A US military official urged Iranian civilians to remain indoors and stay away from Revolutionary Guards positions if military tensions escalate, telling Iran International that the IRGC was placing weapons and command centers in residential areas.
The official said the United States was concerned about the safety and security of the Iranian people.
“The IRGC has been placing military assets like weapons and command centers inside civilian neighborhoods and near homes,” the military official said.
The official accused Iran’s leadership and the Revolutionary Guards of using civilians to shield military assets while sheltering in protected locations.
“The Islamic Regime does not care about the people of Iran, as evidenced by Regime leaders and the IRGC using innocent civilians as human shields while they hide. They are hiding in fortified facilities and underground bunkers.”
The official also outlined precautions for civilians in the event of heightened tensions.
“If military tensions escalate, Iranian civilians should take appropriate precautions by remaining indoors and staying far away from the IRGC.”
“The safest place for Iranian civilians during heightened tensions is inside their home.”
The remarks follow an Iran International investigation published in March that found Iranian security and military forces had moved personnel, weapons and equipment into at least 70 civilian sites across 17 provinces during US-Israeli airstrikes.
Those sites included 34 schools, alongside hospitals, stadiums, universities, mosques, parks and government offices. Iran International could not independently verify every account but geolocated visual evidence from seven sites, all schools. Iranian officials have repeatedly denied using civilians as shields.
The warning comes amid renewed diplomatic efforts to avert further fighting. President Donald Trump said Friday that talks with Iran were ongoing.
Qatari Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani urged Washington and Tehran on Friday to accept a good deal rather than pursue a perfect one, saying the two sides had failed to reach a comprehensive agreement.
Bloomberg reported Friday, citing a diplomat familiar with the talks, that Iran was studying Qatari proposals involving nuclear issues previously off the table.
A senior Iranian official told Reuters a day earlier that Tehran had sent Washington a nuclear proposal through Qatar, but would discuss it only after the United States met its seven demands.
Iran sent security chief Mohsen Rezaei to Moscow to request S-400 air defense systems in a personal letter from Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei to President Vladimir Putin, The Telegraph reported Friday, citing a senior Iranian official.
A senior Iranian official told the newspaper Tehran was “optimistic” that Putin would deliver the systems, which Iran has sought for years.
Rezaei visited Moscow on Thursday, where he met the Russian president. The report did not establish that a deal had been finalized or give a delivery timetable.
The Telegraph also said confidential documents showed a secret parliamentary committee had recommended strengthening military ties with Russia and China before the war began in February. Its proposals called for building “strategic relations, especially military ones” with those powers and bolstering Iran’s “air defense, missiles and drones.”
The visit followed a phone call between Putin and Rezaei on Monday, after which no new military commitments were announced.
Alex Vatanka, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, told Iran International that Moscow would help Tehran so long as doing so did not risk direct confrontation with Washington.
Iran’s pursuit of the S-400 reflects the damage inflicted on its air defenses during the war, which exposed nuclear facilities and senior commanders to attack. But Moscow has stopped short of supplying the systems for years, wary of damaging relations with Israel and other regional states, analysts and regional officials told The Telegraph.
Russia’s own needs could also complicate any delivery. Analysts cited by the newspaper said Ukrainian drone and missile attacks had placed Russian air defenses under sustained pressure, limiting the systems Moscow could spare.
The talks add to evidence of expanding military cooperation. The Financial Times reported Thursday that Russia had agreed to supply Iran with 90 helicopter-mounted launchers for precision-guided missiles. A Russian production schedule identified the customer under a code used for Iran.
The partnership has developed in both directions: Iran supplied Russia with Shahed attack drones and helped establish Russian production. But analysts say Moscow continues to balance assistance to Tehran against its own war in Ukraine and relations with Washington and Middle Eastern powers, leaving the extent of its support uncertain.
Ships linked to Iran looped, loitered and went dark over undersea internet cables in the Gulf of Oman in the weeks after Tehran threatened the region’s digital infrastructure, the Financial Times reported on Friday. One of them had been boarded by US Marines in May.
At least four vessels tracked by the maritime analytics firm Windward took unusual routes and lingered over cable corridors off Oman in October, the FT said. Three were tankers under US sanctions. The fourth was a small Iranian fishing boat with no known owner.
The ships sailed normally “until they reached a specific cable corridor, and only then slowed, looped, turned back, loitered or went dark,” Windward told the newspaper. That behavior “fits the profile of mapping the cable routes, or placing charges or mines on them while dark,” it said.
The most striking case is Celestial Sea, an Iran-flagged products tanker sanctioned by the United States last year and boarded by US Marines in the Gulf of Oman in May on suspicion of trying to run the American blockade.
On October 14 it drifted in a loop for more than four hours beside the 2Africa cable, which will connect Persian Gulf states to Europe and the east coast of Africa, according to Windward’s October 29 report, on which the FT’s story is based. The next day it switched off its transponder inside the 2Africa and Bay of Bengal Gateway corridors off Sohar. It stayed dark for 86 hours and reappeared nine nautical miles away, made a U-turn over the second cable and anchored. It was empty the whole time.
A second sanctioned tanker, a gas carrier loaded with about half a million barrels of Iranian LPG, left the same anchorage for Malaysia on October 23. Ten hours out, it slowed over 2Africa, turned 180 degrees back toward Oman and went dark. Five days later it had not reappeared. A loaded ship with a buyer waiting has no cargo reason to do that, Windward said.
The third, a crude tanker operated by Iran’s state tanker company, loitered at under one knot for about ten days in Iranian waters between Jask and Chabahar, within a few miles of four cable routes, switching off its tracking repeatedly, once for 33 hours.
The fourth vessel is the odd one. A 34-meter Iranian fishing-support boat whose beneficial owner has been unknown since last year drifted at under half a knot along the Europe India Gateway and Transworld cables between October 21 and 26, in waters it had never entered in two years of tracking. Then it sailed north into Iranian waters and went dark.
Fishing in Iranian waters requires a state license, Windward noted, and the Revolutionary Guards’ navy has organized fishermen and their boats into a naval Basij that its commander has called a shadow navy. Iran has used civilian hulls as intelligence platforms before: the cargo ships Saviz and Behshad fed targeting data to the Houthis off Yemen, and on October 6 US forces destroyed an Iranian-linked dhow in the Gulf of Oman that CENTCOM said was watching American warships.
The ships’ movements tracked a run of Iranian warnings. On October 12 Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, said “data centers and artificial intelligence facilities will be destroyed” if the war resumes. On October 19 the Guards’ spokesman, Hossein Mohebbi, said seven cables ran under the Strait of Hormuz and that “new targets and new weapons shall be unveiled.” On October 21 the Guards’ political deputy, Yadollah Javani, said the cables would be hit in retaliation for attacks on Iranian infrastructure.
Two days later, two senior Iranian security officials told Iran International that Tehran had detailed plans to target the cables if the United States and Israel attacked again, and would try to prevent repairs to prolong any outage. That was the day the gas carrier turned around.
Iraq, Kuwait, Bahrain and Qatar depend entirely on cables under the strait for their international connectivity, the FT reported, citing TeleGeography. The cables’ owners include Meta, Vodafone, Orange, AT&T, Verizon, BT and China Mobile.
Masha Kotkin of the Center for Strategic and International Studies told the FT that damage would slow financial transactions and disrupt cloud computing in Persian Gulf states that are betting on digital business to diversify from oil. Threats alone had already halted construction on several cable projects, she said.
Iran International reported last month that the strait carries less than one percent of the world’s international bandwidth and that the main Europe-Asia routes run through the Red Sea, so an attack would hurt Iran’s neighbors far more than the global internet.
The experts the FT consulted held back from conclusions. Sidharth Kaushal of the Royal United Services Institute said the maneuvers could be coincidence but that “Iran might be trying to demonstrate its capacity to damage undersea infrastructure if there is a war.” Jon Pentreath, a retired Royal Navy rear admiral, said almost any vessel could be fitted to lay mines. Celestial Sea’s owner did not respond to the FT.
Three of the four ships were still dark when Windward published. Where they reappear, it said, will show whether the cables were the destination or a stop on the way.
Iranian state television broadcast live a mock hanging of US President Donald Trump as part of a pro-establishment campaign featuring public displays calling for his killing, following Republican losses in Tuesday's US midterm elections.
Footage circulated by Iranian media showed an actor wearing a Trump mask and dressed as a prisoner being subjected to a mock execution by a man in a Revolutionary Guards uniform in Tehran's Tajrish Square, as spectators watched and cheered.
The performance was part of a series of anti-American displays organized by Iranian authorities across the capital.
Banner depicting US and Israeli leaders set ablaze
Videos circulating on social media also showed a large banner depicting Trump, US Vice President JD Vance, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US special envoy Steve Witkoff being set on fire in Tehran's Enghelab Square on Wednesday evening, November 4.
People gathered in front of the banner chanted "We will kill Trump" as it burned. Several Iranian media outlets also published the footage.
Another large billboard installed in Enghelab Square depicted Trump behind prison bars, his head bowed beneath the English-language message "We will kill Trump."
State-backed campaign targets Trump
Tehran's municipal authorities organized the prison-themed exhibition in Tajrish Square, which included a life-size cell and an actor impersonating the American president.
The displays coincided with events marking the anniversary of the 1979 seizure of the US Embassy in Tehran, during which demonstrators carried placards calling for Trump's death.
Iranian diplomatic accounts also joined the campaign following the US midterms.
The Islamic Republic's embassy account in India shared an AI-generated video depicting Trump being carried out of the White House and thrown into a dumpster marked "Hazardous waste."
Another AI-generated image portrayed a defeated Trump outside the White House, accompanied by the words "Mission Failed" and a message mocking his election losses.
Iran targets Trump after Republican election losses
The displays followed major Republican setbacks in the November 3 elections, which handed control of Congress to the Democrats.
Trump attributed much of the Republican defeat to the US-Israeli war with Iran and the resulting increases in gasoline prices and inflation, although he maintained that the war had been worthwhile.
Russia agreed to supply Iran with 90 helicopter-mounted launchers for precision-guided missiles widely used by Russian forces in Ukraine, the Financial Times reported on Thursday, revealing another dimension of Moscow's military cooperation with Tehran.
The previously unreported order adds to evidence of Russian assistance to Iran's military, including a secret program to help Tehran develop supersonic cruise missiles that could potentially threaten US Navy vessels in the Persian Gulf.
A Russian defense industry production schedule covering 2024 and 2025, obtained by the FT, identified an export order for 90 APU-L launchers from a buyer designated "K-10," a code used by Russia's state arms exporter to refer to Iran.
The documents did not establish whether the launchers were ultimately delivered.
Precision-guided weapons used in Ukraine
The launchers are designed to carry Russia's light multipurpose guided missile, known as LMUR or Izdeliye 305, a precision weapon capable of striking moving targets.
The missile entered Russian military service in 2022 and has since been widely used in Ukraine. An operator can guide it during flight, allowing adjustments to its target.
According to the US Army's Worldwide Equipment Guide, APU-L launchers are designed for Russia's Mi-28 attack helicopters and can carry two missiles each.
Iran has already acquired Russian Mi-28 helicopters. In November 2023, Iranian officials announced that arrangements for their delivery had been finalized. Images appearing online in January 2026 subsequently showed an Mi-28 at an aviation facility in Tehran, according to the FT.
The production documents were provided to the newspaper by Dallas Analytics, a Ukrainian private intelligence organization.
A May 2024 letter from Russian missile manufacturer Vympel warned another defense bureau that delays in supplying launcher components could jeopardize several contracts.
Russia also helped Iran develop supersonic cruise missiles
The latest report follows a September FT investigation revealing that Russia had secretly assisted Iran in developing supersonic cruise missile technology through a program codenamed C430L.
According to leaked Russian correspondence, travel records and military patents reviewed by the newspaper, the program began in 2023 and continued during this year's war involving Iran, the United States and Israel.
The project focused on developing a ramjet propulsion system capable of sustaining missile flight at several times the speed of sound, potentially reducing the time available for US and allied air defenses to respond.
"For the Iranians, this would give them a qualitatively new strategic weapon system that could threaten US Navy vessels," Jim Lamson, a former CIA military analyst specializing in Iran, told the FT.
Iran had built and flight-tested the propulsion system, but the newspaper found no evidence that a Russian-assisted supersonic cruise missile had entered operational service.
Russian engineers reportedly traveled repeatedly to Iran and later analyzed Iranian flight-test data, advising on fuel systems, combustion stability, air intake and engine design.
"This is the transfer of a highly strategically sensitive military technology from Russia that the Iranians have wanted to acquire for decades," Fabian Hinz, a senior analyst at Conflict Armament Research, told the FT in September.
Military cooperation deepens during Iran war
The launcher agreement and missile development program illustrate different aspects of Russian assistance to Tehran, ranging from supplying military equipment to transferring specialized technical knowledge.
The FT has also reported that Russia agreed to supply Iran with Verba shoulder-fired air defense systems.
The relationship has developed in both directions. Iran previously supplied Russia with Shahed attack drones used in Ukraine and helped Moscow establish domestic production.
Western intelligence officials told the FT that Moscow and Tehran had strengthened their military partnership further during this year's conflict in the Middle East, despite US President Donald Trump's assertion that Russia was doing "very little, if anything" to assist Iran.
"It is indicative of Russia's willingness to continue supplying Iran despite its own wartime demands and with far less concern about western objections than in the past," Nicole Grajewski, a scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told the newspaper.
Limits to Moscow's involvement
Despite growing cooperation, analysts cautioned against overstating Russia's role in the ongoing conflict.
Hanna Notte, Eurasia program director at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, said Moscow was balancing its support for Iran against its relationships with Washington and other countries in the Middle East.
"Russia still has certain red lines when it comes to its involvement in this war," Notte told the FT.
"Which is why the support it has provided to Iran is operationally helpful but is not the game changer in this war."
US Vice President JD Vance blamed the war with Iran for Republicans' sweeping midterm election defeats, including the loss of both chambers of Congress, as President Donald Trump weighed renewed military strikes against Tehran or a negotiated settlement to end the conflict.
"The reason we lost is the war," Vance wrote on X.
"If you'd like to argue it was worth it, that losing the Senate for the next 6 years was worth it, then do so," Vance wrote on Wednesday. "But everyone knows why we lost. And any honest conversation about where we go from here must start there."
Trump acknowledged that the war had contributed to the election setbacks but defended his decision to attack Iran, saying he would make the same choice again.
Trump defends Iran war
Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Trump said Vance's assessment was "largely true," pointing to the rise in gasoline prices following the conflict.
"We had no choice. You can't let Iran have a nuclear weapon," Trump said.
Asked when he would end the war, Trump replied: "Whenever I wanted to. But it's got to be done right, because they can't have a nuclear weapon."
In comments to The Wall Street Journal, Trump said "Iran was a piece of it," referring to the Republican losses, but reiterated that the military campaign was necessary.
Vance, who has been involved in negotiations with Tehran, also praised advice to seek a diplomatic resolution to the conflict.
The Wall Street Journal reported that Vance had opposed the war from the outset, despite publicly defending the administration's military actions.
US officials debate renewed strikes on Iran
Senior US officials are debating whether to escalate military operations against Iran or continue applying economic pressure while pursuing negotiations, according to reports by The Wall Street Journal and Axios.
The Journal reported on Wednesday that some officials were advocating an escalation of strikes, while the administration had spent weeks discussing the war's impact on the elections and whether to publicly acknowledge continuing military operations against Iran.
Axios reported that the US military was completing preparations for a possible resumption of major combat operations, including deploying additional military assets to the region.
Other senior officials favor maintaining the naval blockade of Iranian ports and economic sanctions while assessing whether Tehran is prepared to reach an agreement.
CIA Director John Ratcliffe and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent are among those advocating continued economic and military pressure rather than an immediate return to large-scale strikes, according to Axios.
Trump has not announced a decision on whether to expand the military campaign.
Qatar seeks agreement to avert renewed fighting
The discussions in Washington come as Qatar continues efforts to secure US and Iranian approval for a proposal aimed at preventing another major escalation and potentially restarting direct negotiations.
According to Axios, Qatari mediators are working to obtain support from both sides for a draft agreement, with the possibility of direct talks in the coming days.
Vance has been among the senior officials advising Trump to pursue an agreement with Iran, warning privately about the consequences of prolonging the war, the report said.
The mediation effort has yet to produce a breakthrough. Iranian and US officials remain divided over key issues, including Tehran's nuclear program, sanctions and arrangements involving the Strait of Hormuz.
Trump's administration is also considering maintaining its current approach of a naval blockade and economic pressure without immediately resuming large-scale military operations.
Trump backs defense secretary amid scrutiny of Iran campaign
Trump also defended Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Wednesday as questions emerged over whether the administration might change its military leadership following the election.
Asked whether he was considering replacing Hegseth, Trump said: "No, I think he's doing a very good job."
Reuters reported that some Trump advisers had discussed the possibility of replacing Hegseth, who has been a prominent supporter of the war against Iran.
Democratic lawmakers, who won control of both chambers of Congress, have indicated that they intend to investigate the Pentagon's handling of the Iran conflict.
The Defense Department said Hegseth remained committed to serving through the end of Trump's term and defended the legality of its operations.
With no agreement yet reached between Washington and Tehran, the administration continues to weigh renewed strikes, sustained economic pressure and diplomatic efforts to end the conflict.
