Iran army says Qatar has provided no new information on its three pilots
Iran’s army said on Tuesday that Qatar has not provided new information about its three missing pilots and urged Doha to take greater responsibility in clarifying their fate.
Army spokesman Mohammad Akraminia said Iran was following up on the pilots’ situation and acknowledged cooperation from Qatar’s government and military. But, he said, “our expectation is that there will be greater cooperation and that Qatar will assume greater responsibility.”
Akraminia said Qatari officials had repeatedly told Iran they had no information about the pilots’ whereabouts.
A large portrait of Iran’s Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei hangs above a street in Iran.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei has portrayed the country as stronger after successive wars and pressures and among the world’s foremost powers, a vision that key economic and military indicators and recent regional events put to the test.
Khamenei described Iran as enjoying “progress, dignity and independence” and its highest standing in the Muslim world and beyond in a written message marking the anniversary of the Iran-Iraq War on Monday.
“Today, some consider us the world’s fourth superpower,” Khamenei wrote. He went further, saying that according to “divine calculations,” Iran is the “world’s top power.”
The depiction comes more than six months after Khamenei became supreme leader without making a public appearance.
No new photograph, video or audio recording of Khamenei has been released since his elevation to the post. Islamic Republic officials have said he remains in charge and has stayed out of public view for security reasons.
His absence extended to the days-long funeral and burial ceremonies for his father and predecessor, Ali Khamenei.
That absence creates a contrast at the heart of a message centered on national strength and retreating adversaries. Khamenei invokes “millions” of Iranians taking to the streets and a country growing in power while remaining unseen by the public himself.
The ‘fourth superpower’ by what measure?
Khamenei does not identify those who regard Iran as the world’s fourth superpower or explain what measure produces that ranking.
Military spending offers one measurable comparison.
Iran spent an estimated $7.4 billion on its military in 2025, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. The United States spent about $954 billion, China $336 billion and Russia $190 billion.
SIPRI says Iran also finances some military activities outside its regular budget, meaning actual expenditure could be higher. Even allowing for that, the available figures leave a wide gap between Iran and the world’s largest military spenders.
Economic measures offer another comparison. The International Monetary Fund estimates Iran will account for around 0.8% of the global economy on a purchasing-power-parity basis in 2026.
A large portrait of Mojtaba Khamenei is displayed alongside Iranian flags at a public venue.
Khamenei moves his larger assertion outside such measurable criteria by invoking “divine calculations” to describe Iran as the world’s top power.
Military expenditure, economic output, trade, industrial capacity and the outcome of military operations can be measured. “Divine calculations” provide no equivalent benchmark for determining what outcome would confirm or contradict the assertion.
‘Progress’ meets inflation and contraction
Khamenei portrays pre-revolutionary Iran as an era of “backwardness, humiliation and disgrace,” contrasting it with a present filled with “progress, dignity and independence.”
Measured through economic conditions and everyday living standards, however, progress presents a more complicated picture.
The IMF projects average inflation of 68.9% in Iran in 2026 and a 5.4% contraction in the economy.
The World Bank has also pointed to pressure from war and sanctions, water and energy shortages, weak investment and rising poverty.
Those indicators raise a basic question about Khamenei’s broad description of progress: what is being measured, and for which part of Iranian society?
The enemy that supposedly stops at the Arabian Sea
One of the most readily testable parts of Khamenei’s message concerns foreign military activity in waters around Iran.
Waters south of the country were once a domain for enemy forces, Khamenei wrote, but “painful blows” by Iranian forces and the “defenders of the Strait of Hormuz” mean those adversaries now advance no further than the Arabian Sea.
Military activity in recent months presents a more complicated geographical picture.
US officials told Axios in August that the American military had established a shipping route through the Strait of Hormuz, with around 15 to 20 tankers entering or leaving each night. The operation allowed roughly 10 million barrels of oil to move through the waterway each day, according to the officials.
The US military presence in waters around Iran continued in September.
The Revolutionary Guards fired ballistic missiles toward a US aircraft carrier and destroyer in early September, according to US military accounts. American forces also struck Iranian oil tankers near Kharg Island and in the Gulf of Oman.
US Central Command said on September 8 that an American warship continued patrolling regional waters after being targeted twice by Iranian missiles over two days. US forces struck five Iranian tankers during the same operation in the Gulf of Oman and near Kharg Island.
The maritime pressure has also become part of negotiations between the two countries. Iran would be prepared to reopen the Strait of Hormuz if Washington reduced military pressure and lifted its blockade of Iranian ports, a senior Iranian official told Reuters on September 22.
A woman holds a portrait of Mojtaba Khamenei, with his father Ali Khamenei pictured in the background.
US operations in the Strait of Hormuz, Gulf of Oman and waters close to Iran therefore do not fit an absolute geographical reading of Khamenei’s assertion that adversaries no longer advance beyond the Arabian Sea.
‘Millions of supporters’ and the Iranians left out
Khamenei also presents pro-establishment mobilization over the past seven months as evidence of domestic strength and cohesion.
“More than 30 million Iranians have declared themselves ready for self-sacrifice,” he wrote, adding that more than 500,000 people filled the available capacity of one registration drive in just 100 minutes.
Even if those figures are accepted, mobilizing millions of people does not by itself measure support across Iranian society.
Iran during the same period witnessed nationwide protests that began over economic grievances in late December 2025, spread rapidly across the country and developed into direct protests against the political establishment. The demonstrations subsided after a sweeping crackdown.
The government put the death toll at 3,117. Iran International’s Editorial Board estimated that more than 36,500 people were killed, based on classified security documents, field reports and information from medical workers, with most deaths occurring on January 8 and 9.
In Khamenei’s account, government supporters filling streets provide evidence of national unity and strength. Opponents occupying those same public spaces are not given comparable weight in assessing the state of Iranian society.
Khamenei’s own absence again becomes relevant. He invokes millions of Iranians gathering in streets and squares, but more than six months after becoming supreme leader has yet to appear among them or release a public video or audio message.
‘Victory’ and Hezbollah’s losses
Khamenei applies a similar conception of power to Iran’s regional allies.
He describes “victory and triumph” as the constant companions of late Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and presents his successor, Naim Qassem, as continuing the same path.
Hezbollah’s present position complicates a narrative of uninterrupted victory.
Nasrallah was killed and Hezbollah lost a significant number of senior commanders. Israel’s operation against the group’s communications network also exposed the extent of Israeli intelligence penetration into its structures.
Inside Lebanon, Hezbollah’s weapons have become central to one of the country’s major political disputes. The Lebanese government has pursued a process aimed at bringing the group’s weapons under state control, which Hezbollah opposes.
The death of a leader and senior commanders, combined with political pressure to transfer control of a group’s weapons to the state, sits uneasily alongside a historical description centered on permanent “victory and triumph.”
A definition of power with little room for defeat
The central issue in Khamenei’s message may be less any single assertion than the way power itself is defined.
In his account, the Islamic Republic emerged stronger from the eight-year Iran-Iraq War. Subsequent pressure, he said, made it stronger. More recent wars have made the Islamic Republic’s “phoenix” larger, while its future will be “far more glorious.”
Such a framework can absorb sharply different outcomes without altering its conclusion.
If an adversary retreats, that demonstrates strength. If fighting continues, that demonstrates resistance. Economic pressure becomes the cost of independence. If a regional ally loses leaders and commanders, the continuation of its cause takes precedence. Government supporters in the streets demonstrate popular backing, while opponents filling those streets are given no equivalent role in measuring political strength.
Within such a definition, defeat becomes increasingly difficult to identify.
National power can also be examined through observable outcomes: a country’s capacity to protect its territory and infrastructure, influence an adversary’s behavior, maintain economic stability, achieve foreign policy objectives, preserve regional influence and retain domestic support.
Measured against such indicators, Iran’s ability to impose costs on its adversaries does not by itself establish the status invoked by Khamenei when he describes the country as the “fourth superpower” or, according to “divine calculations,” the world’s top power.
That leaves the central question running through his message: if decades of war, pressure and confrontation have elevated Iran to such a position, which military, economic, social or regional measures demonstrate it?
The question takes on additional weight when this portrait of national power comes not from a leader addressing the public, but through a written message from a supreme leader who, more than six months after taking Iran’s highest office, has yet to be seen or heard by Iranians in a public appearance.
Prisoners at an Iran prison face severe overcrowding, infectious diseases and shortages of food, medicine and medical care, according to accounts obtained by Iran International.
The accounts from Dastgerd Prison in the central city of Isfahan describe crowded wards, poor sanitation and severe obstacles to treatment, with several people familiar with conditions there describing the spread of meningitis and other infections.
“Meningitis and colds are rampant in the prison, and there are no pills or medicine,” a former prisoner told Iran International.
Around 10,000 people are being held at Dastgerd, compared with a standard capacity of about 4,000 to 5,000, according to information.
Food shortages compound overcrowding
Nutrition is so poor that many prisoners have become physically weak and more vulnerable to illness.
File photo of the inside of Isfahan’s Dastgerd Prison, published by rights groups. Image enhanced using AI.
Breakfast is not distributed on some days, and lunch and dinner are rationed. Food can also be difficult to obtain from the prison shop, even as cigarettes remain consistently available and various drugs are easily accessible inside.
Some wards hold between 1,300 and 1,500 prisoners, another person familiar with conditions at Dastgerd said. The combination of overcrowding and inadequate sanitation has helped diseases spread.
Prisoners, particularly political ones, in some cases deprived of phone calls, treatment, medicine, adequate food, sanitation, correspondence and some judicial rights.
Iran International reported on July 21 that prisoners must register to visit the medical center. In rooms housing around 40 people, only two are allowed to seek medical attention each week.
Meningitis spreads as prisoner deaths mount
Several accounts received in recent months point to the spread of meningitis at Dastgerd. Iran International previously reported that the disease had reached several wards and that a number of prisoners were transferred to hospital.
Two prisoners had meningitis when one former inmate arrived at Dastgerd. One suffered a seizure in the admissions section and died, while the other died after being transferred to hospital.
The former inmate said prisoners had in previous years received meningitis and tetanus vaccines upon arrival, but the vaccinations were no longer being administered during the person's recent detention.
More than 70 prisoners have died from illnesses over roughly the past five months, according to another person familiar with conditions at the prison. At least 15 of those who had died by September 21 were from a single ward.
Prisoners suspected of having meningitis have in some cases been sent to hospitals for spinal fluid testing. Some were returned to Dastgerd before completing treatment and recovering.
File photo of the inside of Isfahan’s Dastgerd Prison, published by rights groups. Image enhanced using AI.
The prison is also infested with bedbugs and other pests, according to accounts. Recent Iran International coverage documented bedbugs, fleas and ticks alongside increasing skin conditions and infections in the wards.
Blankets and bedding are heavily contaminated, one former prisoner said, with some inmates developing serious eye infections that leave them unable to open their eyes in the morning.
The person needed nearly two months of treatment after being released on bail, including regular injections and intravenous fluids during the first two weeks.
Fever, chills, body aches and infections of the lungs, throat, eyes and ears were widespread. Some prisoners contracted several illnesses at once, leaving them severely weakened.
Medicine shortages restrict treatment
Severe medicine shortages have compounded the health problems, while political prisoners can face particular difficulties gaining access to the prison clinic.
Denial of treatment has in some cases been used to exert pressure on political prisoners, according to one former inmate.
Prison authorities told inmates that the clinic had burned down, that medicine was unavailable and that there was no budget to buy supplies.
One prisoner offered to deposit 500 million rials into a prison account to pay for medicine. The offer was accepted, but most of the supplies subsequently purchased were acetaminophen and basic cold remedies, with insufficient antibiotics available for serious infections.
Families have also tried to bring necessary medication into the prison, only for authorities in some cases to refuse delivery or confiscate part of the medicine during inspections.
Sedatives, sleeping pills and drugs, by contrast, are widely available among prisoners, according to the former inmate.
Illustration: US and Iranian flags amid renewed diplomatic contacts
The United States and Iran remained in contact through mediators Monday as efforts continued toward a possible agreement, but conflicting accounts left the terms of any deal unclear.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said a Qatari mediator held another meeting with Iran’s delegation to discuss ideas on how Tehran’s conditions could be met. He said those ideas would be raised with the US side before Qatar conveyed Washington’s response to Iran, which he hoped would happen by Tuesday.
President Donald Trump also confirmed Monday that US officials had spoken with mediators, without giving details of the discussions. Reuters reported that the separate contacts centered on an amended version of a seven-day proposal Iran presented last week.
The proposal seeks an end to hostilities, the release of frozen Iranian assets, sanctions relief and an end to the US blockade of Iranian ports. Iran would reopen the Strait of Hormuz and the two sides would resume negotiations over Tehran’s nuclear program and highly enriched uranium, according to Reuters.
But accounts of how much progress had been made diverged during the day. CNN cited an unnamed US official as describing the discussions as “positive and constructive” and saying Iran had shown flexibility on nuclear issues. An Iranian official later told state-run Press TV that Tehran’s nuclear position had not changed.
The uncertainty also extended to what Washington might offer. Axios reported, citing a US official, that Trump was willing to provide sanctions relief and release frozen Iranian funds in return for concrete nuclear concessions.
Trump later denied the report.
“Axios just released a story that ‘Trump’ offered Sanctions Relief and Frozen Funds to Iran. This is untrue. I offered them NOTHING!” he wrote on Truth Social.
Despite the dispute over the terms of a possible agreement, contacts continued through mediators.
Araghchi said exchanges of messages through Qatari and Pakistani mediators had continued throughout the process but had become more serious following Iran’s latest proposal. He said he hoped Washington’s final response would be conveyed by Tuesday.
Araghchi said he would return to Tehran rather than remain in New York awaiting the response.
“The Qataris know how to reach us whenever they have the response,” he said.
Iran International has obtained exclusive information and documents indicating that Mostafa Ahadi, a senior official in the IRGC Intelligence Organization, runs the organization’s corruption network in the sale of Iran’s oil.
Over the past two months, Iran International has published three separate reports naming the trustees — oil brokers trusted by the Islamic Republic to sell Iran’s sanctioned oil — who have failed to return billions of dollars in oil proceeds to the country.
On September 28, Judiciary Chief Gholamhossein Mohseni-Ejei criticized delays in handling cases involving trustees with outstanding debts and called for swift rulings. Iran International has obtained a confidential Supreme National Security Council document in which the council’s deputy for economic affairs confirms that oversight bodies alter the trustees’ debt figures according to their own interests, inflating some debts and understating others.
The council’s deputy has asked the Ministry of Intelligence and the IRGC Intelligence Organization to report on the missing funds. The letter makes it easier for IRGC Intelligence, the principal organization implicated in the corruption surrounding oil sales, to gain access to the case.
Trustees’ case returns to IRGC Intelligence
Two informed sources in the Oil Ministry and an oversight body told Iran International that the Supreme Audit Court and the General Inspection Organization are currently pursuing the trustees’ cases. But through the maneuvering of a senior security official and an order from the Supreme National Security Council, the case has effectively returned to the IRGC Intelligence Organization.
That senior security official, whose photograph Iran International is publishing for the first time, is Mostafa Ahadi. He is now deputy head of Unit 600 of the IRGC Intelligence Organization, having previously served as its deputy for economic affairs. Through his positions in IRGC Intelligence and the Supreme National Security Council over the past decade, Ahadi has had a firm grip on Iran’s oil sales.
Several months ago, Brigadier General Mehdi Sayyari appointed Ahadi deputy head of Unit 600. Sayyari served for years as deputy head of the IRGC Intelligence Organization and became acting head of one of the country’s most important security organizations following the killing of Majid Khademi.
In the late 2010s, when responsibility for selling oil under sanctions was assigned to the Supreme National Security Council, Ahadi joined the council as deputy for economic affairs. Without his security background becoming known to international organizations, he attended two BRICS summits, in Russia and Brazil.
His involvement in Iran’s oil trade is so extensive that he even accompanies Oil Ministry officials on visits to oil terminals on Kharg Island.
While serving on the Supreme National Security Council, Ahadi sent his former deputy, Mohammad Javad Bavand, to the council’s cover committee as a representative of IRGC Intelligence, ostensibly to oversee sanctioned oil sales. His principal responsibility, however, was to secure profits from corruption in the oil trade for the IRGC Intelligence network.
Bavand, who served as a special assistant to the oil minister for oil sales during Ebrahim Raisi’s administration, returned to the role about four months ago. According to a General Inspection Organization document first published by Iran International, he assigned the sale of a large 86-million-barrel oil consignment to four trustees with outstanding debts, including Mohammad Hadi Momenin.
Bavand’s close ties to Mohammad Hadi Momenin
Iran International has obtained exclusive information indicating that the relationship between the two extends well beyond this corruption case.
A General Inspection Organization document published by Iran International revealed that the sale of 86 million barrels of Iran’s oil had been assigned to four trustees with outstanding debts.
Six years ago, Mohammad Hadi Momenin was arrested on suspicion of disrupting the foreign exchange system. He had received hundreds of millions of dollars in preferential foreign currency to import machinery for the paper industry and had failed to return the funds. At the time, Mohammad Javad Bavand used his influence to have the case closed. Momenin, who was a shareholder in Mahan Industries and Mines Development Holding, then appointed Bavand to a management position as his representative. Gardeshgari Bank is the holding company’s principal shareholder.
On Monday, September 28, Hadi Ghavami, the parliamentary representative for Esfarayen, told a plenary session: “The trustees who took oil out of the country also stole $300 million, equivalent to 69 trillion tomans, from Gardeshgari Bank, and under these circumstances, the Central Bank has given them a credit line with a 45 percent penalty.”
In June 2020, Momenin was arrested again on allegations of financial corruption and disrupting the foreign exchange system, but his case was once more closed with Bavand’s help. An investigator’s report quoted Momenin as saying that he had used his employees to register numerous shell companies in China, Taiwan, Singapore and the United Arab Emirates. The companies existed for between three and 14 months.
Another part of the case revealed that Momenin’s holding company had received large loans from Mellat Bank, Refah Bank, Karafarin Bank, Bank of Industry and Mine, Saman Bank and Middle East Bank, yet none of the banks had filed a complaint against him.
In July, the Central Bank published a list of major bank debtors showing that Mohammad Hadi Momenin owed Karafarin Bank 743 billion tomans.
Two informed sources in the Oil Ministry and an oversight body told Iran International that Ahmad Baharvandi, who became Karafarin Bank’s chief executive five years ago, was in fact an associate of Bavand within IRGC Intelligence. Both men studied at Imam Sadiq University. Mostafa Ahadi also studied there and was a member of the university’s student Basij organization.
At Bavand’s request, Baharvandi did not pursue Momenin’s 743-billion-toman debt. In turn, Momenin took Bavand on a trip to China.
Mohammad Hadi Momenin was a member of the Ministry of Intelligence’s oil sales corruption network known as Shayan, which failed to return $2 billion in oil proceeds.
Secret IRGC meeting held to counter reporting on trustee corruption
After Bavand returned to the Oil Ministry, Momenin became his trusted trustee for oil sales despite a warning from the General Inspection Organization. Over the past month, following the publication of investigative reports, Momenin and Bavand have found themselves back in the headlines against their wishes.
Mostafa Ahadi, the godfather of the IRGC Intelligence corruption network, used his new position to address the problem. Two informed sources in the Oil Ministry and an oversight body told Iran International that a secret meeting was held two weeks ago at the IRGC’s media headquarters. Those present included Abdullah Zeighami, also known as Brigadier General Moshfegh, Bavand and Ahadi.
The meeting’s objective was to prevent media coverage of trustee corruption. One result was the removal of reports about the scandal from Mehr News Agency, which is affiliated with the Islamic Propagation Organization, and Hamshahri, a newspaper owned by Tehran Municipality.
At the same time, Ahadi used the Supreme National Security Council to return responsibility for the trustees’ cases to IRGC Intelligence so that the security organization’s cycle of profits from oil sales would continue.
A screengrab from Flightradar24 shows Iran's airspace
Iran’s rapidly narrowing international air connections are forcing travelers onto longer and costlier routes while adding friction with neighboring states, as Tehran pressures regional governments over flight restrictions.
Flight-monitoring data from Flightradar24 indicate that US aviation sanctions have reduced Iran’s international flights by about half in one week. Almost all of Iran’s international flights over the past month have been operated by Iranian airlines, as foreign carriers have largely stopped flying to the country.
The latest restrictions reach beyond Iranian airlines themselves. Airports, fuel suppliers, ground handlers, ticket sellers and other companies providing services to sanctioned carriers can risk US penalties, giving businesses in third countries an incentive to stop handling Iranian flights.
Iranian-operated flights to the United Arab Emirates, Oman, Georgia and Azerbaijan have been suspended or sharply restricted, while Iranian carriers remain barred from Iraqi airports despite a limited resumption of services by Iraq’s national airline. Flights to China and Russia continue, while services to several other destinations, including Turkey and Afghanistan, have remained available.
For passengers trying to reach countries no longer served directly, that increasingly means flying through cities such as Istanbul, Islamabad, Kabul, Beijing, Dushanbe, Yerevan or Moscow before continuing to their destinations.
The detours can add hours or even days to journeys and substantially increase costs.
Turkey has become one of the most important remaining gateways. Iran Air flights between Tehran and Istanbul were still operating Monday, according to flight-tracking data, although Mahan Air has already suspended its Turkey services and Turkish Airlines has no Iran flights scheduled before March 2027.
Turkey Today reported Monday, citing two sources, that the remaining Iranian flights to Turkey were expected to be suspended in early October. No formal announcement of a complete suspension has yet been made.
Longer routes, higher costs
Mahan, a 42-year-old Iranian who has lived and worked in the United Arab Emirates for years and regularly travels to Tehran to visit her elderly mother, said her latest return journey to Dubai showed how quickly the restrictions were changing ordinary travel.
With direct options unavailable, she flew from Iran to Armenia on Sunday, spent the night at a hotel in Yerevan and continued to Dubai the following day.
Including the hotel and transportation in Armenia, she said the journey cost almost three times what she previously paid to travel between Iran and the UAE.
The trip was also more stressful, she said, because the hotel arranged for her was a considerable distance from the airport.
Other passengers she encountered had taken an even more difficult route. They told her they had traveled overland from Iran to the Armenian border and then continued roughly 400 kilometers by bus to Yerevan.
They described carrying luggage through crowded border areas and struggling to find transportation for the long journey from the crossing to the Armenian capital.
Najaf becomes test case
Iraq has emerged as one of the clearest examples of the complications created by Washington’s aviation pressure because of the volume of religious and family travel between the two countries.
Baghdad airport stopped accepting flights operated by Iranian airlines on September 22. Iranian aviation authorities initially sought to redirect some Baghdad-bound services to Najaf, one of Shiite Islam’s most important pilgrimage centers.
Najaf airport then suspended all flights to and from Iran on September 25, cutting off the alternative route and affecting large numbers of Iranian pilgrims traveling to Najaf and nearby Karbala.
The Iraqi government subsequently opened direct talks with Washington for exemptions from US Treasury measures. Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi’s office said it was seeking exemptions allowing travel for medical treatment, education, religious visits and other civilian purposes.
Reuters reported Monday that the Trump administration was preparing a one-month waiver allowing Iraqi Airways to carry Shia pilgrims between Najaf and Iran, with a more permanent exemption potentially following. The proposed waiver applies specifically to the Iraqi national carrier.
Iraq’s state news agency later reported that Iraqi Airways had resumed flights between Najaf and Iranian airports.
Iran, however, disputed reports that Iran-Najaf flights had broadly resumed. Civil Aviation Organization spokesman Majid Akhavan said Tehran had received no official communication authorizing a resumption and said Iranian airlines remained unable to restart the route.
The two accounts refer to different operators: the Iraqi announcement concerned Iraqi Airways, while the Iranian statement addressed the ability of Iranian carriers to return to Najaf. Iraqi media also reported Monday that the ban on Iranian airlines remained in force even as Iraqi Airways resumed flights to Iranian airports.
The distinction gives Baghdad a way to restore at least some pilgrimage traffic without immediately reopening its airports to sanctioned Iranian carriers.
The disruption had already created political pressure in Iraq. Demonstrations were held in Baghdad and Najaf against the suspension, while Iranian officials warned that restrictions on air links could affect the broader relationship between the two neighbors.
Alaeddin Boroujerdi, a member of Iran’s parliamentary National Security Committee, pointed to Iraq’s reliance on Iranian electricity and gas and warned that policies obstructing bilateral ties could have consequences in other areas.
Iranian website Rouydad24 described the flight dispute as a test of relations between Tehran and Baghdad, noting Iran’s role in Iraq’s energy supplies and its past support in the fight against Islamic State.
Tehran warns its neighbors
The aviation restrictions have also produced increasingly sharp warnings from Iranian political figures toward governments cooperating with Washington.
Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, warned regional countries last week that if Iranian aircraft were prevented from flying, airports elsewhere in the region could also be unable to operate.
The council’s secretariat later sought to distance itself from interpretations that Iran was threatening military attacks on regional airports, saying military retaliation over the flight restrictions was not on the agenda.
Mohammad Mokhber, an adviser to Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, nevertheless issued a separate warning Friday.
“Alignment with America in implementing hostile policies will remain in the memory of the Iranian people,” Mokhber wrote on X.
“Flights in the region are either free for everyone or for no one,” he added. “If Iran cannot fly or receive airport services, no country in the region will have this possibility either.”
The remarks prompted support from some hardline social-media users, including calls for Tehran to impose a no-fly zone over the Persian Gulf or threaten airlines serving neighboring countries.
Others criticized the approach. Amir Abbasi, an X user, compared the aviation warnings with previous Iranian threats to prevent other countries from exporting oil if Tehran was unable to do so.
“Perhaps these threats have a domestic use, but a crisis cannot be solved with slogans,” he wrote.
