DUBAI: Iranian security forces stepped up their crackdown on Kurdish regions of the country overnight, deploying shock troops, as authorities pursued their deadly suppression of nationwide protests sparked by Mahsa Amini’s death in police custody.
Nearly four weeks after Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian Kurd, was detained in Tehran for “inappropriate attire,” the protests show no sign of abating in a bold challenge to Iran’s clerical rulers, even if the unrest does not seem close to toppling them.
The unrest has underlined pent-up frustrations over freedoms and rights in Iran, with many women joining in. The deaths of several teenaged girls reportedly killed while demonstrating have becoming a rally cry for more protests.
Iran deployed members of the Basij militia, troops which have been at the forefront of repressing popular unrest, in Kurdish areas where seven people were killed in protests overnight.
Videos on social media which Reuters could not verify showed what appeared to be Basij beating protesters in Kurdish areas.
Two sources in Sanandaj, capital of Kurdistan province, told Reuters that Basij members, along with riot police, were attacking demonstrators.
A witness told Reuters hundreds of riot police and Basij forces have been transferred from other provinces to Kurdistan to confront protesters.
“A few days ago some Basij members from Sanandaj and Baneh refused to follow orders and shoot the people,” said the witness.
“In Saqez the situation is the worst. Those Basiji forces just shoot at people, houses, even if there are no protesters.”
Basij volunteers, affiliated to the elite Revolutionary Guards, may number in the millions, with 1 million active members, analysts say.
Although the latest protests have persisted for weeks, the Iranian authorities have experience of quelling much longer bouts of unrest. In 2009, nationwide demonstrations that erupted over a disputed election lasted for about six months before finally being brought under control.
While many officials have struck an uncompromising tone, a top adviser to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has been cited as questioning whether police should be enforcing headscarf-wearing — rare criticism of state efforts to impose the hijab.
Human rights groups have reported more than 200 killed in the crackdown on the protests, which have been particularly intense in Kurdish regions where security forces have put down unrest by the Kurdish minority in the past.
A source in Sanandaj told Reuters riot police were searching houses and arresting dozens of young people, describing the situation as very tense with hundreds of police officers on the city’s streets.
“We have information from Baneh and Saqez as well. They have arrested dozens of young people since yesterday, including teenagers,” added the source, who declined to be identified because of fears for their safety.
Rights group Hengaw, which reports on Iran’s Kurdish regions, said protesters in 10 cities had confronted “security forces’ intense violence” on Wednesday night.
In the city of Kermanshah, direct fire from security forces killed two people, Hengaw said. It posted a picture of the body of an 18-year-old man it said was one of the dead.
A video posted on social media from Kermanshah late on Wednesday showed a fire burning in the road. “Kermanshah is hell, it’s war, it’s war,” a voice can be heard saying.
Three members of the security forces were also killed in Kermanshah and around 40 more injured, Hengaw said.
It said a fourth member of the security forces was killed in Mahabad, and firing by security forces killed another person in Sanandaj.
Officials have denied that security forces have fired on protesters and have previously reported around 20 members of the security forces killed during the nationwide unrest.
Reuters could not independently verify the videos and reports.
Iran’s Kurds are part of an ethnic minority spread between several regional states whose autonomy aspirations have also led to conflicts with authorities in Iraq, Syria and Turkey.
TOUGH SENTENCES
While officials have blamed violence on ethnic separatists — the Revolutionary Guards have attacked Kurdish Iranian dissident bases in neighboring Iraq — protesters’ chants have stressed unity against Islamist rule and called for Khamenei’s downfall.
During the protests, many women have been publicly removing, waving and burning the headscarves they are required to wear under Iran’s conservative dress codes that led to Amini’s arrest.
Khamenei adviser Ali Larijani, a former parliament speaker, said “if 50 percent of our country’s women do not practice wearing a full hijab, then the police should not be involved.”
“The question here is this: Should the government interfere in all matters such as this one?” he told the Ettela’at daily.
Security forces arrested three human rights lawyers who were protesting in front of the Bar Association in Tehran on Wednesday, lawyer Saeid Dehghan said.
While Iran has used force to crack down on the unrest, there has been no sign yet of the Revolutionary Guards — an elite force — being deployed.
Iran’s top judge said he had ordered tough sentences for the “main elements of riots,” a semi-official news agency reported.
“I have instructed our judges to avoid showing unnecessary sympathy ... and issue tough sentences for them while separating the less guilty people,” Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei was quoted as saying.
Iranian state media has reported indictments have been filed against some people detained during the protests, but has not said how many. Rights groups estimated thousands have been arrested.
Iran intensifies crackdown on Kurdish areas as protests rage
https://arab.news/25nr7
Iran intensifies crackdown on Kurdish areas as protests rage
- Nearly four weeks after Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian Kurd, was detained in Tehran for “inappropriate attire”
- The unrest has underlined pent-up frustrations over freedoms and rights in Iran, with many women joining in
Israeli strikes kill 14 Palestinians in Gaza, some in attacks on tents, say medics
- The Israeli army sent tanks and soldiers into Beit Lahiya and the nearby towns of Beit Hanoun and Jabalia
- Organization had been unable to deliver supplies of food, medicine and surgical equipment
Four people, two of them children, were killed in an Israeli airstrike on a tent encampment in the coastal area of Al-Mawasi, designated as a humanitarian zone, while two others were killed in temporary shelters in the southern city of Rafah and another in drone fire, health officials said.
In Beit Lahiya town in northern Gaza, medics said an Israeli missile struck a house, killing at least two people and wounding several others. On Sunday, medics and residents said dozens of people were killed or wounded in an Israeli airstrike on a multi-floor residential building in the town.
The Israeli military, which has been fighting Palestinian militant group Hamas in Gaza since October 2023, said it conducted strikes on “terrorist targets,” in Beit Lahiya.
Later on Monday, an Israeli airstrike on a house in Gaza City killed five people and wounded 10 others, medics said.
There has been no Israeli comment on Monday’s incidents.
The Israeli army sent tanks and soldiers into Beit Lahiya and the nearby towns of Beit Hanoun and Jabalia, the largest of the Gaza Strip’s eight historic refugee camps, early last month in what it said was a campaign to fight Hamas militants waging attacks and prevent them from regrouping.
Hussam Abu Safiya, the director of the Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahiya, said the hospital was under siege by Israeli forces and the World Health Organization had been unable to deliver supplies of food, medicine and surgical equipment.
Cases of malnutrition among children were increasing, he said, and the hospital was operating at a minimal level.
“We receive daily distress calls, but we are unable to assist them due to the lack of ambulances, and the situation is catastrophic,” he said. “Yesterday, I received a distress call from women and children trapped under the rubble, and due to my inability to help them, they are now among the martyrs (dead).”
Israel said it had killed hundreds of militants in the three northern areas, which residents said was cut off from Gaza City, making it difficult and dangerous for them to flee. The armed wings of Hamas and militant group Islamic Jihad said they have killed many Israeli soldiers in anti-tank rocket and mortar fire attacks during the same period.
The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry says more than 43,800 people have been confirmed killed since the war erupted on Oct. 7, 2023. Hamas militants killed around 1,200 people in attacks on communities in southern Israel that day, and hold dozens of some 250 hostages they took back to Gaza, according to Israeli tallies.
Reports that Hamas office moved to Turkiye not true, Turkish source says
ANKARA: Reports that Palestinian militant group Hamas’ office has moved to Turkiye do not reflect the truth, a Turkish diplomatic source said on Monday, adding members of the group visited the country from time to time.
Doha said last week it had told Hamas and Israel it will stall efforts to mediate a Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal until they show willingness and seriousness. It also said that media reports it had told Hamas to leave the country were no accurate.
Turkiye has fiercely criticized Israel over its offensives in Gaza and in Lebanon and does not deem Hamas a terrorist organization. Some Hamas political officials regularly visit Turkiye.
Schools closed in Beirut after deadly Israeli strike
- Sunday’s strikes hit densely populated districts of central Beirut
- Six people were killed in the strikes
BEIRUT: Schools in Beirut were closed on Monday after Israeli strikes on the Lebanese capital killed six people including Hezbollah’s spokesman, the latest in a string of top militant targets slain in the war.
Israel escalated its bombardment of Hezbollah strongholds in late September, vowing to secure its northern border with Lebanon to allow Israelis displaced by cross-border fire to return home.
Sunday’s strikes hit densely populated districts of central Beirut that had so far been spared the violence engulfing other areas of Lebanon.
Six people were killed in the strikes, according to Lebanese health ministry figures, including Hezbollah media relations chief Mohammed Afif, the group and Israel’s military said.
The strikes prompted the education ministry to shut schools and higher education institutions in the Beirut area for two days.
Children and young people around Lebanon have been heavily impacted by the war, which has seen schools around the country turned into shelters for the displaced.
Israel widened the focus of its war from Gaza to Lebanon in late September, nearly a year into the conflict in Gaza that was sparked by Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack.
In support of its Palestinian ally, Hezbollah launched low-intensity strikes on Israel after the attack, forcing about 60,000 Israelis to flee their homes.
With Hamas weakened but not crushed, Israel escalated its battle against Hezbollah, vowing to fight until victory.
Lebanese authorities say more than 3,480 people have been killed since October last year, with most casualties recorded since September.
Israel says 48 soldiers have been killed fighting Hezbollah.
Israeli strikes have killed senior Hezbollah officials including its leader Hassan Nasrallah in late September.
The group’s spokesman Afif was part of Nasrallah’s inner circle, and one of the group’s few officials to engage with the press.
Another strike hit a busy shopping district of Beirut, sparking a huge blaze that engulfed part of a building and several shops nearby.
Lebanon’s National News Agency said the fire had largely been extinguished by Monday morning, noting it had caused diesel fuel tanks to explode.
It also reported new strikes early Monday on locations around south Lebanon, long a stronghold of Hezbollah.
Israel’s military told AFP it had hit more than 200 targets in Lebanon over 36 hours, including in Beirut’s southern suburbs, Hezbollah’s main bastion.
Lebanon’s military, which is not a party to the conflict, said Israel “directly targeted” an army center in south Lebanon on Sunday, killing two soldiers.
Israel’s military said about 20 projectiles crossed from Lebanon into Israel, and some were intercepted.
Lebanon last week said it was reviewing a US truce proposal in the Israel-Hezbollah war, as Hamas said it was ready for a ceasefire in Gaza.
Ongoing war on Gaza
So far, however, there has been no sign of the wars abating.
The Israeli military kept up its campaign in Gaza over the weekend, where civil defense rescuers said strikes on Sunday killed dozens of people.
Vowing to stop Hamas from regrouping in northern Gaza near the border, Israel on October 6 began an air and ground operation in Jabalia and then expanded it to Beit Lahia.
On Sunday, Gaza’s civil defense agency said 34 people were killed, including children, and dozens were missing after an Israeli air strike hit a five-story residential building in Beit Lahia.
“The chances of rescuing more wounded are decreasing because of the continuous shooting and artillery shelling,” civil defense spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP.
Weighed down with backpacks, many like Omar Abdel Aal were fleeing, often on foot, through dusty streets.
“They bombarded the houses and completely destroyed Beit Lahia,” he said.
Israel’s military said there were “ongoing terrorist activities in the area of Beit Lahia” and several strikes were directed at militant targets there.
“We emphasize that there have been continuous efforts to evacuate the civilian population from the active war zone in the area,” the military said.
The United Nations and others have condemned humanitarian conditions in northern Gaza, with the UN agency supporting Palestinian refugees last week calling the situation “catastrophic.”
The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza on Sunday said the overall death toll in more than 13 months of war had reached 43,846, a majority civilians, figures that the United Nations consider reliable.
Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,206 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
US envoy expected in Beirut on Tuesday for ceasefire talks
- World powers say a Lebanon ceasefire must be based on UN Security Council Resolution 1701 which ended a 2006 war between Hezbollah and Israel
BEIRUT: The US official overseeing contacts to secure a ceasefire between Israel and the Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon is due to visit Beirut on Tuesday, sources in Lebanon said on Monday, with Beirut expected give its response to a US truce proposal.
The US-led ceasefire diplomacy has come back into focus as Israel has been stepping up its offensive: Israeli strikes in two Beirut neighborhoods killed six people including at least one senior Hezbollah official on Sunday, the first time Israel has struck central areas of the capital in a month.
The new US truce proposal was delivered last week to Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, who has been endorsed by Hezbollah to negotiate.
White House envoy Amos Hochstein was expected in Beirut on Tuesday for talks on the ceasefire, a Lebanese political source told Reuters. Lebanese media outlet Voice of Lebanon also reported the visit, citing Lebanese lawmaker Kassem Hashem, who is part of Berri’s parliamentary bloc.
World powers say a Lebanon ceasefire must be based on UN Security Council Resolution 1701 which ended a 2006 war between Hezbollah and Israel. Its terms require Hezbollah to move weapons and fighters north of the Litani river, some 20 kilometers north of the border.
The diplomacy has been complicated by an Israeli demand for the freedom to act should Hezbollah violate any agreement, which Lebanon has rejected.
Israel launched its offensive after almost a year of cross-border hostilities with Hezbollah. Its declared goal is to secure the return home of tens of thousands of Israelis forced to evacuate the north due to rocket fire from Hezbollah, which opened fire in solidarity with its ally Hamas as the Gaza war got underway more than a year ago.
The Israeli campaign has uprooted more than 1 million people in Lebanon. Israel has dealt Hezbollah heavy blows, using airstrikes to pummel wide areas of Lebanon and sending ground forces into the south.
Israel assassinates Hezbollah media official
- Mohammed Afif killed in strike on Arab Socialist Ba’ath Party office in central Beirut, Lebanon
- Afif, founding member of Hezbollah, joined party in 1983, and has been media in-charge since 2014
BEIRUT: An Israeli strike on a building in central Beirut on Sunday killed Hezbollah’s media relations chief, Mohammad Afif.
It was later announced that Mahmoud Al-Sharqawi, who was assisting Afif, was also killed at the headquarters of the Arab Socialist Ba’ath Party in Ras Al-Nabaa, a neighborhood of Beirut.
This is the first time this area has been attacked since Israel began operations in the country.
It is densely populated with residents and displaced people from the south, and Beirut’s southern suburbs who have taken refuge there.
The strike also wounded three others, the Health Ministry said in a preliminary count.
Paramedics at the scene of the attack told Arab News about “seeing more blood under the rubble, which is being cleared to determine the fate of those who were inside the building.”
The targeted center has belonged to the Ba’ath Party for decades.
Its Secretary-General Ali Hijazi said he was not in the building at the time of the airstrike, and did not explain why Afif was holding a meeting in the Ba’ath Party building.
Information circulated at the site of the attack that a group from Hezbollah’s media relations department was in the building when it was targeted, raising fears that three people accompanying Afif and who are missing might also have been killed.
On Oct. 22 and Nov. 11, Afif held two press conferences in the open air in the southern suburb of Beirut to present Hezbollah’s positions on developments under the watchful eye of Israeli reconnaissance planes, which are constantly flying over the southern suburb.
Afif was a founding member of Hezbollah, joining the party in 1983, and has been in charge of its media since 2014.
He managed Hezbollah-affiliated media outlets such as Al-Manar TV, Al-Nour radio station, and Al-Ahed news website.
Several residents of the targeted area said they received calls warning them to evacuate their homes immediately beforehand.
A 50-year-old woman said: “I just left the house without taking anything with me. It is a real terror.”
The airstrike, which is suspected to have been launched by a drone, destroyed the upper floors of the five-story building, and damaged neighboring buildings on the narrow street.
Israeli army radio confirmed Mohammed Afif was the target of the strike.
It is the third time Beirut has been targeted since the Israeli military expanded its operations in Lebanon.
On Oct. 10, three airstrikes were directed at Wafiq Safa, the head of the liaison and coordination unit of Hezbollah, severely injuring him, as well as the destruction of two buildings in the neighborhoods of Basta and Nuwairi.
A week before, a Hezbollah ambulance center in Bachoura was attacked, leading to the deaths of six people and injuries to seven others.
On Sunday, residents of the Ain Al-Rummaneh area adjacent to the Chiyah district received evacuation warnings issued by Israeli army spokesperson Avichay Adraee via X, accompanied by maps indicating locations to be targeted on the outskirts of Ain Al-Rummaneh, Haret Hreik, and Hadath.
Israeli warplanes subsequently demolished tall residential and commercial buildings in the area.
Our Lady of Salvation Church in Hadath was severely damaged, as were the surroundings of Mar Mikhael Church.
This was followed by a second wave of raids on residential buildings in Burj Al-Barajneh and Bir Al-Abed, and a third wave targeted more than one location in Haret Hreik and Sfeir.
The Israeli spokesperson claimed that the airstrikes “targeted military command centers and other terrorist infrastructures belonging to Hezbollah in the southern suburbs.”
The claim came as Israeli attacks targeting southern Lebanon continued.
The residents of 15 towns deep in the south were asked to evacuate their houses immediately and move north of the Awali River.
The Lebanese military said an Israeli attack on Sunday killed two soldiers, accusing Israel of directly targeting their position in southern Lebanon.
“The Israeli enemy directly targeted an army center” in Al-Mari in the Hasbaya area, causing “the death of one of the soldiers and the wounding of three others, one of whom is in critical condition,” the army said in a statement.
A separate statement shortly afterward said “a second soldier” had died of his wounds.
The Lebanese Army has lost 36 soldiers to Israeli attacks in southern Lebanon over the past year.
Prime Minister Najib Mikati paid tribute to the “martyrs of the army who gave their lives.”
He said: “We must all cooperate so their sacrifices do not go in vain by working first to stop the Israeli aggression on Lebanon and enable the army to carry out all the tasks required of it, to extend the authority of the state alone over all Lebanese territories.”
Mikati said he was hopeful that the ongoing talks would result in a ceasefire.
Also on Sunday, Israeli strikes targeted a house in Chabriha, Sidon District, causing injuries, with raids hitting Tefahta and Aanquoun as well.
In another incident, a person was killed and three injured at dawn in an air raid on the town of Jdeidet Marjayoun.
On Saturday night, a family of seven, including three children, were killed when their house in Arabsalim was targeted.
The displaced Al-Hattab family had moved to the north but was not able to adapt to the conditions of displacement and decided to go back to their home in Arabsalim days before it was hit.
Hezbollah said its confrontations with the Israeli army continued at the borders, especially in Shama.
