Senator Graham urges US to support Iranian protesters
Senator Lindsey Graham praised President Trump’s recent remarks on Iran and called for continued US backing for protesters, warning that Tehran’s leadership cannot be trusted.
“Mr. President… I hope so. As long as it’s a good deal. Well done. Keep standing by the protestors in Iran. They can be our friends. The ayatollah will never be our friend,” Graham wrote on X, in response to the president’s earlier comments about a US naval deployment near Iran.
Republican Congressman Joe Wilson on Tuesday warned that Iranian influence in Iraq will no longer be acceptable, saying any new Iraqi government must disarm Iran‑aligned militias, expel Iranian operatives, and build strong, long‑term strategic ties with the United States.
“Sever Iranian influence in Iraqi affairs. All Iranian advisers operatives and agents must be removed from Iraq and from all Iraqi institutions,” Wilson posted on X. “Fully disarm and dismantle all Iranian aligned militia groups within six to twelve months.”
Wilson voiced strong support for President Donald Trump’s envoy Mark Savaya, praising what he called their “spectacular efforts” to “Make Iraq Great Again and free Iraq from Iran.”
Exiled Prince Reza Pahlavi marked International Holocaust Remembrance Day on Tuesday by urging world leaders to turn the post‑war vow of “never again” into concrete action over the mass killing of protesters in Iran.
“Today, as we mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day, the promise of ‘Never Again’ is being tested in Iran,” Pahlavi wrote on X. “The world has a moral imperative to put this concept into practice by standing with the brave people of Iran against the pure evil they face."
US President Donald Trump said a US naval force is currently moving toward Iran, renewing pressure on Tehran to reach an agreement with Washington.
“There’s another beautiful armada floating beautifully toward Iran right now,” Trump said on Tuesday in Iowa, adding that he hoped Iranian leaders would “make a deal.”
Trump said Iran should have agreed earlier, adding it would still “have a country” had it done so.
Iranian and Venezuelan opposition figures in a meeting in Washington DC urged the United States and its allies to act against what they described as an axis of repression between their two countries.
Iranian activist Masih Alinejad met with Venezuelan opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Maria Corina Machado in Washington, where the two discussed the situation in Iran and Venezuela and called for stronger international action.
“Today I am in Washington, DC. The capital of the free world,” Alinejad said. “I am here with one of the most courageous woman who is leading the democratic opposition movement in Venezuela, Maria Corina Machado.”
The meeting comes amid one of the deadliest periods of deadly violence in Iran's history. Iranian authorities have responded to nationwide protests with a massacre, with at least 36,500 people killed by security forces from Jan 8-9.
Alinejad said the Venezuelan and Iranian struggles are linked, arguing that the governments of Nicolás Maduro and Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei support one another.
“Maduro is not alone. Ali Khamenei is his ally,” Alinejad said. “Ali Khamenei and Revolutionary Guards invaded Venezuela.”
Machado said that cooperation between the heavily sanctioned authoritarian governments has been underway for years.
“The tyrannies we’re facing have been cooperating for many years, exchanging resources, information technology agents, weapons, weapons, certainly,” Machado said. “And now at the same time, we see our people getting up and committing themselves in an unprecedented citizen movement for freedom.”
Machado’s remarks come weeks after US forces captured Maduro in Caracas and flew him to New York, where he has pleaded not guilty to drug trafficking charges.
She rejected criticism of such actions as foreign intervention.
The meeting also follows repeated warnings by US President Donald Trump that Washington would respond if Iranian authorities escalated violence against protesters — statements that activists say raised expectations among Iranians seeking international backing.
Alinejad said Iran is currently facing mass violence by state forces.
“Right now, Iranians are facing massacre,” she said. “Up to 20,000 people have been killed ... with empty hands, unarmed people cannot win."
Machado welcomed the US military intervention which captured Maduro this month, calling it a turning point. The attack killed 83 people, according to Venezuela's defense ministry.
“Finally, in Venezuela, we’re seeing President Trump making a tremendous important decision,” she said. “January 3rd, when President Trump brought Nicolas Maduro to justice.”
“Venezuela will be free and Iran will be free as well,” she added.
Mojtaba (Shahmorad) Shahpari, a protester from the southwestern Iranian city of Izeh who was injured during the nationwide protests and later found dead in a cold storage warehouse in Isfahan, was laid to rest wrapped in the lion and sun flag, fulfilling his final wish.
Shahpari was shot by security forces on January 8, 2026, during protests in Baharestan, Isfahan province, people familiar with the matter told Iran International.
The sources, who asked not to be named for fear of retaliation, said security forces opened fire indiscriminately on protesters that night.
“They opened fire on everyone that night, men and women, young and old,” the source said.
Videos sent to Iran International show gunshots being heard as protesters chant “long live the King” in Baharestan on January 8.
Security forces shot Shahpari in the leg on Isar Street in Baharestan sometime between 8:30 p.m. and 9 p.m. local time, causing him to fall to the ground, a source said.
Wounded but alive, he was taken by ambulance to Al-Zahra Hospital in Isfahan.
“He was not dead when he was taken to hospital,” the source added.
For days afterward, Shahpari’s family searched hospitals across Isfahan. Authorities repeatedly told them he was wounded and alive but refused to say where he was, the source said.
“Then there was nothing. No answers.”
Three days later, the family’s search ended near Bagh-e Rezvan cemetery, Isfahan’s main burial ground.
With the cemetery morgue full, bodies were being kept in a storage warehouse used for fruit and vegetables near Bagh-e Rezvan cemetery, the source said.
“There was no space ... They had put the bodies in a warehouse. As far as the eye could see, there were bodies,” putting the total at a minimum of 500.
When the body was found, a gunshot wound was visible on the side of his head, which the source said was not present when he was taken to hospital.
The source said they believed it was a gunshot to execute him and that he had been operated upon on his abdomen without his family's knowledge and later stitched back up.
About 18 miles southeast of Baharestan, also in Isfahan province, in the provincial capital, another source told Iran International that at the height of protests, “several containers of bodies” were brought to Bagh-e Rezvan in the middle of the night and unloaded into warehouses.
According to the source, some of the bodies were still alive and semi-conscious.
Shahpari, 32, was originally from Izeh in Khuzestan province in southwestern Iran, but had moved to Baharestan in search of work.
To support himself, he worked nights as a building security guard and spent his days unloading cargo as a laborer.
“He was a freedom-seeker,” a source said. “He opposed religion and supported the monarchy.”
Shahpari was buried on January 18, 2026, in the village of Nashil-e Do near Izeh.
“He was buried wrapped in the lion and sun flag, just as he wished...just as we all do.”
