IsraelIran

US president says he would back attacks if Tehran rebuilds nuclear or missile programmes.

Iran has promised to respond harshly to any aggression after United States President Donald Trump threatened further military action, should Tehran attempt to rebuild its nuclear programme or missile capabilities.

President Masoud Pezeshkian issued the warning on X on Tuesday, a day after Trump met Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at his Florida estate, where he firmly leaned into the Israeli regional narrative yet again.

The US had not previously said it would target Iran’s missile capabilities, which has long been an Israeli aspiration, focusing instead on Tehran’s nuclear programme. Iran has repeatedly said its nuclear activities are for civilian purposes only, and neither US intelligence nor the UN’s nuclear watchdog found any evidence of atomic weapons production before the June attacks by the US and Israel.

Iran has ruled out negotiating over its missile programme.

The leaders’ comments raise the spectre of renewed conflict just months after a devastating 12-day war in June that killed more than 1,100 Iranians and left 28 in Israel dead.

Pezeshkian said the response of Iran to any aggression would be “severe and regret-inducing”. His defiant message came hours after Trump told reporters at his Mar-a-Lago resort that Washington could carry out another major assault on Iran.

“Now I hear that Iran is trying to build up again, and if they are, we’re going to have to knock them down,” Trump said, standing alongside Netanyahu. “We’ll knock the hell out of them.”

The US president said he would support strikes on Iran’s nuclear programme “immediately” and on its missile facilities if Tehran continues developing long-range weapons.

Israeli officials have expressed concern in recent weeks that Iran is quietly rebuilding its ballistic missile stockpile, which was significantly depleted during the June conflict.

“If the Americans do not reach an agreement with the Iranians that halts their ballistic missile program, it may be necessary to confront Tehran,” an Israeli official told Ynet this week.

Pezeshkian recently described the standoff as a “full-scale war” with the US, Israel and Europe that is “more complicated and more difficult” than Iran’s bloody conflict with Iraq in the 1980s, which left more than one million dead.

The June war saw Israel launch nearly 360 strikes across 27 Iranian provinces over 12 days, according to conflict monitoring group ACLED, targeting military installations, nuclear facilities and government buildings.

The assault destroyed an estimated 1,000 Iranian ballistic missiles and killed more than 30 senior military commanders and at least 11 nuclear scientists.

Iran fired more than 500 missiles at Israel during the conflict, with approximately 36 landing in populated areas. While Trump claimed Iranian nuclear capabilities were “completely obliterated” by the strikes, experts disputed that, saying Tehran may have hidden stockpiles of enriched uranium and could resume production within months.

Despite the losses, Iranian officials insist the country is now better prepared for confrontation. In a recent interview, Pezeshkian said Iran’s military forces are “stronger in terms of equipment and manpower” than before the ceasefire.

The war failed to trigger the internal unrest it is suspected that Netanyahu had hoped for. No significant protests materialised, and daily life in Tehran largely continued despite the bombardment.

Iranians are further squeezed every day amid a tanking economy, an energy crisis, water bankruptcy and lethal pollution.

Several protests have erupted in downtown Tehran after business owners closed down their shops in reaction to a free-falling national currency, and no improvement appears in sight amid multiple ongoing crises.

Shopkeepers near two major tech and mobile phone shopping centres in the capital’s Jomhouri area closed their businesses and chanted slogans on Sunday, before more incidents were recorded on Monday afternoon, this time with other people appearing to participate.

Videos circulating on social media showed that there were more gatherings in the same area, as well as other nearby neighbourhoods in downtown Tehran. “Don’t be afraid, we are together,” demonstrators chanted.

There was a heavy deployment of anti-riot personnel in full gear on the streets, with multiple videos showing that tear gas was deployed and people were forced to disperse.

Many shops were closed down by owners in and around Tehran’s Grand Bazaar as well, with some footage showing business owners asking others to do the same.

State media outlets also acknowledged the protests, but quickly reacted to emphasise that the shopkeepers are only concerned about economic conditions and have no qualms with the theocratic establishment that has been ruling the country since a 1979 revolution that ousted the United States-backed shah of Iran.

The government’s IRNA news agency claimed that vendors selling mobile phones were disgruntled after their businesses were threatened by the unchecked depreciation of the Iranian currency, the rial.

The rial registered yet another all-time record low of over 1.42 million per US dollar on Monday before regaining some ground.

But the currency is not the only problem. For years, Iran has also been dealing with an exacerbating energy crisis, which has periodically contributed to deadly air pollution that claims tens of thousands of lives each year.

Most dams feeding Tehran and a large number of major cities across Iran continue to remain at near-empty levels amid a water crisis. Iran also has one of the most closed-off internet landscapes in the world.

The continuing decline of purchasing power for 90 million Iranians comes amid increasing pressure from the US, Israel and their European allies over Iran’s nuclear programme.

Israel and the US attacked Iran in June during a 12-day war that killed more than 1,000 people, including civilians, dozens of top-ranking military and intelligence commanders, and nuclear scientists.

The attacks also significantly damaged or destroyed most of Iran’s nuclear facilities, which were under the supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The watchdog has since been denied entry to the bombed sites, with no diplomatic breakthrough in sight as the West applies more pressure.

Iran last saw nationwide protests in 2022 and 2023, with many thousands pouring into streets across the country after the death in police custody of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini for alleged non-compliance with strict Islamic laws regarding headscarves.

Hundreds of people were killed, over 20,000 people were arrested, and several people were executed in connection with the protests before they subsided. Authorities blamed foreign influence and “rioters” trying to destabilise the country, as they did with previous rounds of protests.

In parliament on Sunday to defend the controversial budget bill his administration has presented, President Masoud Pezeshkian painted a grim picture of the situation.

His highly contractionary budget bill proposes a 20 percent increase in wages while inflation stands at around 50 percent, consistently one of the highest in the world over the past several years. Taxes are slated to increase by 62 percent.

“They tell me you’re taxing too much, and they’re saying you must increase wages,” Pezeshkian told lawmakers. “Well, somebody tell me, where do I get the money from?”

Months after being attacked by the United States and Israel, Iran finds itself in the crosshairs again, with Israeli officials lobbying US President Donald Trump to address Tehran’s ballistic missiles.

Veteran Iranian diplomat Javad Zarif tells host Steve Clemons that “everybody lost any faith in diplomacy” after Israel and the US attacked Iran following five rounds of reconciliation talks between Washington and Tehran.

Zarif added that Israel has historically thwarted every opportunity for reconciliation between Iran and the US, and that Trump’s style of diplomacy is disastrous, as it creates “negotiations that end up in war”.

If Israel and the US were to attack Iran again, they would ‘face a more decisive response’, Pezeshkian warns.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian says that the United States, Israel and Europe are waging a “full-fledged war” against his country.

“In my opinion, we are in a full-fledged war with America, Israel and Europe. They do not want our country to stand on its feet,” Pezeshkian told the official site of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in an interview on Saturday.

The president’s remarks come ahead of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s meeting on Monday with US President Donald Trump. They also come six months after Israel and the US launched strikes on Iran, and after France, Germany and the United Kingdom reimposed United Nations sanctions on Iran in September over its nuclear programme.

“Our dear military forces are doing their jobs with strength, and now, in terms of equipment and manpower, despite all the problems we have, they are stronger than when they [Israel and the US] attacked,” Pezeshkian said.

“So, if they want to attack, they will naturally face a more decisive response.”

The president said that “this war” is unlike past ones.

“This war is worse than Iraq’s war against us. If one understands it well, this war is far more complex and difficult than that war,” Pezeshkian said, referring to the 1980-1988 conflict between the neighbouring countries in which thousands were killed.

The US and its allies accuse Iran of seeking to acquire nuclear weapons, a claim Tehran has repeatedly denied.

Israel and Iran engaged in a 12-day war in June, triggered by an unprecedented Israeli attack on Iranian military and nuclear sites, as well as civilian areas.

The strikes caused more than 1,000 casualties, according to Iranian authorities.

The US later joined the Israeli operation, bombing three Iranian nuclear sites.

Washington’s involvement brought a halt to negotiations with Tehran, which began in April, over its nuclear programme.

Since returning to the White House in January, US President Donald Trump has revived his so-called “maximum pressure” policy against Iran, initiated during his first term.

That has included additional sanctions designed to economically cripple the country and dry up its oil revenues from sales on the global market.

According to recent reports, when Netanyahu visits Trump at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida this weekend, he will be pushing for more military actions against Iran, this time focusing on Tehran’s missile programme.

Aghil Keshavarz is the tenth person put to death for espionage since June conflict with Israel.

Iran has executed a man convicted of spying for Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency, judicial authorities announced, as Tehran continues a widening crackdown on alleged collaborators following the 12-day Israel-United States-Iran war earlier this year.

Aghil Keshavarz was put to death on Saturday morning after the Supreme Court upheld his conviction on espionage charges, according to Mizan, the judiciary’s official news agency.

The 27-year-old architecture student was arrested earlier this year in the northwestern city of Urmia after military patrols caught him photographing an army headquarters building.

The execution adds to a growing number of people put to death for espionage since the June conflict, with at least 10 executed by September alone.

In September, Iran executed a man it said was “one of the most important spies for Israel in Iran”.

In October, Tehran toughened legislation against alleged spies for Israel and the US, making espionage automatically punishable by death and asset confiscation.

According to the Mizan report, Keshavarz was accused of conducting more than 200 missions for Israeli intelligence services across Tehran, Isfahan, Urmia and Shahroud.

The missions allegedly included photographing target sites, conducting opinion polling, and monitoring traffic patterns at specific locations.

Authorities said he communicated with both Israel’s Mossad and military officials through encrypted messaging platforms, receiving payment in cryptocurrency after completing assignments.

The judiciary said Keshavarz had “knowingly cooperated” with Israeli services with the intention of harming Iran’s Islamic Republic.

The Oslo-based Iran Human Rights group has previously disputed similar espionage convictions, saying suspects are often tortured into false confessions.

Israel’s offensive in June involved 12 days of air attacks, including several against Iran’s top generals and nuclear scientists, as well as civilians in residential areas, for which Iran retaliated with barrages of missiles and drones. The US also carried out extensive strikes, on Israel’s behalf, on Iranian nuclear sites during the conflict. According to Amnesty International, Israeli attacks on Iran killed at least 1,100 people.

In response to the June war and protests in recent years over the state of the economy and women’s rights, as well as calls for regime change, Iran has sentenced more people to death.

In an exclusive, wide-ranging interview recorded in October with Al Jazeera’s Fault Lines documentary programme, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi tells correspondent Hind Hassan that strikes by Israel and the United States in June caused “serious damage” to Iran’s nuclear facilities but insists its nuclear programme will continue.

“Technology cannot be eliminated by bombing,” he says, arguing that Iran’s scientific knowledge remains intact.

As Iran remains locked in a standoff with the US and refuses to renew negotiations while zero uranium enrichment demands remain in place, Araghchi says European snapback sanctions have undermined future cooperation with the United Nations nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, and Iran would reconsider how it cooperates in the future.

Despite emphasising that “diplomacy is our priority,” the foreign minister insists that Iran is prepared to fight back if it is attacked again. Araghchi maintains that while Tehran has “never trusted the United States as an honest negotiating partner”, Iran remains prepared to engage diplomatically if both sides respect each other’s rights and pursue mutual interests based on equality.