US estimates Iran still has up to 2,500 missiles – WSJ

The report identified Tippmann guns, a brand owned by Montreal-based KORE Outdoor, in the possession of Iranian security personnel. Investigators could not establish whether the guns were responsible for any of the blinding injuries.

“We’ll take this report. I was not aware of it, and we’ll send it to the appropriate authorities,” Ehsassi told Iran International’s Eye for Iran.

Ehsassi, a Liberal who represents Willowdale, said he did not know whether Global Affairs Canada had reviewed the investigation, published in September 2025 by IranWire and the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center.

Asked what Canada could do about the equipment reaching Iranian security forces, he pointed to federal funding to strengthen sanctions enforcement.

Iran International contacted Global Affairs Canada and KORE Outdoor for comment. Neither responded by the deadline for this report.

How did Tippmann guns reach Iran?

Shahin Milani of the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center told Iran International that researchers found photographs showing Iranian security personnel with paintball guns bearing the Tippmann logo.

One photograph from 2018 shows a member of the Fatehin special unit holding a Tippmann marker. The report also includes a screenshot of the Iranian Paintball Association’s website offering a Tippmann marker for sale.

Some paintball guns seen in footage from the 2022 protests resembled Tippmann models, the researchers said, but image quality and distance made the brand difficult to confirm. Milani said investigators could not link a specific case of blinding to a Tippmann gun.

In October 2022, KORE Outdoor CEO Billy Ceranski condemned the use of the company’s paintball products to suppress protests in Iran. He said KORE complied with US import and export laws and had never sold goods directly or indirectly to countries on the US arms embargo list, including Iran.

Milani said Canadian authorities could start by asking KORE to identify its buyers and then ask those buyers where the equipment went next.

“You cannot just sell such devices and not care as to who actually ends up owning them,” Milani told Iran International.

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Hundreds suffered eye injuries

A separate investigation by the Human Rights Center at the University of California, Berkeley found that about 120 people suffered partial or total blindness during the 2022–23 crackdown.

Researchers documented close-range shots to the face involving shotguns, paintball guns and tear gas canisters.

By November 2022, ophthalmologists at three Tehran hospitals had reported at least 500 serious eye injuries, while doctors in Kurdistan province reported at least 80 more.

In its investigation, IranWire and the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center documented 134 people injured by weapons described as less lethal across 47 cities in 24 provinces. At least 114 were injured by shotgun pellets and nine by paintball projectiles. Most of the injuries were to the head, face or eyes.

In one video from December 2022, a plainclothes agent fires a paintball gun at the face of a person being detained in Tehran’s Ekbatan neighborhood.

Blinding injuries documented again in January

Severe eye injuries were also reported during Iran’s January 2026 crackdown, although no link has been established between those cases and Tippmann guns.

Dr. Sarah Raza, a trauma and vascular interventional radiologist who advised wounded protesters remotely, told Iran International that patients feared their wounds would identify them as protesters if they sought medical care.

Raza cited reports of more than 400 gunshot-related eye injuries at a single Tehran hospital during the January 8 and 9 crackdown.

The report Ehsassi pledged to forward examined the 2022 crackdown. The weapons used in the January cases remain a separate question.

Democrats won control of both chambers of Congress in the November 3 elections, a defeat for Republicans that President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance acknowledged was driven in part by public dissatisfaction with the war.

“Last week, voters were loud and clear: Trump’s economy doesn’t work for Americans,” Senate Democrats said in a statement on X on Friday.

“When Senate Democrats are back in the majority next year, we will take immediate action to end Trump’s war in Iran, stop his reckless tariffs, and lower costs for everything from energy to groceries to housing.”

A Reuters/Ipsos poll released Tuesday found that 71 percent of Americans wanted Congress to pass legislation ending the conflict, including 93 percent of Democrats and 51 percent of Republicans.

The growing pressure has reached the current Republican-controlled Congress, where Representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky, a frequent critic of Trump, has pledged to force another vote on ending the war before his term expires.

Massie introduced a War Powers resolution on November 10 directing the president to remove US forces from hostilities with Iran.

In a post on X Saturday, Massie said he could force a vote by mid-December, provided House Speaker Mike Johnson does not cancel scheduled legislative days. He added that two other resolutions seeking to end the war could reach the House floor even sooner.

But Republican lawmakers, including some who have criticized the conflict, remain reluctant to use congressional powers to force its conclusion.

“A Republican Congress is not going to send bills to a Republican president that he's going to veto,” Representative Tom Cole of Oklahoma, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, told reporters this week.

The disagreement is expected to become a central issue in negotiations over government funding, which expires on December 11, raising the possibility of another shutdown confrontation.

Several Republicans have previously joined Democrats in attempts to restrict Trump's military operations, although most of the party has remained aligned with the president.

A war that was supposed to last weeks

The pressure has intensified as the conflict approaches its ninth month, far exceeding the administration's initial expectations.

“We are now in week 37 of Trump’s ‘2 to 3 week’ war with Iran,” Democratic Representative Jason Crow of Colorado wrote on X.

Representative Jimmy Panetta, a California Democrat, also accused Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth of continuing the war in violation of the War Powers Resolution of 1973 and failing to provide transparency over deadly strikes on civilians, including an elementary school in Iran.

“Congress will exercise its constitutional authority to hold him accountable,” Panetta said.

Democrats will have several options when they take control of Congress on January 3, including legislation restricting military operations, limits on war funding and congressional investigations into the administration's conduct.

But their ability to compel an end to the conflict remains uncertain. Trump could veto legislation passed by Congress, requiring two-thirds majorities in both chambers to override him.

"The range of Iran's missiles is not limited to what they have seen," the report, broadcast Saturday, said, claiming that modifications to the Khorramshahr's warhead could increase its range severalfold.

The Khorramshahr-4, unveiled in 2023, has a claimed range of 2,000 kilometers while carrying a warhead weighing 1,500 kilograms. A lighter warhead could extend its range, although the extent of any increase remains unverified.

The broadcast included a review of missiles and drones Iran has used in its wars with Israel and the United States since June 2025, presenting the Khorramshahr as part of a broader arsenal capable of threatening American installations farther afield.

In a warning directed at Britain, the report suggested that British air defenses were not necessarily more capable than Israel's, which it claimed Iranian missiles had already penetrated during the war.

There has been no independent confirmation that Iran possesses a modified Khorramshahr capable of reaching RAF Fairford.

The broadcast invoked an order by Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei that Iran's armed forces should face no geographical restrictions in responding to attacks by the United States or Israel.

Khamenei issued the directive on October 31, calling for immediate and effective retaliation without geographical limits and ordering military commanders to update their list of potential targets.

Iran's Revolutionary Guards subsequently said the country's longstanding self-imposed limit of 2,000 kilometers on ballistic missile ranges had been lifted, although they did not specify whether longer-range missiles had been developed or deployed.

The broadcast follows a series of warnings from senior Iranian officials that American bases in Europe and on distant islands could become targets if Washington launches further attacks.

Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, said earlier this week that Tehran would no longer confine its response to nearby US military installations and could strike bases in European countries.

The threats come as diplomatic efforts to end the war remain stalled, with Tehran demanding an end to the US naval blockade of Iranian ports and relief from sanctions before negotiations can resume.

Washington has maintained its economic pressure campaign, while President Donald Trump has declared that he wants a total victory over Iran and suggested the United States no longer needs a negotiated agreement.

The latest state television report went further than previous warnings by naming a specific British installation and linking the threat to a purportedly extended-range version of the Khorramshahr missile.

The video is among many circulating on Iranian social media showing women and girls selling their hair for cash.

The reasons for selling vary. Some women and girls say they need money for education, medical treatment or household expenses. Others hope to buy a mobile phone or wedding clothes.

Hair measuring 40 to 60 centimeters has been advertised for between five million and 30 million tomans. Exceptionally long or desirable hair has been listed for as much as 100 million tomans, although advertised prices do not necessarily reflect what sellers receive.

For some, selling hair is a relatively straightforward way to earn money from something that will eventually grow back. For others, it reflects more pressing financial difficulties.

Instagram is filled with videos advertising hair-buying services across Iran. Women and girls sit with their backs to the camera as buyers divide their hair into bundles, tie them tightly and cut them with scissors.

Growing market

Buyers seek long, healthy, untreated hair, while dyed or damaged hair commands lower prices. Young women and girls with naturally long hair are therefore particularly sought after.

Once cut, the hair enters a commercial market supplying wigs, extensions and, in some cases, the film industry.

Some sellers visit hair-buying businesses, while others negotiate remotely, sending photographs of their hair through WhatsApp for a price estimate before arranging a meeting or postal delivery.

Buyers range from established beauty salons to individuals operating under little more than a name and mobile phone number. Advertisements also appear on classified platforms such as Divar and Sheypoor.

A trade crossing borders

The market extends beyond individual buyers and sellers in Iran.

Last summer, Armenian customs officers discovered 26 kilograms of natural hair, divided into 143 bundles, concealed inside pillows in a truck arriving from Iran at the Agarak border crossing.

The shipment was seized, offering a glimpse into a cross-border trade that media reports have linked to markets in Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and Armenia.

Within Iran, social media advertising, remote negotiations and postal deliveries allow buyers to source hair from sellers hundreds of kilometers away.

For sellers, the arrangement offers a way to turn something they already possess into cash without leaving home. For buyers, it provides access to a wider supply of long, untreated hair.

Temporary relief

But for some of the women and girls appearing in these videos, the transaction is more than a commercial exchange. It means parting with something they have spent years growing, sometimes to meet an immediate financial need.

In some videos, girls appear reluctant to part with their hair, sometimes crying as buyers try to reassure them.

"Don't be sad. Your hair will grow back soon," one buyer tells a girl.

The presence of children raises more troubling questions. Some may have little say in the decision when their families urgently need money.

Even when the sale is voluntary, the proceeds may provide only temporary relief against rising living costs, particularly for those trying to cover recurring expenses.

The scenes recall Fantine in Victor Hugo's Les Misérables, who sells her beautiful hair to provide for her daughter Cosette before poverty drives her to sell her teeth and eventually turn to prostitution.

More than 160 years later, some Iranian women and girls are similarly turning to their hair to meet financial needs, though their circumstances vary.

Esmail Sagheb Esfahani, a vice president who heads the state energy efficiency agency, admitted this week that “we really have a supply problem.” He told Iranians they could no longer count on fuel stations to cover what they need, and should save part of their monthly ration before traveling.

“All the gasoline the government has, it has given to the people,” he said. “Nothing has been held back to supply more.”

On Thursday night, residents of Bandar Abbas, the main port on the Persian Gulf, blocked a road near a fuel station in the city’s Rajaei district with their cars, protesting long lines and empty pumps. Drivers on the Minab–Bandar Abbas route had protested earlier over the lack of fuel.

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Seven years after ‘Bloody November’

Sunday marks seven years since the government announced, shortly after midnight on November 15, 2019, that gasoline prices would rise by 50 to 200 percent. Drivers who had paid 10,000 rials a liter would now pay 15,000 for their first 60 liters a month and 30,000 after that.

Protests broke out within hours and spread to more than 100 cities. Demonstrators blocked highways with their cars, burned banks and tore down images of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. On the second day, Khamenei told senior officials, “Do whatever it takes to end it,” Reuters later reported, citing people close to his inner circle.

• 

  Hardline daily accuses government of scaring Iranians, says there is no crisis

• 

  Iran's oil output plunges below pre-war domestic needs

The state cut off the internet for about a week, and security forces shot protesters with live ammunition, including from rooftops, in Mahshahr in the southwest and in cities across the country. Hundreds of people were killed and more than 7,000 arrested. Iranians call it “Bloody November,” or “Bloody Aban,” after the month in the Iranian calendar.

Those two prices, 15,000 and 30,000 rials, are still the two cheapest tiers today. In 2019 the cheaper one was worth about 12 cents. After seven years of inflation and a collapsing rial, it is worth about half a US cent.

The state has not risked a general price rise since. Each time economic pain has boiled over, it has turned on the state: fuel stations in Tehran were set on fire when rationing began in June 2007, and the uprising over the economic collapse in December 2025 ended in the January massacre.

That memory hangs over every decision. Sagheb Esfahani said this week that the price of the third tier would be reviewed every season, but that “a range of security, military and law enforcement bodies” had to give their opinion first. Government spokeswoman Fatemeh Mohajerani said the two cheapest tiers would not change.

Gasoline for half a cent

Each private car gets a monthly ration on its fuel card: 60 liters at 15,000 rials a liter, half a US cent; 50 liters at 30,000 rials, about one cent; and, since September 8, 50 liters at 100,000 rials, under four cents. A full month’s ration of 160 liters costs about 7.4 million rials, or $2.70.

What the government is doing instead of increasing prices is cutting access.

Until now, drivers who ran out of their ration could fill up with the station’s own “emergency” card at the third-tier price. On September 7, those station cards supplied 41 percent of all gasoline sold, about 59 million liters a day, the national fuel distribution company said.

Since November 1, station cards have been withdrawn in 11 provinces, almost all of them along Iran’s borders with Pakistan, Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, Iraq, Turkey and the Caucasus, plus the Persian Gulf coast, where officials say subsidized fuel is smuggled out. The plan began in Kerman, the first to lose the cards, before spreading.

Tehran, which burns about 20 million liters a day, as much as 15 other provinces combined, has been spared for now. There, each fill-up with a station card is tied to the car owner’s national ID instead. Drivers anywhere who need more than their ration are told to buy premium gasoline at about 1 million rials, or 37 cents, a liter, more than 60 times the cheapest rate.

Executive Vice President Mohammad Jafar Ghaempanah said the cards would be collected province by province within weeks, blaming smuggling.

“Several thousand Nissan pickups do nothing but collect fuel from different provinces and take it across the border,” he said, putting smuggling at 30 million liters a day. A liter of gasoline sells for about 2.6 million rials, or 96 cents, in Pakistan.

Former lawmaker Nezam al-Din Mousavi said about 90 percent of smuggled fuel was diesel, not gasoline. “Stop making excuses and say you are after price rises,” he said.

‘Neither the capacity nor the money to import’

Behind the measures is a supply gap that the war has made impossible to close.

Iran consumed about 133 million liters of gasoline a day on average through October, peaking at 144 million in September, while refineries produce between 112 and 135 million, according to official figures cited by Rouydad24.

Hossein Taeb, head of the Basij militia, said on Thursday that Iran still imports about seven million liters a day. The US naval blockade of Iran’s ports, in place since April, has made those imports harder and costlier, and refineries and fuel depots were damaged in the war.

“Every effort of the government is to match gasoline consumption with domestic production,” Ata Hosseinian, an economic and energy journalist, told Iran International. “There is neither the capacity nor the money to import gasoline.”

The government, he said, is applying the method it used for electricity and gas bills: a fixed cheap ration, and a much higher price above it, while station supplies are released “drip by drip.”

“People have to go to five stations to maybe get the cheaper gasoline at one of them after standing for hours,” he said.

“The Islamic Republic is threatening people with death so they’ll settle for a fever,” he said, citing a Persian saying. Once the fate of Hormuz and the blockade is settled, he expects the third-tier price to rise step by step, each season, toward 500,000 to 700,000 rials a liter, 18 to 26 cents.

‘Please stop talking’

The rationing has also split the establishment.

Within a day of Sagheb Esfahani’s remarks, First Vice President Mohammad Reza Aref ordered officials to stop commenting on gasoline, saying decisions would be announced only by the government spokeswoman or the national refining and distribution company.

A former lawmaker, Ahmad Amirabadi Farahani, posted a message to Sagheb Esfahani: “Doctor, please stop talking, stop giving interviews, stop getting on people’s nerves.”

The hardline daily Kayhan accused “a current” in the government of pursuing higher prices “by other methods,” called the two vice presidents’ remarks “provocative” and said they had fed “hostile media.”

“Regulatory and security bodies must step in as a deterrent,” it wrote. It also warned that without station cards, Iranians could not flee cities if war resumed, as many did during the 12-day and 40-day wars.

The hardline Farhikhtegan called the policy “a media game with society’s psyche in the middle of a war.”

‘What can you do with 110 liters a month?’

Online, the measures drew anger and ridicule.

“With the fuel use of domestic cars, what can you do with 110 liters a month?” one user wrote,. Another asked what the plan was for millions who drive into Tehran every day “to earn 350 or 400 million rials a month,” about $130 to $150, “and survive on bread and eggs.”

“The government’s message is that the real price of gasoline is 1.1 million rials,” a third wrote. At that price, a month’s ration of 160 liters would cost more than the minimum wage of about 166 million rials, or $61