News Digest

July 10 Military: Ramazan Zirrahi, a Revolutionary Guards commander, criticized the U.S. Navy for interfering when Iran intercepted a ship allegedly smuggling fuel on July 6. “The Americans sought to prevent [the interception] through a series of unprofessional and risky actions,” he said. …
July 3  Domestic: The Norway-based Iran Human Rights group reported that Iran had executed at least 354 people in the first six months of 2023. Some 36 percent more people were executed compared to the same period in 2022. Nearly 20 percent of all executions were members of the Baluch, a Sunni…
June 26 International: The European Council sanctioned seven individuals in Iran for human rights violations. They included judiciary officials, provincial governors, and leaders of security forces responsible for harsh sentences, arbitrary detentions, and violence against protesters.  A…
June 19  Diplomacy: Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev visited Iran for the first time in more than two decades. Mirziyoyev met with President Ebrahim Raisi, and the two signed 10 cooperation agreements on trade, transit, medicine, insurance, technology and agriculture. International: The leaders…
June 5 Military: Two U.S. and British warships, the USS McFaul and the HMS Lancaster, responded to a distress call from a large merchant vessel in the Strait of Hormuz, through which 20 percent of the world’s oil transits. Three Revolutionary Guards fast-attack boats had approached the commercial…
May 29  Military: Fourteen people allegedly linked to an Israeli “terrorist team” had been detained for plotting to assassinate people in Iran, the Judiciary announced. Domestic: Elaheh Mohammadi, who reported on Masha Amini’s funeral in September 2022, began her trial in Iran’s Revolutionary…
May 15  Military: Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) had reportedly built an underground drone base in the Zagros mountains in southwestern Shiraz, Farz province, according to Alma, an Israel think tank. The base reportedly consisted of five drone launch sites and could deploy the…
May 1 International: The U.S. House of Representatives and Senate passed “The Solidifying Iran Sanction Act,” a bipartisan bill which extended the Iran Sanctions Act set to expire in 2026. “The Iran Sanctions Act is one of the most important tools in U.S. law to compel Iran to abandon its…
April 24 International: Iran shipped more than 300,000 Iranian artillery shells and a million rounds of ammunition to Russia in the previous six months, officials told The Wall Street Journal. Tehran had emerged as Moscow’s top military backer amid the war against Ukraine.  International: Iran-…
April 10 International: A bipartisan group of 130 U.S. lawmakers urged the European Union to designate the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organization. In a letter, the group described Iran as “a leading state sponsor of terror,” and warned that Tehran “has freely and…