Iran students go without as elite schools charge billions

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.

“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.

"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.

The clashes began around a residential property in the Bakhshan area before dawn and were still continuing nearly eight hours later, extending to the vicinity of the Madani Grand Mosque and parts of Jahadabad, according to the group’s updates.

Local sources cited by Haalvsh said gunmen attacked at least three vehicles carrying military and security personnel, as well as two locations where forces had gathered. The reported casualty figures have not been independently confirmed.

Sources described sustained gunfire, repeated explosions and the use of heavy weapons, with fighting resuming after brief pauses. Haalvsh said it had not independently established the precise locations of all the exchanges.

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  Iran's forces beat Baluch women protesting over mines and local resources

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  Armed group claims deadly attack on Guards members in southeast Iran

Several ambulances were reportedly stationed nearby. Local sources said wounded personnel and bodies had been removed by other security forces, with some transported by ambulance to medical facilities. The identities and exact number of those killed or wounded remained unknown.

Roads blocked around residential area

Security forces blocked streets and access routes around the Madani Grand Mosque, roughly 200 meters from the house targeted in the initial operation, local sources said. A substantial deployment remained in the area, restricting movement around the fighting.

Gunmen inside the house exchanged fire with security personnel, some of whom were wearing traditional Baluch clothing, according to the sources. The property was described as belonging to a local resident, but the reports did not establish his connection, if any, to the gunmen.

Haalvsh reported civilians close to some of the clashes. Their situation remained unclear as fighting continued and roads were blocked, with no confirmed information on civilian casualties.

The gunmen’s identities and affiliations, the reason for the initial operation and any casualties among the armed group were also unknown. Military and security authorities had not issued an official account by the time of its latest update.

Saravan is in Sistan and Baluchestan, a southeastern province bordering Pakistan and Afghanistan and home to Iran’s mainly Sunni Muslim Baluch minority. The province has a long history of armed insurgency, although the reports provided no established link between Saturday’s gunmen and any known group.