US sanctions individuals, firms over links to Iran-backed Hezbollah

Iran's top security official Ali Larijani on Tuesday referred to Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu's visit to Washington DC and called on Americans to "think wisely" and "remain alert to the destructive role of the Zionists."

Netanyahu says Iran will top the agenda of his trip.

A resident of Gohardasht told Iran International that on the nights of January 8 and 9, large numbers of armed forces were lying in ambush in alleyways as heavy gunfire echoed through the area.

According to the witness, teenagers struck in the head and face by pellet rounds sought refuge inside residential buildings. The resident said at least 16 people were killed in the alley where he lives, adding that security forces also fired at the doors of apartment buildings.

Another eyewitness said that around a nearby hospital, injured women with severe facial wounds were seen seeking help. On Dariush Street, he said, a DShK heavy machine gun was deployed and crowds were sprayed with gunfire.

He said that at the First Square of Gohardasht, bodies were piled on top of each other to create an atmosphere of terror before being moved away with bulldozers.

The witness said the bodies were collected around midnight on January 8, but freezing temperatures left congealed blood visible on the ground. The following night, January 9, the killings intensified, he added.

A Iranian lawmaker said Iran had informed the United States ahead of negotiations that talks would be restricted to the nuclear issue.

“Before holding negotiations with the Americans, we told them that we are only willing to negotiate on the nuclear matter,” Esmail Kowsari told the Tehran-based Didban Iran website on Tuesday.

Kowsari, a member of parliament’s national security and foreign policy committee, stressed that Tehran would not accept eliminating enrichment under any deal.

“We will by no means accept zero enrichment, and even if an agreement is reached, it will be solely on the nuclear issue,” the IRGC general-turned-lawmaker said.

Kowsari also voiced pessimism about the talks’ prospects.

“I am not optimistic about the negotiations between Iran and the United States yielding results,” he said.

The widening gap between the two suggests not tactical ambiguity but strategic confusion—and it is most visible in the conduct of Iran’s foreign minister and chief negotiator, Abbas Araghchi.

Days after returning from Muscat, where he exchanged messages with US envoys in indirect talks, Araghchi embarked on an extended media tour at home, laying out rigid red lines that either were not conveyed to the Americans or were deliberately softened in private.

At home, Araghchi insists that Iran “will not stop enrichment,” that its stockpile of enriched uranium “will not be transferred to any other country,” and that it “will not negotiate about its missiles, now or in the future.”

Abroad, he has described the Muscat talks as “a good beginning” on a long path toward confidence-building.

The two messages are difficult to reconcile. Together, they suggest an intention to stretch out negotiations—an approach the United States under President Donald Trump has shown little interest in accommodating.

Even if these positions were not stated directly to US interlocutors, they have now been aired publicly. The question is no longer what Iran’s red lines are, but which audience Tehran believes matters more.

Other senior officials have reinforced the same internal message. Iran’s nuclear chief, Mohammad Eslami, said Tehran would be prepared to dilute its 60-percent enriched uranium only if all sanctions were lifted first—a familiar posture of maximum demands paired with minimal, reversible concessions.

This hardening rhetoric contrasts sharply with Iran’s underlying position.

Tehran enters these talks economically strained, diplomatically isolated, and politically shaken by the bloody crackdown on protests in January. Sweeping arrests of prominent moderates over the weekend have further narrowed the state’s already diminished base.

Still, for domestic audiences, defiance remains the preferred language. Hossein Shariatmadari, the hardline editor of Kayhan, warned after the Muscat talks that “the United States is not trustworthy” and urged officials to “keep our fingers on the trigger.”

State-affiliated outlets have amplified that tone, declaring the Oman talks a “political victory for Iran” without explaining what was won. State television has gone further, airing AI-generated footage portraying Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei as having “defeated” the United States.

More extreme claims have circulated as well. Ultraconservative lawmaker Mahmoud Nabavian asserted on state television that Trump had “begged” Iranian commanders to allow a limited strike—echoing earlier efforts to recast confrontations with the US as evidence of dominance.

Taken together, these messages point to a leadership struggling to reconcile its external need for sanctions relief with its internal reliance on confrontation. Diplomacy abroad requires flexibility; legitimacy at home, the system appears to believe, still demands bravado.

It is the Supreme Leader who must ultimately arbitrate between these competing narratives. Ali Khamenei has long proven adept at sustaining both at once—and at bearing responsibility for neither. Whether he can repeat that balancing act one more time remains an open question.

Iranian media circulated a photograph from Ali Larijani’s meeting in Muscat with Oman’s foreign minister that shows what appears to be a document or letter placed beside the officials, prompting speculation about its significance.

Some Iranian media outlets speculated that the document could be a written message intended for delivery through Omani mediation.

The image, released following the visit by adviser to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei to Oman, does not reveal the contents of the document, and no official confirmation has been provided about its nature.