British Prime Minister Andy Burnham said on Wednesday there are “strong indications” Iran played a role in a suspected plot near RAF Fairford airbase used by US forces to carry out strikes on the Islamic Republic.
“But of course, it remains an ongoing, complex and serious police investigation,” he told BBC. “We are working closely with our colleagues in the United States of America.”
Five British men in their 20s were arrested on suspicion of terrorism and explosives offenses after three white vans were found near the base.
Police recovered petrol but found no viable explosives, and all five suspects were later released on bail as the investigation continued.
The base is home to the US Air Force’s 501st Combat Support Wing and also serves as a forward operating site for Air Force Global Strike Command.
Fairford has supported major US military operations, including the 1991 Persian Gulf War, the 2003 invasion of Iraq and this year’s US-Israeli strikes on Iran.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio subsequently said a foreign state was involved, without naming it, while President Donald Trump said the men had planned "big damage."
Iran has denied involvement. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) said in July that bases used for attacks on Iranian territory could be considered legitimate targets.
Before Burnham’s remarks, British authorities had not publicly linked the incident to Iran, though counter-terrorism police said they were investigating possible foreign state involvement, including whether proxies may have been “knowingly or unknowingly working on behalf of a foreign state.”
Police said Tuesday that petrol, but no improvised explosive device, was found in the vans used by the men. They also defended releasing the suspects on bail after criticism, including from Trump.
The Times reported that one suspect called emergency services shortly before his arrest, with investigators considering whether the incident was surveillance, a “dry run” or an attempt to send a message to the British government.
Britain said in January that its services had tracked more than 20 potentially lethal Iran-backed plots over the previous year targeting dissidents, journalists and members of the Jewish community.
In June, 24 Western governments accused Iran’s IRGC intelligence apparatus, the Quds Force and Iran’s intelligence ministry of plotting attacks in Europe, North America and Australia, including against Iranian dissidents and Jewish and Israeli interests.
An Iranian-American student who pressed Michigan Democratic US Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed to state his position on Iran’s Revolutionary Guards says he and his family have faced threats and harassment after a video of the exchange went viral.
At a University of Michigan town hall, Iman Dashti said his cousin had been pursued through the streets over her hijab and his uncle sentenced to death and given 50 lashes under the Islamic Republic, before asking whether El-Sayed stood “unequivocally against the IRGC.”
El-Sayed responded that he would “always stand with movements for freedom and democracy” and later told Dashti, “I want freedom and democracy for the people of Iran, no question,” while stressing that political change should come from Iranians themselves rather than through US-led regime change.
He did not directly answer Dashti’s question about whether he stood unequivocally against the IRGC.
Dashti told Iran International he shares El-Sayed’s opposition to US-imposed regime change, but said that was never the question he was asking.
“I never asked about regime change. I never asked about his stance on the war,” Dashti said. “I asked him about the people.”
“I wanted to hear from him. I wanted to hear that he stood with us, I really did want to,” he said. “If Abdul were to win, at least we’d have an advocate for the Persian people, for the American people in the US Senate.”
El-Sayed’s campaign has defended his response.
“As he noted in his response, Abdul will always stand with movements for freedom and democracy and he condemns government anti-free speech violence,” campaign spokesperson Roxie Richner told Fox News.
The campaign also reiterated El-Sayed’s opposition to US-funded regime-change wars.
Iran International separately contacted El-Sayed’s campaign seeking an interview or written response about the exchange and his position on the IRGC but did not receive a response before publication.
Threats after the exchange
Dashti said the atmosphere inside the town hall became tense, with audience members applauding when El-Sayed rejected US-led regime change, a position Dashti said he agreed with.
“The tension was very high in that room,” he said. “You could cut it with a knife.”
Since the exchange spread online, Dashti says he has received threats and that his friends and family have been targeted.
“Since that day, people have threatened me, doxxed my friends, even harassed my family,” he said in a video posted after the town hall.
Dashti told Iran International the past several days had been anxious but said the hostile reaction had also been accompanied by considerable support.
“For every negative comment I’ve gotten, for every negative sort of threat, I’ve gotten a lot of beautiful positive messages,” he said.
Scrutiny of Dashti’s politics
The attention has also brought scrutiny of Dashti’s own politics. He describes himself as a “proud Christian conservative,” belongs to the College Republicans and has previously met Mike Rogers, the Republican nominee running against El-Sayed in November.
Dashti said he does not work for Rogers and was not sent to the town hall on behalf of his campaign.
“Am I a Zionist plant? Do I work for the Rogers campaign?” he said in his follow-up video, recounting accusations circulating online. “I don’t work for anyone. I’m just a Persian student and my family was hunted in the streets of Iran.”
The son of Iranian immigrants, Dashti said he sees speaking about repression in Iran as a way of advocating for people who cannot freely do so themselves.
“The least I can do is give a voice to the people who literally don’t have a voice,” he said. “I love my people, my heritage. It’s a beautiful, beautiful culture.”
Washington designated the IRGC a Foreign Terrorist Organization in 2019. The force is a central part of the Islamic Republic’s security apparatus and has been involved in suppressing anti-government protests.
Dashti said the criticism has not deterred him from continuing to raise the issue during the remaining weeks of the Senate campaign.
“I’m going to keep going, whether that means showing up at future events, mobilizing friends,” he said. “This is just the beginning.”
Both pilots of a flydubai flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv were injured after what Israeli officials said may have been an attempted terror attack in the cockpit, forcing the aircraft to make an emergency landing in Saudi Arabia on Wednesday.
Prince Sultan bin Abdulaziz International Airport in Tabuk said it was alerted at 8:44 a.m. local time after air traffic control received a distress call from flydubai flight FZ1073 requesting an emergency landing.
The Boeing 737 landed safely at 9:45 a.m., the airport said. The captain and first officer were taken to hospital, while passengers were assisted at the terminal.
Flydubai was working to arrange a replacement aircraft, the airport said, adding that the relevant authorities were investigating the incident.
What happened in the cockpit?
Three Israeli officials said the co-pilot was believed to have stabbed the captain in what was being investigated as a possible attempted terror attack.
The officials said cabin crew entered the cockpit and took control of flydubai flight FZ1073 before it diverted to Saudi Arabia while flying over Jordanian airspace. One of the officials identified the co-pilot as an Omani national.
Israeli authorities were still investigating the circumstances and had not reached a final conclusion about the motive.
Flydubai said the aircraft had experienced an "incident" while flying to Tel Aviv and diverted to Tabuk. The airline said all passengers were safe and accounted for but gave no details about what had happened.
Neither Saudi authorities nor flydubai had publicly explained the cause of the incident.
Passenger reports screaming and knife
Yasmin Abu Kasis, whose daughter Miriam was among the passengers, told Reuters that her daughter had heard screaming and said a man holding a knife forced one of the pilots to the floor.
She also said there was blood inside the aircraft.
Israeli media published a photograph said to have been taken aboard the plane showing what appeared to be a passenger with blood on his shirt. Reuters could not independently verify the image or the passenger's account.
The airport statement confirmed that both pilots had been injured but did not say how they were hurt.
Emergency signals and sudden descent
The flight had been traveling from Dubai to Tel Aviv when it diverted from Jordanian airspace toward Saudi Arabia, according to flight-tracking website Flightradar24.
The aircraft first transmitted a general emergency signal and several minutes later sent another signal indicating possible unlawful interference, Flightradar24 said. It later transmitted the general emergency signal again.
Flight data also appeared to show the plane dropping nearly 14,000 feet in less than 30 seconds before the first emergency alert, according to Flightradar24.
The signals prompted a major security response in Israel.
Israeli media said about 150 Israeli passengers were aboard the flight. The Israeli prime minister's office said the situation was "under control" and that authorities were taking steps to bring the passengers back to Israel.
Years in prison or hiding, suicide attempts and severe financial hardship are among the consequences of Iran’s imprisonment of people over unpaid financial obligations, according to an IHRDC report published Tuesday.
According to a report published Tuesday by the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center (IHRDC), the findings draw on 10 confidential interviews conducted between March 2024 and July 2026 with debtors and close relatives of people subjected to financial enforcement.
All requested anonymity because of the stigma and other risks associated with imprisonment for debt.
One case concerns a man identified by the pseudonym Borna, whose sister told IHRDC that he spent two years in hiding after falling behind on payments linked to a marital financial obligation of 300 gold coins. He attempted suicide by jumping from a fourth-floor building and later spent about three years in prison.
His sister said a trial court found that Borna lacked the means to pay and ordered his release, but an appellate court required him to first pay 14 gold coins in arrears. IHRDC cited the case as evidence that people recognized as unable to pay can nevertheless remain exposed to detention.
The report also recounts the case of a young woman who was arrested at about 16 for theft and remained imprisoned for nearly three years after completing her sentence because she could not repay 400,000 tomans, which the report put at about $400 at the time. According to testimony cited by IHRDC, she attempted suicide in prison by swallowing depilatory powder and suffered lasting internal injuries.
The individual accounts are set against official figures showing that an average of 10,087 people were held in “imprisonment until payment” for civil financial judgments on any given day in 2022-23, representing 4.3% of Iran’s average prison population. The figure excludes people held over blood money and those on day release.
IHRDC’s open-source database separately recorded at least 88,078 releases of imprisoned debtors across all 31 provinces between 2016 and 2026. The organization said available figures represent minimums and do not capture everyone affected by financial detention.
Under Article 3 of Iran’s Law on the Enforcement of Financial Judgments, a debtor can be imprisoned at a creditor’s request until the judgment is satisfied, a court accepts an insolvency claim or the creditor consents to release. IHRDC said people genuinely unable to pay can still face detention because of procedural and evidentiary barriers, including missed deadlines and difficulties securing witnesses, collateral or legal assistance.
Iran told the United Nations during its 2025 Universal Periodic Review that no one is imprisoned merely for failing to fulfill a contractual obligation and that detention is reserved for people who have the means to pay but refuse. IHRDC said its examination of the law, statistics and witness accounts found that assurance “does not hold.”
IHRDC called for abolishing imprisonment for genuine inability to pay and replacing it with measures including asset tracing, wage attachment and installment plans based on a debtor’s ability to pay, while retaining sanctions for proven fraud, concealment or deliberate refusal to pay despite having the means.
A German-based humanitarian worker has been sentenced to 10 years in prison in Iran after entering the country to help vulnerable Iranians, Stuttgart-based aid organization STELP said.
Serkan Eren, the 42-year-old founder of STELP, was convicted over alleged contacts with a country Iran considers hostile, according to the organization. STELP has not identified the country or disclosed further details, citing concerns for Eren and others involved.
Eren, a Turkish citizen and longtime resident of Germany, has been in Iranian custody for more than a year.
He entered Iran in late June 2025 as the 12-day war was drawing to a close. Five days later, after a ceasefire had taken effect, he headed toward the Iraqi border to leave the country. He never made it out.
STELP called the verdict unjustified and said the sentence did not reflect the circumstances of his case.
“The ten-year prison sentence given to Serkan Eren is not about what he has done. It is about what the Islamic Republic wants,” Shahin Milani, executive director of the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center, told Iran International.
Milani said Eren's charitable work offered little protection from what he described as Tehran's established practice of using foreign detainees as political leverage.
“Even working for a charitable organization does not protect foreign nationals,” he said.
Contemporaneous German reporting provides a detailed account of why Eren went to Iran and the precautions he took before entering.
German-Iranians had approached STELP seeking help for relatives inside the country, according to the Stuttgarter Zeitung. Eren said he was in contact with seven elderly Iranians, some of them ill, whom he hoped to help reach Turkey. He also intended to bring food into Tehran.
The risks were apparent before he crossed the border.
Eren deliberately left behind a satellite phone, bulletproof vest and helmet, fearing such equipment could cause Iranian authorities to mistake him for an agent or saboteur. Instead, he crossed from Turkey into Iran on foot with little more than a backpack.
Once inside, those concerns intensified. Eren later described armed checkpoints on his route to Tehran where he was forced to strip naked during searches.
More than a year later, an Islamic Republic court convicted him over alleged contacts with a hostile country.
Human rights lawyer Gissou Nia said humanitarian status has not historically insulated either foreign aid workers or Iranian charities from pressure by the authorities.
“Unfortunately, being a humanitarian aid worker is not a shield when it comes to the Islamic Republic detaining and arbitrarily imprisoning individuals,” Nia told Iran International.
She cited the case of Belgian humanitarian worker Olivier Vandecasteele, who was detained in Iran in 2022 and later sentenced to a lengthy prison term before being released in 2023 in a prisoner exchange involving Assadollah Assadi, an Iranian diplomat imprisoned in Belgium over a foiled bomb plot.
“This is a pattern that we've seen before,” Nia said.
Nia also pointed to the treatment of humanitarian organizations operating inside Iran. The Imam Ali Popular Students Relief Society, a prominent independent charity that worked with impoverished families and vulnerable children, was dissolved following years of pressure from Iranian authorities.
The Center for Human Rights in Iran reported in 2022 that an appeals court upheld an order dissolving the organization after authorities arrested several of its members and accused its founder of offenses including insulting Iran's leadership and acting against national security.
The case, Nia said, illustrates how work designed to remain outside politics can itself become politically charged in Iran.
“Even the sort of non-politicized work of humanitarian aid organizations has been politicized in some ways,” she said.
Eren's Turkish citizenship adds another layer to efforts to secure his release.
Despite living in Germany and running a Stuttgart-based organization, Eren does not hold German citizenship. Germany's Foreign Office has said it is aware of his case but that responsibility rests with Turkish authorities because he is a Turkish national. STELP says it has been working closely with Ankara since his detention.
Nia said his ties to Germany nevertheless give Berlin reason to remain engaged.
“I anticipate that Germany will raise the case, especially because he was working for a German-based organization,” she said. “And the Turkish government will probably be involved as well, because he is a Turkish citizen.”
The sentence has already drawn calls for Eren's release in Germany. Baden-Württemberg Minister-President Cem Özdemir said he would continue pushing for Eren to be freed immediately.
Eren has spent years working in humanitarian crises. He began aid work during Europe's 2015 refugee crisis and received Germany's Federal Order of Merit in 2023 for his humanitarian service.
Before entering Iran, he openly questioned whether authorities would allow him into the country at all.
“It’s arbitrary,” Eren told the Stuttgarter Zeitung at the time.
He nevertheless hoped his status as a humanitarian worker would help protect him.
It did not.
Iran said on Tuesday it is awaiting a US response to its proposal for reopening the Strait of Hormuz, as regional oil flows continued to recover and the rial sank past 2.5 million to the dollar.
The developments put Iran’s efforts to secure relief for maritime trade alongside mounting economic pressure at home and warnings from Iranian and US officials over further confrontation.
“We are awaiting an official response from the United States through the mediators,” Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said.
Qatar was expected to relay Iran’s proposals to Washington and return with a response, possibly by Wednesday, Araghchi said. Iran had made no concessions and reopening Hormuz remained conditional on its demands being met, he added.
“At present, the only issue is the Strait of Hormuz,” Araghchi said. “Iran’s conditions are entirely fair and reasonable. If the Americans say they want an agreement or a peaceful solution, we have presented that solution.”
Oil flows recover despite risks in Hormuz
Persian Gulf oil exports have recovered despite disruption around Hormuz, potentially reducing the impact of restrictions on one of the world’s most important energy routes.
Oil shipments through the strait and alternative routes have returned to nearly 80% of pre-war regional levels, the Wall Street Journal reported Monday.
Crude exports from major Middle Eastern producers including Saudi Arabia, Iraq and the United Arab Emirates have climbed to almost 13 million barrels per day this month, their highest level since February, according to ship-tracking data cited by the Journal.
Risks to shipping persist. A vessel transiting Hormuz was struck by a suspected unknown projectile Monday evening, causing a fire that was later extinguished, the UK Maritime Trade Operations said. The crew was safe.
Against that backdrop, Iran tied the security of regional energy infrastructure to its own ability to export oil. “If we do not sell oil in a region, no one will sell oil there, and if our security is not guaranteed, no infrastructure will be safe,” parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said Tuesday.
Rial crosses 2.5 million per dollar
Iran’s free-market exchange rate crossed 2.5 million rials to the dollar Tuesday, extending a currency decline that has increased import costs and eroded household purchasing power.
The dollar had reached 2.418 million rials Monday before gaining more than 80,000 rials, or over 3%, in less than 24 hours.
The decline comes alongside inflation, falling production, trade restrictions, foreign-currency shortages and difficulties transferring money.
Iran is seeking alternatives to maritime trade. Rail freight from China has increased tenfold since the US naval blockade began, lawmaker Meisam Zohourian said.
Three rail routes and expanded capacity at northern ports could provide overland capacity equivalent to about 400,000 barrels of oil a day, though they could not fully replace maritime trade, Zohourian said.
Revolutionary Guards prepare message to Americans
The Islamic Revolutionary Guards have addressed the American public in a letter portraying Iran as the victor in the war with the United States and crediting Mojtaba Khamenei’s leadership for the outcome.
“This is a letter, not a propaganda effort to shape the media narrative,” IRGC spokesman Hossein Mohebbi said Tuesday.
The letter said Khamenei’s “unparalleled command” had left “the world’s two leading military powers” unable to prevail and argued that his leadership gave Iran an advantage the United States lacked.
“A God-fearing and just leader, a wise scholar and a pure and courageous ascetic — this is what your armed forces and your country lack and do not have,” the Revolutionary Guards wrote in the letter to Americans.
Mohebbi also called US President Donald Trump “a big liar” and said Washington had no choice but to acknowledge failure and leave the region.
Washington, for its part, warned Iran against targeting US interests beyond the confrontation over Hormuz. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Iran had openly threatened American interests around the world and would face repercussions for any attack or attempted attack.
Iran’s government, however, coupled its readiness for further conflict with an openness to diplomacy. “We are not afraid of war and we do not run away from negotiations,” government spokesperson Fatemeh Mohajerani said.