Khamenei sheltering in Tehran bunker as US fleet approaches

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A retired Iranian army pilot was shot dead during protests in Tehran earlier this month, according to information shared with Iran International.

Mohammad Khan-Mohammadi, a 67-year-old former pilot and a wounded veteran of the Iran-Iraq war, was struck by two bullets on January 9 in Kaj Square in the Saadat Abad neighborhood in northwestern Tehran.

Emory University has dismissed Fatemeh Ardeshir Larijani, the daughter of the US-sanctioned security chief of the Islamic Republic, the university confirmed to Iran International on Saturday, following growing calls for her removal.

"A physician who is the daughter of a senior Iranian government official is no longer an employee of Emory," the university’s Winship Cancer Institute, where Larijani worked, said in response to Iran International’s inquiry.

"Because this is a personnel matter, we are unable to provide additional information," the university said.

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“I despise the system and the guardianship that ordered this crime and massacre," said Hassan Younesi, the son of former intelligence minister Ali Younesi, in a post on his X account.

He described the government and the reformist camp as complicit in the killing of people.

“I despise a government that became a partner in this crime; I despise a reformism that justified this massacre; and I grieve and mourn for Iran’s children.”

The CEO of Iran’s Telecommunications Infrastructure Company told reporters that problems affecting access to the internet are expected to be resolved on Saturday or Sunday.

The official said efforts are underway to stabilize connectivity after intermittent disruptions, the report said.

According to Fars News, the decision to reconnect Iran to the internet was approved by the Supreme National Security Council late Friday and formally communicated to the Ministry of Communications.

From around midday on Saturday, many users across Iran briefly regained access to the internet. However, the connection was short-lived and unstable, cutting out again after roughly 30 minutes, according to Fars News.

Fars News quoted officials at the Ministry of Communications as saying that work is continuing to restore international internet access, but that fully stabilizing the connection will take time due to technical complexity.

The ministry did not provide a precise timeline for when access would return on a sustained basis.

Ali Larijani, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, met Mohammad Pakpour, the commander-in-chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), on the occasion of National Guard Day, an observance added to Iran’s official calendar by the Islamic Republic in the 1980s to honor the IRGC.

In recent days, provincial governors and security officials in several parts of Iran have summoned reformist figures to governorate offices for security “briefing” sessions aimed at politically justifying the crackdown on protests and the widespread killings, one participant in the meeting told Iran International.

In some sessions, the source said, objections and heated arguments broke out between reformists and security officials, with several attendees reacting strongly to the scale of the killings.

Provincial officials responded by claiming that those killed during the protests were “terrorists” or individuals who had “entered the country from abroad.”

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian had previously stressed the need to “convince different segments of society,” particularly doctors, about the Islamic Republic’s handling of the unrest and the security response.

Iran’s government spokeswoman on Saturday dismissed a UN Human Rights Council resolution condemning the Islamic Republic’s massacre of protesters as “politically motivated and unbalanced.”

Iranians gathered on Saturday in Oslo, the capital of Norway, in support of their compatriots’ protests against the Islamic Republic.