alikordi, a former political prisoner and lawyer for dissidents whose sudden death left supporters suspicious of state involvement, which Tehran denies.
At the ceremony, security forces used force to dispersed mourners and arrested 39 people, including activists, lawyers and civil society figures.
Nazemi’s sister Mahshid told Iran International she was on a live video call with Pouran when security forces stormed the mosque where the commemoration was being held.
“The security officers opened the mosque’s doors and attacked the people with batons and knives,” Mahshid said. “They threw tear gas inside the mosque," Mahshid said.
Mahshid was able to record portions of the incident by capturing the live video call with her sister, though she was unable to document the alleged knife and baton attacks she described.
She did, however, provide photos showing what appear to be knife wounds and a bloodied scene.
Videos reviewed by Iran International show Pouran describing the crackdown in real time before the feed was abruptly cut. Screams and loud bangs were audible.
Mahshid said she watched plainclothes officers beat women inside the mosque and drag people away. “They attacked them very badly. We could only hear screaming and see the camera shaking,” she said.
Iran International was not immediately able to verify all aspects of her account of the raid.
Defiance, fear of death
“It was terrifying,” Mahshid said. “But I also felt proud because I saw a group of brave women, without the hijab, in a mosque, in a religious city, shouting ‘Death to the dictator’ and ‘Woman, Life, Freedom."
The Woman, Life, Freedom movement marked one of the most serious challenges the Islamic Republic has faced, with protests erupting nationwide in 2022 after the death of Mahsa Amini in morality police custody and calling for an end to clerical rule.
Nazemi's sister says they still do not know where she is being held or which security body is responsible for her detention, though they fear the case may be under the authority of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
“We don’t know which prison she is in or which organization is holding her,” Mahshid said. “And when there is no official information, the risk of torture and fabricated charges increases,” she added.
The family is also concerned about Nazemi’s health. She has a history of stomach cancer, severe respiratory problems and life-threatening anaphylactic reactions caused by medical negligence during a previous detention, according to her sister.
During an earlier imprisonment, Nazemi suffered allergic shock after being given an antibiotic she was known to be sensitive to while undergoing surgery, Mahshid said.
“Since then, her condition has never been stable. Now I don’t know if she is receiving any medication at all,” she told Iran International.
There is also an open case against Nazemi in the southeastern city of Kerman, which her family fears could be used to impose harsher charges.
“They have already given her 14 years in prison in one case,” Mahshid said. “They don’t answer us, they don’t give court documents, and they argue with our lawyers,” she told Iran International.
From memorial to mass arrests
Iranian authorities say 39 people were arrested during the memorial ceremony. Those detained included Alikordi’s brother Javad Alikordi, Mohammadi and human rights activists Aliyeh Motallebzadeh, Sepideh Gholian, and Hasti Amiri.
Several detainees have since made brief phone calls to their families, but relatives say information about their condition and whereabouts remains limited.
In a message relayed by her family, Mohammadi said she was severely beaten during her arrest, suffering repeated blows to the head and neck with batons, and was later accused of “cooperation with the State of Israel.”
Human rights groups say the arrests followed a violent crackdown on mourners at the memorial, which had become a flashpoint amid growing controversy over Alikordi’s death.
Alikordi, a lawyer known for defending political prisoners and bereaved families, was found dead in his office in Mashhad on December 5. Authorities say he died of a heart attack, but his family and colleagues have questioned the official account, citing the removal of surveillance cameras and inconsistencies in the investigation.
Calling on the international community to act, Mahshid urged governments and rights groups to demand accountability.
“When names and locations are hidden, people are tortured and silenced,” she said. “Be a voice. Raise the cost for the Islamic Republic and demand transparency — for my sister and for the suspicious death of Khosrow Alikordi,” she told Iran International.