UK police arrest two men over attack on Jewish community ambulances

Foreign Minister Maria Malmer Stenergard said the decision came after Iran executed an Iranian-Swedish citizen accused of spying for Israel, a charge Stockholm and European officials have rejected.

“This is just the beginning,” she said, adding that Sweden was considering additional measures.

Under the new policy, no new short-term visas will be granted to Iranian diplomatic staff and existing permits will not be extended, affecting at least two embassy employees whose residency will expire in May.

The execution has triggered a broader diplomatic response across Europe. The European Union condemned the killing as “brutal and unjustifiable” and expressed concern over what it called a worsening human rights situation and rising use of capital punishment in Iran.

Sweden is also pushing within the EU for sanctions against individuals involved in the judicial process that led to the execution, including potential travel bans across the bloc.

The move comes amid widening diplomatic strains linked to the ongoing conflict involving Iran, the United States and Israel, which has reshaped international engagement with Tehran.

In recent days, Lebanon expelled Iran’s ambassador from Beirut, while Australia said it would temporarily restrict some Iranian visitor visa holders from entering the country.

It suggests that the emergence of Iran Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf’s name is less about his standing among Iranians and more about how Washington is reading power inside the Islamic Republic.

US President Donald Trump on Monday indicated he was in contact with a senior Iranian figure without naming a formal office. “We’re talking to a top person in Iran,” he said, describing the contacts as “very good and productive,” remarks that coincided with his decision to delay strikes on Iran’s energy infrastructure.

Ghalibaf rejected the suggestion outright. “There has been no negotiation with the United States,” he wrote on X, adding that such reports were being circulated “to manipulate financial and oil markets.”

A test channel, not a political endorsement

What places Ghalibaf in this discussion is not legitimacy or popularity, but how he fits a specific operational need.

Washington appears to be searching for a test channel – a figure embedded enough within Iran’s power structure to determine whether pressure has shifted internal calculations, yet visible enough to engage without committing to a formal negotiation track.

Ghalibaf fits that role. As parliament speaker with a background spanning the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, the police, and executive administration, he sits at the intersection of political authority and coercive power. Over time, he has also sought to project a more technocratic and managerial image, particularly during election campaigns.

That combination makes him more legible to Washington than figures whose authority is either opaque or purely symbolic.

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Who can deliver in Iran’s system?

The central question for US policymakers is not who represents Iran – but who can act. President Masoud Pezeshkian, despite holding elected office, is widely seen as constrained by unelected centers of power. At the same time, killing of former Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and uncertainty around leadership structures has made it difficult to identify a single decisive authority.

In that environment, Ghalibaf emerges as a practical option. He connects political, military, and administrative networks and is positioned to transmit signals across factions.

This also aligns with a broader pattern in Trump’s foreign policy. His approach has consistently favored leaders perceived as decisive and capable of enforcing outcomes.

Engagements with figures such as Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, Vladimir Putin, and Kim Jong Un reflect a preference for authority and deliverability over institutional legitimacy.

Ghalibaf fits that pattern as well – not because of what Trump put as being “respectable,” but because of perceived functionality.

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Limits of power and the legitimacy gap

Yet the same factors that make Ghalibaf useful to Washington also define his limits. Iran’s strategic decisions are not delegated to individual officials. Authority remains concentrated within tightly controlled security and leadership circles, with networks aligned with the IRGC shaping core policy direction.

Recent statements from these circles have reinforced resistance to negotiations under pressure, with some going further by demanding concessions rather than offering them.

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Mohsen Rezaei, a military adviser to the country’s new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, warned that escalation would be met with force. “If they make this mistake [hitting Iran power plants], we will paralyze them and sink them in the Persian Gulf,” he said in a televised interview Monday night.

Rezaei added that “the war will not end until sanctions are lifted, compensation is paid, and legal guarantees are provided that aggression against Iran will not be repeated,” ruling out any ceasefire under current conditions.

His remarks feature the broader reality facing any potential channel: even if figures like Ghalibaf are engaged, key security actors continue to set maximalist terms that leave little room for negotiation under pressure.

In that context, even a well-positioned figure like Ghalibaf does not have the authority to shift policy. At most, he can serve as a conduit – not a decision-maker.

Public perception

Ghalibaf’s record includes involvement in past crackdowns, including student protests, as well as longstanding corruption allegations. These factors have shaped his image within Iranian society and limit his credibility beyond state structures.

This creates a structural contradiction. A figure who may be functional within the system is not necessarily acceptable outside it.

This gap becomes more pronounced when viewed against recent unrest. Large-scale protests in January, met with a heavy security response in which Ghalibaf was part of the broader system response, showed the depth of public anger toward figures associated with the state.

Slogans widely heard during those demonstrations – including “This is the final battle, Pahlavi will return” and “Reza Pahlavi is the national slogan” – showed that the opposition is widely rallying around the exiled son of Iran’s last Shah, rejecting any one associated with the Islamic Republic.

In that context, any attempt to elevate a figure such as Ghalibaf – even as a de facto interlocutor or transitional figure – would likely face immediate resistance from a public that has already signaled its rejection of the existing power structure.

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What Ghalibaf’s selection really reveals

Therefore, the focus on Ghalibaf is not that much about elevating him – it appears it is about testing the system around him.

For Washington, he represents a point of access into Iran’s power structure at a moment of uncertainty, a figure through whom pressure can be measured rather than resolved.

On the other hand, for Tehran, the episode highlights how tightly controlled that structure remains, with authority dispersed across networks that limit any individual’s room to act.

This makes the channel inherently narrow. It may reveal whether pressure has altered internal thinking, but it does not resolve the deeper constraints that define decision-making in Iran.

In that sense, the question is not whether Ghalibaf can deliver – but whether anyone within the current structure can.

The longtime hardliner is the new chief of the Supreme National Security Council to replace his slain predecessor Ali Larijani, state television said Tuesday.

Zolghadr is not a new figure emerging in a moment of crisis, but a product of the Islamic Republic’s original revolutionary security networks. A man whose career spans armed militancy, senior command within the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and influential roles across Iran’s political and judicial institutions.

“He is one of the last remnants of the radical revolutionaries that armed themselves against the Pahlavi monarchy,” historian Shahram Kholdi told Iran International.

A former deputy commander of the IRGC, Zolghadr belongs to the generation that helped transform the Guards into the backbone of the Islamic Republic not only as a military force, but as a political and economic power center. Over decades, the IRGC expanded its reach across the state, embedding itself in key institutions from the interior ministry to the judiciary.

Kholdi traces Zolghadr back to the early networks that evolved into the Quds Force — the IRGC’s elite unit responsible for managing Iran’s proxy militias and projecting power across the Middle East placing him alongside the system later commanded by Qassem Soleimani, the architect of Iran’s regional strategy.

His appointment following the killing of Larijani underscores what many analysts see as an accelerating trend: the consolidation of power by hardline military figures. What has been a gradual shift over decades appears to have intensified amid the current conflict, with the Guards tightening their grip over both national security and political decision-making.

The Quds Force, the IRGC’s external arm, has been at the center of Iran’s regional power projection, training and directing militias from Iraq to Syria, where it helped sustain Bashar al-Assad’s war in a conflict marked by widespread civilian suffering.

“He is part of the three to four thousand families that have been forming the power core of the Islamic Republic,” Kholdi said.

Zolghadr’s rise does not mark a departure from that system, but a continuation of it, reflecting the enduring dominance of a tightly knit network of insiders drawn from the Islamic Republic’s revolutionary and security institutions.

His role in internal repression also stretches back decades. During the 1999 student protests — a pivotal moment in the regime’s violent suppression of dissent— Zolghadr was among a group of senior IRGC commanders who signed a sharply worded letter to then-reformist President Mohammad Khatami. The message warned that if the government failed to decisively crush the unrest, the Guards would act on their own. The episode is widely seen as a turning point, marking a more overt willingness by the IRGC to intervene directly in politics and, for many Iranians, cementing the reform movement’s ultimate failure.

His political trajectory has long aligned with Iran’s most hardline currents. He played a role in the rise of former hardline president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and later acknowledged that conservative factions had carried out coordinated efforts to secure that victory. In office, he adopted a confrontational posture toward the United States, warning that Iran would respond to any attack with overwhelming missile strikes.

During the Iran-Iraq War, he led units he fought in cross-border operations, which is experience that would help shape the regime’s enduring emphasis on asymmetrical warfare.

According to Kholdi, Zolghadr was among those who helped design that doctrine alongside figures like Qassem Soleimani — building a decentralized system capable of operating even under sustained attack.

“They created this asymmetrical hierarchy where units can act independently… and continue operating even if leadership is cut off,” Kholdi said.

That system is now visible in Iran’s military posture, with dispersed missile and drone capabilities across the region.

Kholdi also points to Zolghadr’s deep institutional knowledge as a key factor in his significance today.

“The fact that he hasn’t been eliminated is bad news — he is one of the main people who knows a lot about how this system works,” he said, adding that Zolghadr likely has insight into sensitive areas including the country’s nuclear program.

For ordinary Iranians, his rise is much the same as his predecessor Ali Larijani, who was eliminated in an Israeli airstrike overnight on March 16 in Tehran.

“No, he is much the same,” Kholdi said when asked whether Zolghadr differs from figures like Larijani.

His appointment underscores a consistent reality: power in the Islamic Republic remains concentrated within a small circle of entrenched insiders — many of whom have been at the center of the system since its earliest days.

The projectile was not intercepted in Lebanese airspace and instead landed on the coast, according to Iran International sources, disputing earlier reporting by Reuters.

The strike came shortly after Lebanon declared Iran’s ambassador to Beirut, Mohammad Reza Raouf Sheibani, persona non grata and ordered his expulsion.

Lebanese Foreign Minister Youssef Raggi said on X that the decision had been formally communicated and that the envoy must leave the country by March 29.

Lebanon also recalled its ambassador from Tehran for consultations, accusing Iran of violating diplomatic norms and established protocols between the two countries.

Israel’s military said that, based on its assessments, a ballistic missile launched from Iran fell in Beirut around the same time as missile attacks targeting Israel. In a statement, the army said the projectile was fired by the “Iranian regime” and landed inside Lebanon.

Diplomats from several Persian Gulf states told Iran International on Tuesday that Tehran was acting like a “runaway horse,” warning that attacking another Arab country crossed a new red line and would not be tolerated.

According to Iran International sources, since the start of the current conflict following US and Israeli strikes in early March, Iran has targeted at least 12 countries in the region. Lebanon is now the 13th.

Reactions to Lebanon’s move were swift. Israel’s President Isaac Herzog called the expulsion a “very courageous decision,” according to Israeli media. Foreign Minister Gideon Sa'ar welcomed the move, describing it as “justified and necessary” in response to Iran’s actions in Lebanon, including its backing of Hezbollah.

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said Israel would continue its attacks against Iranian positions “with full force.”

Hezbollah condemned the decision, warning it could undermine national unity and deepen internal divisions.

Meanwhile, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday that Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates are growing increasingly impatient after attacks on energy infrastructure and airports, and could join US- and Israeli-led strikes if Iran targets critical facilities.

The Baha’i International Community said Payvand Naeimi, held in Kerman since his arrest during protests in January, had endured prolonged interrogations, forced confessions and at least two mock hangings in custody.

It said Naeimi had been accused of involvement in unrest and other crimes, including the killing of Basij members, despite being in custody at the time of the alleged incident.

The group said he remains in solitary confinement without access to medical care, adding that the pressure on him appeared aimed at forcing false confessions.