Iran expands crackdown on protesters at home and abroad - Reuters

Zahedan governor Jamshid Rakhshani-Nasab said a vehicle belonging to a police commando unit came under fire in the Nosratabad area and that officers returned fire.

Sistan-Baluchestan police said the patrol was attacked on the main road in the Lakhshak area while carrying out a security mission. The officer killed was identified as Vahid Enayat.

Police said several attackers were wounded and fled the scene. Security forces were searching the area for those responsible, according to the statement.

Army minibus attacked on Makran coast

In a separate incident on Thursday, gunmen attacked a minibus carrying personnel from the Iranian Army’s 88th Armored Division stationed along the Makran coast, Mehr news agency reported.

The division said the personnel were traveling for a shift change when the vehicle came under fire. One person, identified as Mohammadreza Okati, was killed and three others were wounded.

Series of attacks in Sistan-Baluchestan

No group immediately took responsibility for Thursday’s attack.

The incident came three days after gunmen attacked two military vehicles in Bampur, also in Sistan-Baluchestan. Rights group Haalvsh reported at least three people killed in that attack, while Iranian state media reported lower casualty figures.

Last week, another roadside attack near Zahedan killed several people, according to differing accounts from Iranian authorities and Haalvsh. The IRGC confirmed that one of its fighters was killed in a bombing, while Haalvsh reported a higher toll and said those killed were members of the Iran-backed Fatemiyoun militia.

Repeated clashes in the southeast

The province has also seen recent fighting in Rask, Saravan and other areas, including attacks on police positions and security facilities.

Iranian authorities regularly describe armed groups operating in Sistan-Baluchestan as terrorist organizations. The province has seen repeated armed attacks, insurgent activity and clashes between security forces and gunmen in recent weeks.

Information provided to Iran International by an international intelligence agency shows that Hezbollah began contacting foreign students at Al-Mustafa International University five years ago. Those recruited have received training in weapons handling, sabotage, cyberattacks and espionage.

The recruitment operation is conducted in coordination with the Revolutionary Guards’ Quds Force and targets students at Al-Mustafa. The state-run institution was established 18 years ago on the orders of former Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and has branches in more than 60 countries.

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Iran International’s sources identified Mohammad Hassan, an Indonesian national and Al-Mustafa graduate, as the person overseeing Hezbollah’s operation in Iran. Under the supervision of Quds Force commanders, Hassan works for Talal Hamiyah, head of Hezbollah’s Unit 910, the group’s external operations unit.

Under Hassan’s direction, Hezbollah’s recruits maintain numerous safe houses, known as “operations houses,” across Iran. Iran International obtained the locations of four such properties in Qom and Tehran.

Hassan uses an apartment in Kashaneh 2 Tower in Qom’s Velayat district, near Hakim and Payambar-e Azam boulevards, as a safe house for recruitment and training. In Tehran, the network uses properties on Seventh Kish Street in the Naft neighborhood, Third West Sarvestan Street in Rah Ahan and Sarv Alley off Alborz Street in Pounak.

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The Quds Force and Hezbollah use the properties as cover to shelter newly recruited members, who also receive training there.

The US Treasury designated Hamiyah a Specially Designated Global Terrorist in 2012 for supporting Hezbollah’s terrorist activities in the Middle East and around the world. The State Department’s Rewards for Justice program offers up to $7 million for information on him.

The unit’s first commander was Imad Mughniyeh, a senior Hezbollah figure who was killed in 2008. Hezbollah’s external operations unit initially included four prominent figures: Mughniyeh, Mustafa Badreddine, Talal Hamiyah and Ahmad Vahidi, then commander of the Quds Force and now commander-in-chief of the IRGC.

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After Badreddine was killed, Hamiyah took command of the unit. Mohammad Hassan is now recruiting for him in Qom.

Iran International’s sources identified cleric Habib Mustafa Zaatar as another participant in the recruitment operation. Born in Lebanon’s Jabal Amel region, he lives in Qom. The sources said Zaatar is a US citizen and travels to the United States several times a year. Zaatar teaches Sharh al-Lum‘ah and its section on hudud punishments at Qom’s religious seminary.

Serving as an adviser at the Noor Islamic Center and Hikmat International Academy in Qom, he teaches Shia religious subjects in English. Tuition for his course at Hikmat Academy is 835,000 tomans per month.

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Habib Mustafa Zaatar also has close ties to the Najaf religious seminary. He is a lecturer and researcher at the Al-Abbas shrine in Iraq and has translated several well-known Shia religious books. His command of English gives him a key role in recruiting foreign nationals studying at Al-Mustafa and Qom seminaries.

Iran International also identified four people recruited by Hezbollah who have been training for years as members of a sleeper cell in Iran.

One is Mohammad Zaki Fathoni. He heads the regional leadership council of Indonesia’s Ahlul Bayt Foundation and is a member of the Al-Mustafa alumni association. He represented Indonesia at the Fourth International Congress on Nahj al-Balagha and Alawi Governance, held at Iran’s presidential complex in Tehran in fall 2025, with President Masoud Pezeshkian in attendance.

Another recruit is Ahmad Dzilal Mukhlis. He is also a member of the Al-Mustafa alumni association.

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Another Indonesian national in Qom, Seyyed Mohammad Mahdi Ali al-Attas, has also been recruited by Hezbollah. He heads the association of Indonesian students studying in Iran and is a member of Indonesia’s Ahlul Bayt Council. Al-Attas hosts a podcast in which he strongly supports the Islamic Republic and speaks against Israel and Zionism.

A photograph reviewed by Iran International shows al-Attas attending a government-organized Quds Day march in Qom.

The fourth Hezbollah recruit in Iran is Mohammad Saleh. He is an Al-Mustafa student and a member of a religious seminary students’ association. On January 29, 2026, Saleh met Reza Ramazani, secretary-general of the Ahlul Bayt World Assembly, as a member of the Indonesian, Thai and Malaysian religious students’ associations.

According to a photograph published by media outlets inside Iran, Saleh attended a pro-government march in September 2022, days before the protests that followed Mahsa Amini’s death, and called for compulsory hijab for Iranian women. He is active in Qom’s religious circles.

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All these activities take place under the cover of Al-Mustafa, which received 1.8 trillion tomans in state funding for the Iranian year that began in March 2026.

Al-Mustafa describes its mission as educating Muslim students in other countries. The United States sanctioned the institution over alleged links to the Quds Force’s military and intelligence activities.

The warnings come as Tehran and Washington continue indirect discussions, mediated by Qatar and others, over a framework for reopening the Strait of Hormuz and ending the conflict, while military preparations and explicit threats complicate the diplomatic track.

Morteza Maki, a senior international relations analyst, wrote in Etemad newspaper that another war was not inevitable, but pressure had reached a point where “the boundary between the threat of war and the start of war has become more fragile than before.”

Ruydad24 similarly warned Wednesday that the most important message from recent developments may not be that Washington has decided to go to war, but that “the distance between the path of negotiations and the path of military escalation has once again become very short.”

Fararu described “strategic ambiguity” as one of the defining features of the current crisis, warning that contradictory claims and uncertainty over the rules of engagement could lead to miscalculation.

The Strait of Hormuz, it said, “has now reached a point where every action there is not merely a tactical move, but a strategic statement.”

Iran signals readiness to strike first

The concerns have taken on greater significance as Iranian military officials increasingly describe pre-emption as part of Tehran’s strategy.

Brig. Gen. Mohammad Akrami-Nia, an army spokesman, told Fars that Iran had carried out pre-emptive operations in the past and would do so again under the framework of self-defense if necessary.

If Iran concludes that an enemy attack is imminent, he said, it will “definitely” launch a pre-emptive operation.

Akrami-Nia described an Iranian attack on a US base in Jordan as pre-emptive and said last week that Iran had shifted its strategy toward pre-emptive warfare following the 12-day war.

The statements have added to concerns that confrontation could escalate not only through a deliberate decision to start a war, but through either side acting on the assumption that an enemy attack is imminent.

Israeli preparations draw scrutiny

Iranian media have also focused on Israeli preparations for a possible new operation against Tehran.

Ruydad24 cited warnings by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about a possible Iranian attack alongside reports of Israeli military preparations as reasons the prospect of renewed conflict was being taken more seriously.

The outlet argued, however, that Iran’s ability to launch a pre-emptive attack should not be confused with an intention to do so, saying such an operation would carry significant costs for Tehran.

Fears of a trigger

The possibility of an incident providing the trigger for a wider conflict has become a recurring theme in Iranian commentary.

Journalist Ahmad Zeidabadi warned that Israel could stage a false-flag operation and attribute it to Iran, or conduct such an operation through infiltrators inside the country. He urged Iranian decision-makers not to fall into what he described as Netanyahu’s trap.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei raised similar concerns Wednesday in a video about alleged false-flag operations by the United States and Israel.

“False flags are an old craft: manufacture the incident, assign the blame, and harvest the consequences,” Baghaei wrote on X.

Ruydad24 warned that the greatest danger may be an ambiguous incident that sets off a wider escalation.

“The biggest danger for Tehran is not merely a direct attack; it is becoming trapped in a scenario in which a limited action, an ambiguous incident or an operation attributed to Iran becomes the pretext for another round of war,” it wrote.

War or pressure for a deal?

Despite the increasingly alarmed tone, some Iranian analysts believe a direct confrontation before the US elections remains unlikely.

Jafar Ghanadbashi, an international affairs analyst, told ILNA that “one should not expect a war before the US elections.”

He argued that the approaching elections and recent Israeli moves could instead produce efforts to create the impression that war was imminent in order to extract concessions from Iran.

That assessment offers a different reading of the military signaling: the threat of war may itself be a tool of pressure, without either side necessarily having decided to initiate another conflict.

The central concern running through Iranian commentary is not that either side has necessarily decided to start another war, but that pre-emptive military doctrines, strategic ambiguity and fears of a triggering incident have left little distance between confrontation and full-scale conflict.

Recent US measures have targeted Iran’s national railway system and major automakers including Iran Khodro and SAIPA, alongside foreign facilitators involved in their supply chains, while pressure has also expanded across aviation, maritime transport and financial networks.

The pattern has prompted some Iranian commentators to warn of what they describe as “network encirclement”: rather than trying to stop Iranian trade at a single chokepoint, sanctions raise the cost of moving money and goods across multiple routes simultaneously.

But Iranian economists and industry analysts are divided over how much additional pressure that can produce after years in which businesses have adapted to sanctions, and whether domestic dysfunction now poses a greater threat to industry than new US designations.

Closing alternative routes

Moderate outlet Khabar Online described the emerging strategy as “network encirclement,” arguing that modern economic blockades do not require borders to be physically sealed.

Instead, pressure can be applied simultaneously through financial sanctions, transport restrictions, higher insurance and compliance costs, and measures targeting companies and intermediaries that facilitate trade.

The importance of alternative routes was illustrated in a recent report by Mehr News Agency examining how Iran has sought to compensate for restrictions on maritime trade and rising insurance costs in the Persian Gulf.

The report highlighted truck traffic through northwestern crossings including Bazargan, Astara and Jolfa, connecting Iran with Turkey, the Caucasus and Russia. It argued that expanding land and rail corridors could reduce dependence on maritime shipping.

But Washington is increasingly targeting some of those alternatives as well.

Recent US sanctions have included Iran’s national railway system and major automakers, while also targeting facilitators in the UAE, Turkey, Hong Kong and India involved in supply chains.

Donya-e-Eghtesad described the measures as an expansion of pressure from maritime routes to overland trade, including networks used to obtain automotive parts.

An economy that has learned to adapt

Whether that approach can substantially increase pressure on Iran is less clear.

Industry analysts cited by Donya-e-Eghtesad said major Iranian automakers have developed extensive domestic sourcing after years of sanctions and reduced dependence on direct relationships with foreign manufacturers.

Eqtesad News went further, arguing that the latest measures against automakers and rail companies may carry greater political and psychological significance than immediate economic consequences.

Iran’s automotive industry has operated without direct partnerships with major international manufacturers for more than eight years and already relies heavily on intermediaries to obtain foreign components, it said.

The outlet argued that sanctions may therefore be producing diminishing returns, while domestic problems including price controls, supply-chain mismanagement and regulatory bottlenecks increasingly constrain production.

Economist Rasoul Safarahang made a similar argument in Khabar Online, saying an economy that has spent years adapting to sanctions is likely to respond to additional pressure by developing informal workarounds rather than immediately altering government policy.

Pressure extends to aviation

Aviation represents another potential pressure point because of its dependence on international maintenance, insurance, fuel and other services.

Iranian media have reported that US restrictions now cover 27 Iranian airlines, potentially affecting not only passenger travel but also time-sensitive cargo and the movement of industrial equipment and other goods.

Khabar Online estimated that restrictions on commercial aviation could cause between $3.5 billion and $5.2 billion in losses through reduced trade, tourism and supply-chain disruption, although the report did not provide sufficient detail to independently assess that estimate.

The outlet argued that longer transport times and more expensive alternative routes could ultimately feed through into higher domestic prices.

The debate in Iranian media therefore reflects two competing assessments of Washington’s strategy.

One sees sanctions as closing the routes Iran has used to adapt to earlier restrictions. The other sees an economy already so accustomed to sanctions that additional designations produces less leverage, while Iran’s own structural economic problems pose the greater threat.

The payments, reported by the Financial Times on Wednesday, are several times normal salaries and are part of a wider surge in the cost of shipping through waters where Iranian missile and drone attacks have made transit perilous.

Regular crew members are also receiving multiples of their usual pay for making the crossing, according to the report.

The Wall Street Journal reported this week that some seafarers were being offered bonuses of as much as $25,000 for a single trip, with some shuttle voyages costing shippers as much as $40 million.

Middle Eastern crude exports rose above prewar levels on several days in late September, with the seven-day moving average reaching about 18.5 million barrels a day on Oct. 1, according to Kpler data reported by Reuters.

But the recovery in barrels has come at a remarkable price.

The price of passage

The cost of chartering a very large crude carrier from the Persian Gulf to China has climbed to the equivalent of about $24 a barrel, according to Kpler, with freight alone now accounting for roughly a quarter of the value of the crude being shipped.

Before the war, it accounted for about 5%.

The Baltic Exchange estimated daily earnings on its benchmark Persian Gulf-to-China route at more than $1.2 million last week.

The Financial Times reported that war-risk insurance for some tankers can reach $20 million, while ordinary sailors who make Hormuz crossings are receiving four to six times their normal wages.

Marine insurers had incurred about $2 billion in losses from the Hormuz crisis, the International Union of Marine Insurance estimated last month, even as premiums charged for individual voyages rose by multiples of their prewar levels.

‘Recovery, not normality’

The result is an unusual oil market: physical supply has recovered, but the cost of moving it has not.

Kpler says shipping has adapted through naval escorts, shuttle tankers, ship-to-ship transfers and alternative routes, allowing crude supply to recover without a political agreement between Washington and Tehran.

But it cautions that the recovery should not be mistaken for a return to normality.

“Buyers can regain access to Middle East barrels without regaining pre-conflict delivered costs,” the firm said in an analysis last week.

‘Hormuz closed’

Iran, meanwhile, rejects Washington's portrayal of the increased flows as evidence that the strait has effectively reopened.

Mohammadreza Naqdi, an adviser to the Revolutionary Guards commander, said Wednesday that Iran remained in control of Hormuz and would maintain its restrictions until Tehran's demands were met.

Tehran has said a formal reopening depends on the United States meeting seven conditions under a proposed arrangement being discussed through Qatari mediation.

At least seven attacks on tankers were reported in the first week of October, while shipping through the strait slowed sharply over the weekend.

Kpler recorded only five commodity vessels crossing on Saturday and none on Sunday, compared with 31 the previous weekend.

Tankers are crossing Hormuz, in some cases under US military protection. But shipowners, insurers and crews are demanding extraordinary compensation to take the risk — and that cost is traveling with the oil.