Politics
Iran warns neighbours it could strike US bases if Washington intervenes in protests

- Diplomats say personnel advised to leave US air base in Qatar.
- Tehran calls US warnings “pretext for military intervention”.
- Iran chief justice fast trials against those involved in violence.
Tehran has warned neighbouring countries hosting US troops that it would retaliate against American bases if Washington carries out threats to intervene in protests in Iran, a senior Iranian official told Reuters on Wednesday.
Three diplomats said some personnel had been advised to leave the main US air base in the region, although there were no immediate signs of a large-scale evacuation of troops as took place in the hours before an Iranian missile attack last year.
US President Donald Trump has threatened to intervene in support of protesters in Iran, where a rights group claims hundreds have been killed in recent days in a crackdown on the protest movements.
According to an Israeli assessment, Trump has decided to intervene, although the scope and timing of this action remain unclear, an Israeli official said.

The three diplomats told Reuters that some personnel had been advised to leave the US military’s Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar by Wednesday evening.
One of the diplomats described the move as a “posture change” rather than an “ordered evacuation”. There was no sign of a large-scale movement of troops off the base to a nearby soccer stadium and shopping mall, as took place last year in the hours before Iran targeted the base with missiles in retaliation for US airstrikes on Iranian nuclear targets.
The US embassy in Doha had no immediate comment and Qatar’s foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Trump vows ‘very strong action’
Trump has been openly threatening to intervene in Iran for days, though without giving specifics.
In an interview with CBS News on Tuesday, Trump vowed “very strong action” if Iran executes protesters. “If they hang them, you’re going to see some things,” he said. He also urged Iranians on Tuesday to keep protesting and take over institutions, declaring “help is on the way”.
The Iranian official, a senior figure speaking on condition of anonymity, said Tehran had asked US allies in the region to “prevent Washington from attacking Iran”.
“Tehran has told regional countries, from Saudi Arabia and UAE to Turkiye, that US bases in those countries will be attacked” if the US targets Iran, the official said.
The official added that direct contacts between Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi and US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff had been suspended, reflecting mounting tensions.
A second Israeli source, a government official, said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s security cabinet was briefed late on Tuesday about the chances of government or US intervention in Iran. Israel fought a 12-day war against Tehran last year, which the United States joined at the end.
The United States has forces across the region, including the forward headquarters of its Central Command at Al Udeid in Qatar and the headquarters of the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet in Bahrain.
Iran holds contacts with Turkiye, UAE, Qatar
Iranian state media reported that the head of Iran’s top security body, Ali Larijani, had spoken to the foreign minister of Qatar, and Araqchi had spoken to his Emirati and Turkish counterparts.
Araqchi told UAE Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed that “calm has prevailed” and Iranians were determined to defend their sovereignty and security from any foreign interference, state media reported.
Meanwhile, the flow of information from inside Iran has been hampered by an internet blackout, with internet monitor Netblocks saying on Wednesday that the blackout had lasted 132 hours.
“Metrics show #Iran remains offline as the country wakes to another day of digital darkness,” it said in a post on X.
Some information has trickled out of Iran however. New videos on social media, with locations verified by AFP, showed bodies lined up in the Kahrizak morgue just south of the Iranian capital, with the corpses wrapped in black bags and distraught relatives searching for loved ones.
Iranian authorities have accused the United States and Israel of fomenting the unrest, carried out by people it calls terrorists.
Iran’s chief justice urges swift actions
Visiting a Tehran prison where arrested protesters are being held, Iran’s chief justice said speed in judging and penalising those involved in violence was critical to ensuring such events do not happen again.
Judiciary chief Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei said that “if a person burned someone, beheaded someone and set them on fire then we must do our work quickly”, in comments broadcast by state television.
Iranian news agencies also quoted him as saying the trials should be held in public and said he had spent five hours in a prison in Tehran to examine the cases.
State TV said that a funeral procession would take place on Wednesday in Tehran for more than 100 civilians and security personnel killed in the unrest.

Pro-government rallies were held in Iran on Monday, a show of loyalist support for the current Iranian rulers. So far, there have been no signs of fracture in the security forces that have quelled other bouts of protest over the years.
While Iranian authorities have weathered previous protests, the latest unrest is taking place with Tehran still recovering from last year’s war against Israel.
Trump told reporters on Tuesday that military action was among the options he was weighing to “punish Iran”.
“The killing looks like it’s significant, but we don’t know yet for certain,” said Trump upon returning to the Washington area from Detroit, adding he would know more after receiving a report on Tuesday evening.
Trump on Monday announced 25% import tariffs on products from any country doing business with Iran — a major oil exporter. The US State Department on Tuesday urged American citizens to leave Iran now.
Tehran called the American warnings a “pretext for military intervention”.
Iran’s UN mission posted a statement on X, vowing that Washington’s “playbook” would “fail again”.
“US fantasies and policy toward Iran are rooted in regime change, with sanctions, threats, engineered unrest, and chaos serving as the modus operandi to manufacture a pretext for military intervention,” the post said.
Politics
Iran’s response to mediation efforts is ‘clear’: President Pezeshkian

Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian has affirmed that several countries have initiated mediation efforts to halt the brutal, imposed war waged against the Islamic Republic by the United States and the Israeli regime.
In a post on the social media platform X on Friday, President Pezeshkian said, “Some countries have begun mediation efforts and our response to them is clear.”
He stressed that these efforts must target the true aggressors, the US and Israel, who launched this unprovoked aggression.
He reiterated Iran’s unwavering commitment to “lasting” peace in the region, declaring, “Yet we have no hesitation in defending our nation’s dignity, sovereignty, and the rights of our great people.”
The president emphasized that any genuine mediation must confront those who underestimated the resilience of the Iranian nation and deliberately ignited this war through their criminal attacks.
The US and the Israeli regime unleashed a new wave of savage aerial aggression against Iran on February 28, barely eight months after their previous unprovoked assaults on the country.
These barbaric strikes resulted in the martyrdom of the Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei—a profound loss for the Islamic Ummah and a heinous crime against humanity.
In response, the Iranian government declared 40 days of national public mourning and seven days of official holidays to honor the Supreme Leader’s martyrdom and rally the nation in unity and resolve.
These latest aggressions came even as Tehran and Washington had engaged in three rounds of indirect negotiations in the Omani capital of Muscat and the Swiss city of Geneva, with plans underway for technical talks in Vienna, Austria—demonstrating Iran’s consistent pursuit of diplomacy despite relentless hostility.
Unyielding in the face of this aggression, Iran has launched powerful and precise retaliatory barrages of missiles and drones targeting military sites in the Israeli-occupied territories and US bases across the region, exercising its legitimate right to self-defense and sending a clear message that the Iranian nation will never submit to bullying or occupation.
Politics
Iran destroys US radars in UAE, Jordan, satellite images show

Satellite images show that several US military radars in the UAE and Jordan have been successfully hit by Iranian missiles and drones as the Iranian Armed Forces continue a retaliatory campaign against American and Israeli aggression.
New images from several military installations across the Arabian Peninsula suggest that Iran has focused on disabling the radar infrastructure that forms the backbone of US-supplied missile systems.
One such radar, supporting an American THAAD missile battery at Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan, appears to have been hit and destroyed in the opening days of the war, according to satellite imagery captured Monday.
The base lies more than 500 miles from Iran, underscoring the reach of Tehran’s retaliatory operations.
Similar damage has also been detected in the United Arab Emirates.
Satellite analysis shows that buildings housing radar-related infrastructure were struck at two locations—near Ruwais and Sader—between February 28 and March 1.At least three structures in Ruwais and four in Sader sustained visible damage, including pull-through vehicle sheds typically used to store radar systems linked to THAAD batteries.
The radar component is considered a critical element of the high-end missile interceptor system, enabling the detection and tracking of incoming ballistic missiles and drones. Without it, the interceptor batteries’ ability to respond to threats is significantly degraded.
Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) earlier said such strikes were part of its expanding Operation True Promise 4, a campaign launched in retaliation for the unprovoked US-Israeli aggression.
“With the successful destruction of more than seven advanced radars, the eyes of the US and the usurping Zionist regime in the region have been blinded,” the IRGC said in a statement on Wednesday, announcing the 17th stage of the operation.
The latest developments come after the United States and Israel launched a new round of aggression against Iran on February 28, eight months after earlier unprovoked attacks against the country.
The strikes has led to the martyrdom of Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei and more than 1,200 civilians, including women, children and senior military commanders.
Iran responded swiftly, unleashing waves of missile and drone attacks targeting Israeli-occupied territories and US bases across the region.
Iranian officials insist the war was imposed on the country and say their ongoing military campaign is a legitimate act of self-defense aimed at neutralizing the infrastructure used to sustain further aggression.
Politics
Russia ‘providing Iran intelligence’ to target US forces: report

- US refrains from commenting on alleged Russian support.
- Officials say information includes locations of US warships.
- Russia says it was in dialogue with representatives of Iran.
Russia is providing Iran with targeting information that includes locations of US warships and aircraft in the Middle East, the Washington Post reported on Friday, citing three officials familiar with the intelligence.
The extent of Russia’s support to Iran was not entirely clear, but the Iranian military’s own ability to locate US forces has been degraded since the US and Israel launched strikes against Tehran last week, the Washington Post reported.
The war has since escalated, triggering retaliatory strikes by Iran, and ensnared its neighbours as it seeks to impose a high cost on the US, Israel and their allies.
The US military has identified six reserve soldiers killed in Kuwait when a drone slammed into a US military facility in Port Shuaiba. Trump and other senior officials have warned the conflict will likely result in more US military deaths.
A White House spokesperson did not directly comment on the alleged Russian support to Iran.
“The Iranian regime is being absolutely crushed. Their ballistic missile retaliation is decreasing every day, their navy is being wiped out, their production capacity is being demolished, and proxies are hardly putting up a fight,” White House spokesperson Anna Kelly said in a statement, responding to questions from Reuters.
Russia was in dialogue with representatives of Iran’s leadership, the Kremlin said on Friday. It declined to provide details when asked by reporters whether Moscow was helping Tehran.
The conflict has been an unexpected shot in the arm for Russia, with a significant bump in demand for its oil and gas, boosting exports battered in recent years by sanctions linked to its war in Ukraine. The United States has given Ukraine intelligence information during its war with Russia.
The Russian Embassy in Washington and Russia’s mission to the United Nations in New York did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
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