Hormuz commodity traffic falls to four vessels, below recent average

Trump told Axios he was approaching a major decision on whether to resume broad attacks on Iran, after saying a day earlier that he hoped the war was nearing its end.

“I have a big decision coming up. Do I want to go in and annihilate them [the Iranian regime] or do I not? It's a big decision. Anything could happen with me,” Trump said in an interview published Thursday.

He is expected to meet leaders from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait and Oman on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly next week before deciding on the next phase of the war. Axios reported that Trump wants to hear from regional allies before making his decision.

The consultations come as Washington’s partners and rivals push in different directions over whether the war should be contained or intensified.

China intensifies diplomatic push

China expanded its diplomatic engagement over the conflict Thursday, when Foreign Minister Wang Yi spoke with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, one day after holding talks with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi in Beijing.

China’s Foreign Ministry said Wang and Rubio discussed preparations for the next stage of high-level exchanges between the two countries and exchanged views on the Middle East.

During Wednesday’s talks with Araghchi, Wang urged Iran and the United States to exercise restraint and resume substantive consultations, while also calling for the Strait of Hormuz to reopen.

Beijing’s diplomacy comes as the conflict threatens shipping routes at both ends of the Arabian Peninsula, increasing the risk of wider disruption to regional energy flows.

China has also privately asked Iran to use its influence to rein in Yemen’s Houthis after Saudi Arabia appealed to China for help, Reuters reported Thursday, citing three Iranian sources familiar with the matter.

The sources said Saudi Arabia sought Beijing’s intervention as Houthi advances around Bab el-Mandeb increased risks to oil exports and commercial shipping. China asked Tehran to help prevent the fighting from spreading further across energy routes important to Beijing.

The intensified diplomacy has not narrowed broader differences between Beijing and Washington over Iran.

Russia and China on Thursday vetoed a US-drafted Security Council resolution extending the mandate of the UN panel monitoring sanctions on Tehran, underscoring the continuing divide over the international sanctions framework.

Israel signals campaign is not over

While China pressed for restraint, Israel signaled that it was not ready for the military campaign to end.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel still had work to complete against Iran and its regional allies and said Israel intended to bring down Iran’s regime.

“We have done most of the work, but there is still work to complete, and we will complete it,” Netanyahu said in remarks published Thursday by his official account.

Defense Minister Israel Katz separately said Israel still had “important goals” to achieve against Iran and in other arenas, adding that the broader military campaign was not over.

“We will act with military force and political wisdom to achieve them,” Katz said.

Shipping pressure persists from Hormuz to Aden

The stakes surrounding Trump’s decision were also visible at sea, where commercial traffic remained severely depressed and new security incidents were reported along key regional shipping routes.

Only three commodity vessels transited the Strait of Hormuz Wednesday, down from 12 a day earlier and well below the 10-day average of about 17, Reuters reported Thursday, citing preliminary ship-tracking data.

The figures exclude vessels that may have crossed with their Automatic Identification System transponders switched off.

Fresh maritime security reports added to concerns over the region’s main shipping routes.

UK Maritime Trade Operations said it received a report of a security event in the Strait of Hormuz about 16 nautical miles northeast of Khasab, Oman. The crew was reported safe and no environmental impact had been confirmed while authorities investigated.

Farther west, a westbound tanker in the Gulf of Aden reported being pursued by a skiff that attempted to intercept it about 75 nautical miles east of Aden, according to UKMTO.

Trump has not said when he will decide whether to resume large-scale strikes. His meeting with six Persian Gulf leaders next Tuesday will bring him face to face with governments exposed to the economic and security costs of a wider conflict, as Washington weighs whether to intensify the campaign or pursue another diplomatic opening.

The offer is detailed in a Financial Crimes Enforcement Network bulletin seen by Iran International. FinCEN said it is seeking tips from both US and non-US whistleblowers about individuals or entities suspected of violating American sanctions or the Bank Secrecy Act, including Iranian proxies and facilitators operating outside Iran.

Information that results in a successful Treasury or Justice Department action collecting more than $1 million in penalties can qualify for an award of 10% to 30% of the amount collected, Treasury said. It added that awards may, at its discretion, even go to people working directly or indirectly for the Iranian government or state-owned enterprises.

FinCEN’s whistleblower program predates Operation Economic Outcast, but the latest bulletin specifically solicits information on Iran-related illicit finance. Earlier this year, FinCEN issued a separate whistleblower bulletin on fraud-related anti-money laundering and sanctions violations and proposed rules for administering whistleblower awards.

The Iran bulletin identifies activity involving the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, Iraq and China among potential indicators of sanctions evasion. It also points to suspicious shipping documentation, exchange houses, front companies and digital-asset transactions as areas where people with direct knowledge could provide information.

The initiative comes under Operation Economic Outcast, launched by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on August 24. The campaign expanded the scope of secondary sanctions and warned foreign companies and financial institutions that facilitating Iranian sanctions evasion or money laundering could jeopardize their access to the US financial system. Treasury says it is targeting financial channels used by Tehran for oil sales, payments, procurement and other revenue.

Bessent highlighted the whistleblower push in a post on X on Monday, saying people anywhere in the world with actionable information could qualify for an award “no matter where you live or who signs your paycheck.”

“If you see something, say something,” he added.

Increased risks for foreign firms

The whistleblower appeal follows a series of actions against foreign financial channels that Washington says have helped Iran move money internationally.

Treasury sanctioned Turkey’s Golden Global Bank and two subsidiaries on September 4, alleging that the Istanbul-based lender facilitated tens of millions of dollars in transactions for the Revolutionary Guards’ Quds Force and helped move Iranian oil proceeds from China into Turkey. Golden Global denied the allegations and said it complied with applicable banking regulations.

In the UAE, Washington has used a different mechanism. FinCEN proposed on August 28 to bar the UAE operations of Egypt’s Banque Misr from US correspondent banking after identifying them as a “primary money laundering concern.” FinCEN said the branches had processed about $1.8 billion between January 2024 and June 2026 for 103 companies potentially connected to Iranian shadow-banking networks. The proposed measure applies only to Banque Misr’s UAE operations and has not yet become a final rule.

An Iran International investigation earlier this month found that Iran’s shadow banking network extended substantially beyond the institutions targeted by Washington. Leaked Bank Parsian correspondence and transaction records showed one sanctioned Iranian bank directing funds through 15 banks in China and the UAE and 33 beneficiary companies over a seven-month period.

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  US crackdown leaves much of Iran’s shadow banking untouched

Thirteen of those 15 foreign banks had faced no publicly recorded US enforcement action over their role at the time of the investigation. Iran International found no evidence that the UAE and Chinese banks knowingly facilitated Iran’s efforts to circumvent US sanctions.

Bessent has repeatedly reinforced Treasury’s warnings to foreign institutions. After Golden Global was sanctioned, he wrote on X that financial institutions were “finding out the hard way” that Washington was serious about Economic Outcast, adding: “We know who you are, we know where you are.” Days later, he told Real America’s Voice that Washington would continue the campaign “until everyone stops dealing with this regime,” warning of potentially severe financial consequences for those that continued.

Bessent told lawmakers this week that Washington had held “very good private discussions” with China over Iran’s financial links and pointed to public signals from the UAE about restricting Tehran’s access to financing. He is due to meet Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng this weekend ahead of talks between Presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jinping.

The FinCEN bulletin adds a financial incentive for insiders to provide evidence that could underpin future cases, potentially giving US authorities information from within the same banking, trading and intermediary networks they are seeking to target.

Vantor Technologies imagery from September 13 shows extensive construction at Taleghan 2 in southeastern Tehran, with Iran erecting a large tarp over the destroyed underground structure that obscures work beneath it from satellites and aerial reconnaissance, the Institute for Science and International Security said in a report published Thursday.

The imagery shows dump trucks, bulldozers, concrete pump trucks, mixers and cranes operating across the site, according to the institute. Iran has also added concrete reinforcement on one side of the facility, while a similar structure identified in July appears to have been completed on the other side, measures the institute said would provide additional blast protection against aerial attack.

Repair work began in June, initially focused on sealing three penetration holes left by bunker-buster weapons used in an attack three months earlier. High-resolution imagery reviewed by the institute in June and July showed the holes being excavated, covered with reinforcing steel and prepared for permanent concrete caps.

The reconstruction marks Iran's second effort to rebuild Taleghan 2 in less than two years.

The original facility was destroyed in an Israeli strike in October 2024. Iran began rebuilding it in May 2025, eventually constructing a reinforced structure encased in concrete and covered with earth. By early 2026, the site had effectively become a hardened bunker, with additional defensive features including concrete barriers and protection against drones.

In November, satellite images of the reconstruction showed a large cylindrical object inside the facility resembling a high-explosive containment chamber. The institute estimated it at about 36 meters long and at least 12 meters wide and said such a chamber could be used for explosive experiments relevant to nuclear weapons development, though imagery alone could not establish its purpose.

The rebuilt facility was struck again in early March 2026. Satellite images afterward showed three large penetration holes over the portion of the buried structure where the suspected cylindrical chamber had been installed. The Institute for Science and International Security assessed that the internal structure and probable chamber were likely destroyed.

The institute said the pace of the latest reconstruction raises questions about why Tehran has repeatedly restored a facility with a history tied to work relevant to nuclear weapons.

Ties to past nuclear weapons research

Taleghan 2's significance predates the recent attacks. The institute says the facility was used during Iran's AMAD Plan, a program that Western governments and nuclear experts have linked to work on a nuclear explosive device in the early 2000s.

According to the institute's reconstruction of material from Iran's nuclear archive, Taleghan 2 once housed a specially designed high-explosive chamber and flash X-ray equipment used to study explosive compression.

It says a scaled-down test of a multipoint initiation system — technology relevant to triggering an implosion-type nuclear weapon — was conducted there in 2003. The institute says the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) never inspected the Taleghan 2 building itself.

The IAEA's own 2015 assessment found that before the end of 2003 Iran had an organizational structure capable of coordinating a range of activities relevant to developing a nuclear explosive device.

Information available to the agency indicated that those activities became concentrated in the early 2000s under projects known as the AMAD Plan and were halted in late 2003.

The IAEA found that some related activities continued afterward but were not part of a coordinated effort. Iran denied both that it had a coordinated nuclear weapons program and that the AMAD Plan existed as such.

The agency revisited Iran's past nuclear work in a comprehensive safeguards assessment last year. It concluded that Lavizan-Shian, Varamin and Marivan, along with potentially related locations, had been part of an undeclared structured nuclear program until the early 2000s and that some activities involved undeclared nuclear material.

At the same time, the IAEA said it had no credible indications of an ongoing undeclared structured program of that kind. Tehran rejected the findings and maintained that it had declared all nuclear material required under its Safeguards obligations.

IAEA not able to monitor Iran’s nuclear program

The renewed work at Taleghan 2 comes as the IAEA says its ability to monitor Iran's current nuclear program has deteriorated sharply.

IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi said this week that the agency had conducted almost no in-field verification in Iran for more than six months, apart from an inspection of the Bushehr nuclear power plant in June.

The agency has also been unable for more than a year to maintain continuity of knowledge over previously declared stocks of enriched uranium at facilities affected by military strikes.

Before losing access, the IAEA estimated that Iran possessed 440.9 kilograms of uranium enriched to as much as 60% purity. The agency has been unable to verify how much remains or its current location and has also said it still cannot establish the status of Iran's fourth declared enrichment facility at Isfahan.

Grossi called the lack of information and access a “serious proliferation concern” requiring urgent action.

Last week, the IAEA Board of Governors also reported Iran to the UN Security Council over safeguards non-compliance, after the agency said Tehran had failed to provide inspectors with information and access necessary to account for nuclear material. Iran called the move politically motivated and has argued that US and Israeli attacks on its facilities have made normal inspections impossible.

The Institute for Science and International Security said the purpose of the new Taleghan 2 facility still cannot be established from satellite imagery alone. But after two attacks and two reconstruction campaigns, it said Iran's continued investment in the site demonstrates its determination to restore the facility despite its sensitive history.

Instead, the latest speculation fits a pattern that has followed Pezeshkian since taking office in 2024: recurring calls for resignation or impeachment that intensify during periods of political, economic or geopolitical pressure.

The latest round was partly triggered by cryptic comments from Qom MP Mojtaba Zarei referring to a possible “coup” or coordinated political move against Pezeshkian.

Rouydad24 examined whether hardline networks, particularly Sharyan—the Persian acronym for the Strategic Network of Islamic Revolution Supporters—and allies of Saeed Jalili, Pezeshkian’s rival in the 2024 presidential election, were seeking early presidential elections.

The outlet presented no formal evidence of such a plan but pointed to repeated calls by radical lawmakers to invoke Article 89 of the Constitution, under which parliament can declare a president politically incompetent.

Mohsen Gharavian, a seminary and university lecturer, described the campaign to portray Pezeshkian as politically incompetent as a “targeted political conspiracy” and a soft “coup.”

Writing for Khabar Online, he argued that ultra-conservatives angered by their 2024 electoral defeat were using political networks and sustained media pressure to weaken the government.

In a separate Khabar Online report, moderate politician Hassan Rasouli criticised proposals to impeach Pezeshkian or transfer executive authority to First Vice President Mohammad Reza Aref.

Rasouli said such moves, particularly amid heightened national security pressures, amounted to “a direct attack on high-level governance cohesion.” He dismissed comparisons with the 1981 removal of Iran’s first president, Abolhassan Banisadr, as political theatre rather than a serious legal pathway.

Threats to use parliament against sitting presidents have a long history in the Islamic Republic.

During Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani’s second term from 1993 to 1997, conservative opponents mounted sustained pressure on his government, including the impeachment of cabinet ministers.

Hassan Rouhani also faced repeated impeachment threats during his presidency, particularly from opponents of his diplomatic engagement with Washington.

The only successful precedent remains Banisadr in 1981. Parliament declared him politically incompetent during the Iran-Iraq war, after which Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini formally dismissed him.

Banisadr’s removal has since become a recurring reference point in disputes over presidential authority. Hardline lawmakers have invoked his case in attacks on Pezeshkian, particularly over diplomacy, economic policy and the conduct of the war.

But invoking Article 89 and successfully removing a president are different things. There is currently no indication that Pezeshkian’s opponents have assembled the parliamentary support required to declare him politically incompetent.

Opposition to Pezeshkian has nevertheless persisted since he took office following Ebrahim Raisi’s death in 2024. Calls for his resignation, comparisons with Banisadr and threats to invoke Article 89 have resurfaced during periods of economic turmoil, currency volatility and war.

The repeated threat of impeachment can serve a political purpose even without enough votes to remove the president: keeping his competence under question and constraining his room for manoeuvre on economic and diplomatic policy.

This week’s talk of a “coup” and renewed debate over presidential competence therefore appears less a new escalation than the latest iteration of a political struggle that has accompanied Pezeshkian for much of his presidency.

Four years have passed since Zhina Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman who had travelled to Tehran to visit family, died after being detained by the morality police.

She could never have imagined how her name would appear on walls, streets and university campuses, or on the lips of millions of Iranians, or how three simple words, “Woman, Life, Freedom,” would become one of the most enduring slogans in Iran’s modern history.

The story of 2022 is not only the story of a slogan. It is the story of the price thousands paid to break through the wall of fear.

Zhina’s death on September 16, 2022, sparked protests across Iran. Human rights organizations documented live ammunition and pellet fire, mass arrests, torture, sexual violence and the killing of protesters. HRANA later recorded protests in all 31 provinces, 160 cities and 143 universities, and reported at least 530 people killed, including 68 children and teenagers.

Nika Shakarami and Sarina Esmailzadeh were both sixteen. Kian Pirfalak was nine, remembered for “In the name of the God of the rainbow” and the small boat he built with his own hands. Khodanour Lojei, a 27-year-old Baluch man, lives on in videos of him dancing, alongside the haunting image of him with his hands tied to a pole and water placed before him while in detention.

Their stories were different, but each became part of the collective memory of Woman, Life, Freedom.

Then came the gallows. Mohammad Mehdi Karami, a 22-year-old karate champion, was executed after being sentenced in connection with the fortieth-day commemoration for Hadis Najafi. Seyed Mohammad Hosseini, who worked at a poultry farm and taught martial arts to disadvantaged children for free, was executed the same day; human rights reports say his confessions were obtained under torture. Majidreza Rahnavard, executed only 23 days after his arrest, asked before his death that people not cry at his grave but celebrate and play happy music.

These names are reminders that behind every statistic was a family.

The repression did not end with the street protests. Students, schoolchildren, journalists, artists, athletes and activists were arrested. Families sometimes went weeks or months without news. Some detainees appeared in televised “confessions” that human rights organizations said were tainted by torture. Families seeking the truth about those killed also faced pressure. Others eventually left Iran after imprisonment, threats and persecution, carrying the cost of the uprising into exile, lost careers, interrupted education and separation from family.

And yet one of the movement’s deepest legacies is visible in an ordinary scene: a woman walking down an Iranian street without compulsory hijab.

The state responded with fines, vehicle seizures, arrests, flogging, business closures, cameras and surveillance. But women’s defiance continued. Four years after Zhina’s death, a woman without compulsory hijab is no longer the exceptional image it was in September 2022; it has become part of Iran’s social reality.

That is also where the connection to Dey 1404 (December 2025 and January 2026) becomes important.

The new protests began amid the collapse of the currency, inflation and protests by Tehran bazaar merchants, but quickly moved beyond economic demands. According to HRANA data cited in a UK government report, by January 27 at least 656 gatherings had been recorded in 201 cities across all 31 provinces, compared with 160 cities during the 1401 protests.

There are no reliable data to compare total participation, but the later uprising was documented across more cities and had a far higher reported toll. By March 2026, HRANA had recorded information on more than 7,000 people killed and more than 53,000 arrested in connection with the Dey and Bahman protests, far above the Iranian government’s figures.

HRANA described the confirmed cases as the minimum it could verify, with thousands more still awaiting review. Internet shutdowns, pressure on families and the lack of independent access inside Iran made the full scale harder to establish.

But the difference was not only scale. The society that entered January 2026 was not the same society that had existed before September 2022.

Iranians had lived through a national experience of disobedience, broken taboos, solidarity, bullets, prison, executions, migration and grief.

Abolfazl Hajizadegan’s research on “The Lives of Dey,” based on the social-media traces of 957 of those killed, found people from widely different professions and backgrounds, from baristas, repair workers and sports coaches to lawyers, professors, filmmakers and musicians.

The uprising also entered families in ways that made the breadth of the upheaval painfully visible.

Mehdi Shafiei, 44, and his 18-year-old son Mani were killed in Eslamshahr less than two hours apart. In Bushehr, 37-year-old nurse Mansoureh Heydari and her husband, Behrouz Mansouri, were both killed, leaving behind two children. Elsewhere, fathers and daughters were arrested together.

This does not mean that the 1401 and 1404 uprisings were identical, or that all protesters shared one ideology, leader or vision of Iran’s future. Their immediate triggers were different. But something had changed in society’s relationship with fear.

Repression continued, but the memory of disobedience could not simply be erased. Hajizadegan’s research suggests that those who came into the streets in 1404 did not acquire their anger overnight. Their earlier posts showed dissatisfaction and protest stretching back through previous protest waves, including the November 2019 protests and the 2022 uprising.

Dey 1404 was therefore not simply the explosion of an economic crisis. It was part of a longer accumulation of experience. Perhaps this is one of the most important legacies Woman, Life, Freedom left behind: not a single organization or leadership, but a social experience of the possibility of saying “no.”

The government’s response in Dey 1404 was severe. From January 8, the internet was almost completely shut down. Amnesty International reported widespread killings, mass arrests, enforced disappearances, torture and systematic pressure on victims’ families.

Yet behind every new number was another life: Hamid Mahdavi, Mohammad Jabbari, Mehdi and Mani, Mansoureh and Behrouz, just as Nika, Sarina, Kian and Khodanour had been lives, not statistics, four years earlier.

From September 2022 to January 2026, the names and faces changed and the sparks were different, but each chapter left something for the next: memory, wounds, language, courage and sometimes hope.

Zhina is not only the name of a young woman, and Woman, Life, Freedom is not merely the name of a few months of protest. It became part of the social and political language of a generation that paid an extraordinarily heavy price and emerged with a different understanding of choice, dignity and the possibility of standing firm.

Zhina and thousands of others killed in Iran’s protest movements are no longer with us. But something of them remains: in the hair of a woman who chooses not to cover it; in a mother who refuses to let her child’s name be erased; in a father who rejects the official account of his son’s death; in a family that dances at a loved one’s grave despite threats; and in a generation that has not abandoned its questions about freedom, dignity and the future.

Repression can empty the streets for a time, but it cannot erase what a generation has lived through.