Iraq finds suspected drone launch sites near Iran border after Saudi pipeline strike

The Islamic Resistance in Iraq said an attack on Saudi Arabia’s critical infrastructure would be “a source of pride” if it had carried it out, but insisted that it had not.

“The accusations against the Iraqi resistance regarding the attack on Saudi Arabia’s vital infrastructure, while a source of pride if we had carried out such an action, are not something we claim,” the alliance said in a statement carried by Iran’s Tasnim news agency.

Iraq closed three border crossings with Iran on Saturday, officials told AFP, after Iraqi and Saudi authorities said the drones that struck the pipeline had been launched from Iraqi territory.

An Iraqi security source said the closures were “part of an intelligence effort to track down the perpetrators and prevent their escape” and to hinder the smuggling of drones through the crossings.

Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi also dismissed the military commander in Maysan province, which borders Iran, after authorities determined that drones had been launched from the province.

No group has claimed responsibility.

The statement criticized the Iraqi government for what it called a rush to accept the accusations “without documented and reliable evidence or an investigation,” and said the alliance was prepared to participate in any government inquiry aimed at establishing what happened.

US President Donald Trump has said Iran was probably behind the attack, while Saudi Arabia has said the drones originated in Iraq. Neither Riyadh nor Baghdad has publicly identified the group responsible.

The dispute has also spilled over into relations between Baghdad and Tehran.

Iran’s ambassador to Iraq, Mohammad Kazem Al-e Sadegh, told Tasnim that the Mehran and Khosravi crossings remained open and said Tehran was in talks with senior Iraqi officials over the closure of the Chazabeh and Shalamcheh crossings.

Al-e Sadegh acknowledged reports that the closures had been ordered in connection with an operation against Saudi Arabia launched from Iraqi territory, but questioned their relevance to the border and said large numbers of Iraqis who had travelled to Iran for pilgrimage or medical treatment had been left stranded.

The attack has taken on wider significance because of the growing importance of the East-West pipeline during the war.

The route carries Saudi crude from the kingdom’s oil-producing east to the Red Sea, bypassing the Strait of Hormuz as shipping through the waterway faces severe disruption.

Branch 3 of the Bandar Abbas Revolutionary Court convicted her on charges including insulting Iran's supreme leader, media and propaganda activity against national security, intelligence and security activity on behalf of hostile governments, and taking and sending photographs to Persian-language media abroad, according to the information.

The court also sentenced her to between two and five years in prison, barred her from some government services and ordered the confiscation of property. Her lawyer was notified of the death sentence on August 23.

Ebrahimi Shamsabadi was held in solitary confinement for 20 days and faced severe pressure during interrogation, according to information obtained by Iran International. Her family was not told where she was being held or about her condition during that period.

The sentence was issued by Judge Khajeh-Hassani, who was previously praised by judiciary officials as an exemplary judge for, among other things, issuing a high number of rulings and what they described as diligence in his work.

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  Protester blinded in one eye sentenced to death after return to Iran

More political and protest-related death sentences

The case comes amid a series of death sentences against protesters and political detainees in Iran.

Earlier this month, US-based rights outlet HRANA reported that Ali Zarei Doozdarresi, a protester who lost sight in one eye after being shot during the 2022 Woman, Life, Freedom protests, had been sentenced to death after returning to Iran from Germany.

Iran International also reported in August that Leila Abolhassani, a 43-year-old mother of two detained during the January protests in Shahin Shahr, had been sentenced to death on charges of “waging war against God.” Her case was sent to the Supreme Court following an appeal.

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  Iran sentences woman detained during January protests to death

Rights groups warn of rising executions

Rights groups have accused Iranian authorities of increasingly using capital punishment against protesters and political dissidents.

Norway-based Iran Human Rights said last month that 29 people arrested in connection with the January 2026 protests had been executed since March 19, in addition to two protesters from the 2022 Woman, Life, Freedom movement.

The US-based Abdorrahman Boroumand Center said in August that it had documented 950 executions in Iran since the start of 2026, including at least 20 women and 30 protesters. The UN human rights chief has also accused Iran of using executions to “instill fear among the population and suppress dissent.”

“I think they are, probably they are,” Trump told reporters in Dublin when asked whether Iran was behind the attack.

Trump said he expected the conflict to end shortly after the US midterm elections in November. “I think very soon. I think it'll be probably right after the mid-terms,” he said, adding that oil prices would “tumble” once the war ended.

He also said Washington controlled the Strait of Hormuz and that the Iran-backed Houthis “don't want to fight with us.” Asked about Saudi Arabia, Trump described Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman as “a good friend of mine” and said: “Everything will work out fine.”

Saudi pipeline attack triggers border restrictions

The comments followed an aerial attack on Saudi Arabia’s East-West pipeline, a critical route carrying crude from the kingdom’s eastern oil-producing areas toward the Red Sea. The strike caused injuries and material damage and forced the pipeline to shut.

Saudi Arabia said the drones involved in the attack were launched from Iraqi territory.

Iraq subsequently ordered the closure of the Shalamcheh border crossing with Iran as a precaution, Reuters reported, citing two security sources. The sources said a large-scale operation was underway to pursue those responsible for the attack.

Valiollah Hayati, deputy governor of Iran's Khuzestan province, said Iraqi authorities had also closed the Chazabeh crossing from early Saturday, halting passenger and commercial traffic through both crossings.

Hayati later said Iraq's prime minister had ordered authorities to allow stranded passengers on both sides of the Shalamcheh and Chazabeh crossings to pass. Travelers were given a two-hour window to cross before the borders were to close again, he said.

Sources at Basra airport also reported the suspension of flights to and from Iran.

The attack drew condemnation from several regional governments, while Spain called for urgent de-escalation and said freedom of navigation through both the Strait of Hormuz and Bab el-Mandeb must be guaranteed.

BRICS seeks common ground as Iran-UAE tensions persist

Diplomatic attention also turned to New Delhi, where BRICS leaders unanimously adopted a joint declaration calling for conflicts to be resolved through “dialogue, consultation and diplomacy” and warning about growing nuclear risks.

The declaration condemned unilateral coercive measures that it said violated international law and said nuclear safeguards, safety and security must be upheld even during armed conflicts. Reuters had earlier reported that the text was expected to avoid naming individual countries as members worked to bridge differences between Iran and the United Arab Emirates over the regional war.

The agreement marked a change from a BRICS foreign ministers’ meeting in May, when divisions between Tehran and Abu Dhabi prevented the group from issuing a joint statement.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian met UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan on the sidelines of the summit on Saturday, though Iran’s embassy in India gave no details of their discussions.

Chinese President Xi Jinping meanwhile urged BRICS members to take on a peacemaking role in the Middle East conflict, saying the war did not serve the common interests of the international community.

Tehran hardens military and nuclear rhetoric

Inside Iran, senior officials and lawmakers continued to signal a tougher posture. Lawmaker Esmail Kowsari said Iran had moved beyond a defensive military posture and that its war strategy had become offensive.

IRGC commander Ahmad Vahidi said Israel’s military would “collapse in a very short time” without US support and argued that Washington and Israel had underestimated Iran’s military capabilities.

Another member of parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, Mohammadreza Mohseni-Sani, said Iran no longer regarded itself as constrained by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and could reconsider its enrichment policy.

“Everything is changing” and “anything is possible,” he said when asked about higher enrichment levels and changes to Iran’s nuclear and defense doctrine.

At the same time, Russia’s state nuclear corporation Rosatom said it planned to increase the number of its specialists at Iran’s Bushehr nuclear power plant to 150 in the near future.

The heights, overlooking the city of Nabatieh in southern Lebanon and long regarded as a strategic Hezbollah position, came under heavy Israeli attack this week. On Thursday night, explosions destroyed underground facilities that the Israeli military said included command centers and weapons tunnels running more than two kilometers.

Within hours the loss had become an Iranian domestic argument. Hardliners contend that Israel could not have taken the heights had Tehran not tied its own hands by signing the agreement with the United States on June 28.

The clause that was a victory

That agreement, reached in Islamabad, opened with a commitment by both sides to halt military operations immediately and permanently on all fronts, Lebanon included, and referred explicitly to Lebanon's sovereignty and territorial integrity.

Iran said afterwards that any continued Israeli operations in Lebanon would violate the understanding and would be answered.

Israel resumed bombing Lebanon less than a day after the signing. Iran briefly suspended the follow-on talks in Switzerland and briefly closed the Strait of Hormuz. It did not respond militarily in Lebanon.

Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf, the parliament speaker and Iran's chief negotiator in Islamabad, has since repeatedly described the inclusion of Lebanon in the agreement as a victory for Tehran. It is that claim, set against the smoke over Ali al-Taher, that his critics are now holding up.

'Political score-settling'

The reformist daily Shargh, in a report on Wednesday headlined "Polarization under the code name Ali al-Taher," warned that the Israeli attacks were being used for "political score-settling at home."

"The latest Israeli attacks on southern Lebanon and the dispute over the Ali al-Taher heights, instead of being judged solely by the realities on the ground, have once again created the conditions for polarization and attacks on the negotiators and the June 28 Iran-US understanding," the paper wrote.

Shargh said some critics were charging that the negotiators had, through the agreement's first clause, effectively "sold" Hezbollah, or at least abandoned effective support for it. The charge bites because Iranian officials had presented that very clause as the mechanism for protecting the Lebanese front.

Ghalibaf the target

On social media the confrontation has been rawer, and Ghalibaf is its main object.

"What greater betrayal could Ghalibaf have committed to deserve prosecution?" one account wrote, adding that Yemen's Houthis were fortunate not to have placed themselves under his control, "otherwise Yemen's fate would have been no better than southern Lebanon."

Another laid out the hardline case in full: "The day after the ceasefire, 300 points in Lebanon were bombed in 10 minutes. You prevented a response under the pretext of negotiations. You repeatedly prevented a deterrent attack and failed to maintain the continuity and coordination of the various resistance fronts. The responsibility is yours."

Another user accused Iranian officials of allowing the agreement to prevent a military response: “Is there any reason for Iran’s failure to launch a major response against Israel at the last moment other than the insistence of officials on adhering to that worthless, ridiculous piece of paper and keeping it from falling apart? If there is another reason, tell us so we can know too.”

The defense, and what it concedes

Ghalibaf's camp has answered that a dead agreement cannot be blamed for a live war.

"For nearly 60 days, the agreement that imposed restrictions has not been implemented," Mohammad-Saeed Ahadian, a journalist and political aide to the Ghalibaf, wrote on X.

"During this period, some people have offered nothing but vague and imaginary solutions, yet they say the agreement, which they claim is dead, is responsible for the fall of Ali al-Taher. Enough of this destructive game of domestic politics."

Another defender, Vahid Hajipour, argued the fall was a consequence of the agreement's collapse, not its terms: "Now go ahead and insult Ghalibaf again. With this, you are making Netanyahu even happier."

The defense carries its own admission. The clause Ghalibaf called a victory has, by his own aide's account, not been in force for two months. The argument in Tehran is therefore not whether the Lebanon provision protected Hezbollah, since neither side now claims it did, but who should answer for the fact that it did not.

"To the great, proud people of Iran, the hour of your freedom is at hand," Trump says in a video posted on X, drawing on remarks he first delivered on February 28, the day the US campaign began. "When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take."

Six months ago, that was an extraordinary signal from an American president at the opening of a war with the Islamic Republic. This time there was no accompanying policy, no explanation of what "when we are finished" means, and no sign that Washington is preparing to help Iranians seize anything.

"I don't think the Iranian regime is going to care," Eric Mandel, founder of the Middle East Political Information Network, told Iran International's Eye for Iran podcast, whose conversation with him forms the basis of this analysis. "I think they've heard these messages before."

A war shaped by a calendar

Trump said this week that Iran was "limping along" and predicted the conflict would end "immediately after" November's midterm elections. He also acknowledged, in the same week, that electoral considerations may be influencing decisions about whether to escalate military action against Iran.

That is an American president saying, in public, that the pace of a war is being set partly by a domestic election.

His own senior advisers appear to be planning for something very different. Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and others have privately discussed the possibility that Tehran could withstand US pressure and that the conflict could run through the end of Trump's presidency in January 2029, according to the Wall Street Journal.

So the same week produced three incompatible timelines: freedom "at hand," an end "immediately after" the midterms, and a war that may outlast the administration. If Trump is again telling Iranians their government will soon be theirs to take, what has changed since he first said it? Mandel's answer was blunt: "I haven't heard a new policy."

The gap between the promise and the means

For Mandel, the problem is not the stated objective but the distance between the promise and any way of achieving it.

"They can't ask the Iranian people to go out again into the streets and be slaughtered," he said. The last time people came out in their millions, in January, security forces killed tens of thousands in two days.

If Washington genuinely wants the Islamic Republic to fall, Mandel argued, it would have to go far beyond encouragement: bring together Iran's fragmented opposition, finance strike funds so workers can stay home rather than face security forces in the street, tighten secondary sanctions on the countries helping Tehran evade pressure, and give material support to parts of the opposition.

"The Iranian people can't take over if they're unarmed and they are not having coordination," he said. "If we're saying to the Iranian people to take over at that point, that just doesn't make any sense to me."

The operation that lost its name

Trump's original February message came as the White House described Operation Epic Fury as an effort to destroy Iran's nuclear and missile capabilities, degrade its proxy network and cripple its navy, and tied the campaign to decades of confrontation between the two countries.

Even the name has since receded. The Pentagon said Epic Fury officially ended on May 5, and military personnel were later told to stop using it for the continuing operations against Iran. The war did not end with the name.

Nearly seven months on, oil is back above $100 a barrel, the political cost of the conflict is increasingly visible ahead of the midterms, and Trump's advisers are contemplating a far longer confrontation than the president publicly predicts. That is what makes the decision to resurrect the February message striking, and it raises the question Mandel kept returning to: who was it for?

Not Tehran, he thought, which he described as in "survival mode" and betting it can outlast the administration. Not a weary American public either. "If it is for the American people, to my mind, it's the wrong way to present this," he said.

Trump would need to explain why bringing down the Islamic Republic serves US security and why Americans should prepare for a long campaign, and he has not.

Without that, ever more dramatic language loses its force. "To the regime, it's like the boy who cried wolf," Mandel said. "He keeps saying this every month."

The video appeared deliberately produced, he noted, which makes it hard to dismiss as an impulsive post. But he could not say what new message it carried. "I don't get the message yet of what it is."

That may be why an extraordinary sentence received such an ordinary response. A US president once again told more than 90 million Iranians that their government may soon be theirs to take. What remains unclear is whether Washington was announcing an objective, offering encouragement, applying pressure, or repeating a promise the world has heard before.