Iran signs electricity-import contracts with Turkmenistan, Armenia

Annual tuition at some private and international schools in the affluent districts starts at around 4 billion rials ($1,710) and can reach 10 billion rials ($4,275), Tabnak reported.

Iran’s monthly base wage for workers is 166.25 million rials ($71) this year, meaning the highest annual tuition is equivalent to about five years of base wages.

The schools advertise landscaped grounds, educational play areas, smart classrooms, therapy sessions, dedicated servers, swimming pools, music, sports and instruction in several foreign languages, according to the report.

Some decline to disclose their fees over the telephone, telling prospective parents they must visit in person.

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  Iranian families say rising security pressure is eroding trust in schools

One parent wrote online that his daughter's 10th-grade school charged 5.6 billion rials ($2,395) in tuition and another 1.35 billion rials ($577) for transportation, bringing the annual bill to nearly 7 billion rials ($2,990) before additional expenses.

The parent said the tuition had increased by 2 billion rials ($855) in a year, while transportation costs had risen 40%.

Some schools also seek foreign passports or citizenship as a condition of admission, Tabnak reported. At one primary school examined by the outlet, a second-grade class had just four pupils, with girls and boys studying together and separated only for swimming lessons, according to the school manager. Schools in Iran generally educate girls and boys separately.

Three notebooks for the school year

Messages sent to Iran International by students and parents show a markedly different experience as families prepare for the new academic year.

An 11th-grade student said the family had not bought a new uniform, school bag, shoes or most stationery.

“I didn’t buy a new uniform that fits me, a new bag, shoes or even stationery,” the student told Iran International. “I only bought three notebooks, and even those came to nearly 4 million rials. That’s it. With things the way they are, I’m too embarrassed to ask my parents for more.”

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A father in Saqqez, Kordestan province, said his daughter would return to school with a backpack she had already used for three years.

“I couldn’t buy my daughter a school uniform this year,” the father told Iran International. “Her backpack is from three years ago. This year she bought two pens, correction fluid and one notebook.”

A 12-year-old girl in Ahvaz said her family could not afford the stationery she needed.

“I am a 12-year-old girl and we don’t have money for stationery,” she told Iran International. “Today, I went shopping and an ordinary pack of 12 colored pencils was 3.5 million rials.”

Getting into school brings another bill

The financial burden extends beyond stationery and clothing, according to other messages sent to Iran International.

One parent said his daughter had gained admission to a selective school, but registration cost more than 210 million rials, with another 300 million rials requested as an initial payment for transportation.

“Now I don’t know whether I should thank my child for studying and getting accepted or be upset because of costs I can’t afford,” the parent told Iran International.

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  Iran expands police high schools as authorities seek future recruits

A 12th-grade student said supplementary study books cost close to 20 million rials apiece.

“If I calculate all of them together, it comes to around 80 million to 100 million rials, and I really feel too embarrassed to ask my father for anything else,” the student told Iran International.

Another parent said the price of entrance-exam preparation books increased substantially between ordering and collection.

The family was initially asked to pay 90 million rials, but a month later the seller requested another 40 million rials because the books had become more expensive, taking the total to 130 million rials.

“Prices in Iran now go up by the second, and we are being crushed under high prices and inflation,” another citizen told Iran International.

Basic school costs multiply

The messages correspond with broader reports showing sharp increases in the cost of preparing a child for school.

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A basic basket of supplies for a primary-school student has reached 150 million rials in some estimates, compared with around 38.5 million rials last year, local media reported earlier this month.

Twelve notebooks that cost around 3.5 million rials last year now cost approximately 15 million rials, according to the report.

One stationery shopkeeper told Shargh daily that customers were increasingly choosing cheaper products over quality.

“People aren't paying much attention to quality this year,” the shopkeeper said.

The findings are detailed in Anthropic’s September threat report, published Thursday, which examines malicious uses of Claude disrupted between December 2025 and August 2026.

Anthropic said it identified and banned 16 Claude accounts operated by two linked units associated with Iranian paramilitary and domestic security agencies. One was a seven-department organization with offices across Iranian provinces that claimed to have surveilled and profiled 6,388 Iranians in a single year and maintained an identity-record database on Iranian nationals.

The group used Claude to help build a front end for what Anthropic assessed was likely a government-controlled surveillance case-management system and to analyze 155,216 tweets. A separate Qom-based unit used Claude as an engineering tool to develop domestic surveillance capabilities, including a malicious Firefox extension called “al-Najm al-thāqib” that was deployed to harvest user identities from major social media platforms.

Anthropic said both units fed information into a centralized system called “Arman.” Files on individuals included national ID numbers, beliefs, criminal records, social media accounts and an “action” tab. The company assessed with high confidence that the units were associated with Iranian paramilitary domestic security entities and said it found evidence they responded to taskings from senior government officials.

The tools built with Claude included a messenger de-anonymizer, a system linking phone numbers to identities, a national-ID phishing page, a Telegram mass-reporting bot and a Firefox identity harvester disguised as a prayer-times utility. One unit also ran a social-network analysis pipeline that identified 39 Iranian opposition and diaspora accounts.

Anthropic said a separate actor operating alongside one of the units used Claude’s custom-skills feature to clone the voices of three Iranian writers and prepare propaganda narratives in advance for the succession to Iran’s Supreme Leader.

MEK-linked influence operation

The report also detailed a separate influence operation Anthropic linked to the exiled opposition group People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran, or MEK, and the National Council of Resistance of Iran, which is the group’s political front.

The network impersonated a real activist by cloning his personal Telegram account and directing Claude to read about 8,400 of his posts to reproduce his writing style. The AI-assisted account was then used to hold live political conversations with his contacts, who Anthropic said appeared unaware they were communicating with an AI-assisted impersonator.

Anthropic said at least four people running the campaign worked for official NCRI media outlets. The operation scraped more than 500 social media channels to build profiles of people inside Iran, grouping them by city, age, occupation, political alignment and arrest history. It also analyzed about 51,944 archived messages to create psychographic dossiers on dozens of individuals.

The network used AI-generated avatars with Persian audio to promote NCRI President Maryam Rajavi’s ten-point plan, presenting them as ordinary Iranians without disclosing that they were synthetic. Automated Instagram networks coordinated posts for different audiences, while early content deliberately avoided mentioning the Mojahedin so the material appeared to come from independent sources.

Anthropic said the campaign also targeted monarchist groups and the Pahlavi camp, including through a fabricated video attacking a member of the Pahlavi family and “Neither Shah Nor Sheikh” messaging intended to strengthen the MEK’s position within the Iranian opposition.

The company said the operation used a shared Claude-based agent platform called “Viktor,” with common doctrine, approved sources and instructions for avoiding detection. It banned the accounts involved, but said it could not independently determine how much genuine engagement the network attracted.

Anthropic’s report also detailed other Iran-linked uses of Claude, including state-aligned propaganda campaigns, efforts to track US naval forces, surveillance tools targeting Iranians and intelligence gathering on people in Israel and the Jewish diaspora.

The company said it banned accounts tied to the operations and shared some of its findings with government and industry partners.

Southern Iraqi exports are now about 33% below pre-war levels, the vessel-tracking service said, a dramatic improvement from April, when they were down 95%.

The recovery comes despite severe disruption to the Strait of Hormuz and a US naval blockade that has reshaped oil flows from the region.

TankerTrackers said not a single barrel of Iranian crude had crossed the blockade line between the Gulf of Oman and Arabian Sea over the past 60 days.

Iran's loss of export capacity does not appear to be creating the storage crunch that might normally follow such a collapse in overseas sales. TankerTrackers estimates Iranian production has fallen to roughly the level required for domestic consumption and refining, leaving little excess crude to store.

Oil finds new routes

Other data suggest producers and traders are adapting to the disruption.

Ship-to-ship transfers of crude in the Gulf of Oman averaged 7.15 million barrels per day over the past 14 days, TankerTrackers said, up 56% from the previous month.

The service also said some Arab producers have begun using tankers previously involved in sanctions-busting trades to move their oil.

“They can spoof their positions thanks to the military-grade transponders that still operate onboard them,” it posted on X. “It also means that they are pinging on the other side of the planet.”

The adaptations come as oil prices remain elevated after another week of attacks and threats to key Middle Eastern export routes.

Brent crude settled at $104.61 a barrel on Friday despite falling 2.8% on the day, gaining more than 8% over the week. US West Texas Intermediate remained above $100.

The Strait of Hormuz remains severely disrupted after months of fighting and the US blockade, while Iran-backed Houthis have advanced around the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, putting further pressure on shipping between the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden.

Saudi Arabia has meanwhile shut its East-West pipeline as a precaution after a drone attack. The route, which carries Saudi crude west to the Red Sea and bypasses Hormuz, had recently been moving about 4 million to 5 million barrels per day.

Saudi and Iraqi authorities said the drones were launched from Iraqi territory.

Attention now turns to Oman, where Iran and regional states are expected to meet on Monday to discuss Hormuz and regional security.

Iran and Oman have held consultations over arrangements for safe shipping through the strait, although Tehran says their understanding would establish a framework for any eventual reopening rather than reopen Hormuz immediately.

The findings are contained in a new joint report by Human Rights Watch and the Abdorrahman Boroumand Center for Human Rights in Iran examining executions following the nationwide protests that erupted in late 2025 and January 2026.

Between March 18 and the end of August, Iranian authorities announced the executions of 29 people arrested in connection with the protests. Several were just 18 or 19 years old, and five were executed in public.

In 16 cases, authorities did not allege that the defendants had killed anyone. Instead, young protesters have been executed over allegations including setting fire to buildings or vehicles, possessing or using Molotov cocktails, entering or damaging government buildings, throwing stones and blocking streets.

The organizations say the speed with which some defendants have gone from arrest to execution has been extraordinary.

Saleh Mohammadi, a 19-year-old wrestling champion, was executed about five weeks after his arrest. Amir Hossein Hatami, 18, was executed 84 days after his arrest.

Sasan Azadvar Jonaqani, a 21-year-old karate champion, was arrested, convicted and executed in under four months. Authorities accused him of acts including breaking the windows of a police bus with stones and a baton.

‘War against God’

The executions mark a new phase in the crackdown that followed the January protests, when Iranian authorities killed thousands and detained tens of thousands as they sought to suppress the unrest.

Human Rights Watch and the Boroumand Center found that at least 59 men were executed during the same period on what they described as politically motivated and vaguely defined national security charges following grossly unfair trials.

At least three had reportedly been arrested in connection with the 2022 Woman, Life, Freedom protests.

Iranian courts have relied heavily on broadly defined capital offenses including “waging war against God” and “corruption on earth.”

Human Rights Watch and the Boroumand Center said those charges have allowed courts to impose death sentences without establishing that defendants were responsible for intentional killings.

‘Helping hostile states’

The report also points to Iran's 2025 Espionage Law as an increasingly important tool in protest-related prosecutions.

At least eight protesters executed following the recent demonstrations were convicted under the law, which expanded the range of conduct punishable as cooperation with “hostile states” and provides for expedited proceedings.

It can also impose lengthy prison terms for sending footage, images or information to foreign media, citizen journalists or foreign social media pages when authorities deem the activity contrary to national security.

‘Torture, forced confessions’

Human Rights Watch and the Boroumand Center documented defendants being denied independent lawyers of their choosing and courts relying on confessions allegedly extracted through torture, as well as unsubstantiated reports from security and intelligence agencies.

Detainees were allegedly beaten, subjected to electric shocks and mock executions, held for prolonged periods in solitary confinement and threatened with sexual violence against themselves or family members.

Some defendants later retracted their confessions in court and said they had been tortured. The report says authorities failed to investigate those allegations.

The organizations also documented the use of televised confessions before cases had concluded.

In one recording broadcast by state media, an interrogator told 18-year-old Shervin Bagherian that he was accused of “waging war against God.”

Bagherian appeared not to know what the charge meant. When the interrogator told him it meant execution, the teenager pleaded not to be put to death.

Public hangings

The report places particular emphasis on the return of public executions in protest-related cases, which the organizations say is intended to instill fear in the wider population.

On July 28, authorities executed Abolfazl Sepahi and Amir Hossein Safari in Alikhani Square in Isfahan, where four members of the security forces were reported killed during protests on January 8.

Three other men — Saleh Mohammadi, Saeed Davoudi and Mehdi Ghasemi — were executed in March “in the presence of a group of people in Qom,” according to the judiciary's Mizan news agency, language the report says indicated a public execution.

Scores could be next

Scores of protesters and political dissidents, including women and children, remain at risk of execution, according to the report.

Amnesty International said in July that it had identified 60 people, including three children, at risk of execution in connection with protests. Iran Human Rights has reported that more than 70 protesters were at risk in Isfahan Prison alone.

The actual number could be substantially higher.

Among those who could still be executed is 26-year-old mixed martial arts fighter and kickboxer Benyamin Naghdi.

A revolutionary court in Shiraz sentenced Naghdi to death for “corruption on earth” after accusing him of using a fire extinguisher as a makeshift flamethrower against security forces riding motorcycles during protests on January 3.

His lawyer, Mostafa Nili, said prosecutors initially accused Naghdi of attempted murder but later dropped charges related to bodily injury. Nili said no one was injured.

Nevertheless, the court concluded that the remaining allegations collectively amounted to “corruption on earth,” and Iran's Supreme Court upheld Naghdi's death sentence in July, according to the report.

Lawyers taking protest-related cases have also faced threats of arrest, while the Boroumand Center documented the arrests of at least 19 lawyers in the month following the January crackdown. Others have faced renewed prosecution or disbarment.

Human Rights Watch and the Boroumand Center describe the campaign as the “weaponization of the death penalty” in the aftermath of the January crackdown, intended to instill fear and deter further dissent.

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.