Middle East

The Syrian army is locked in intense fighting in Aleppo after Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) fighters refused to withdraw under a ceasefire, as more civilians fled their homes to escape the violence in the northern Syrian city.

Aleppo’s emergency chief Mohammed al-Rajab told Al Jazeera Arabic that 162,000 people have fled fighting in the city’s Ashrafieh and Sheikh Maqsoud neighbourhoods.

A Syrian military source has told Al Jazeera Arabic that the army is “making progress” in the Sheikh Maqsoud neighbourhood, the epicentre of the most intense fighting, and now controls 55 percent of the area.

Meanwhile, Syria’s state-run SANA news agency said that the military had arrested several members of the SDF in its latest operations in Sheikh Maqsoud, which the army announced on Friday evening after a deadline for Kurdish fighters to evacuate the area, imposed as part of its temporary ceasefire, expired.

Syria’s Ministry of Defence had declared the ceasefire earlier on Friday, following three days of clashes that erupted after the central government and the SDF failed to implement a deal to fold the latter into the state apparatus.

After some of the fiercest fighting seen since last year’s toppling of Syria’s former leader Bashar al-Assad, Damascus presented Kurdish fighters a six-hour window to withdraw to their semi-autonomous region in the northeast of the country in a bid to end their longstanding control over parts of Aleppo.

But Kurdish councils that run the city’s Sheikh Maqsoud and Ashrafieh districts rejected any “surrender” and pledged to defend areas that they have run since the early days of the Syria’s war, which erupted in 2011.

Syria’s army then warned it would renew strikes on Sheikh Maqsoud and urged residents to evacuate through a humanitarian corridor, publishing five maps highlighting targets, with strikes beginning roughly two hours later.

As violence flared, the SDF posted footage on X showing what it said was the aftermath of artillery and drone attacks on Khaled Fajr Hospital in Sheikh Maqsoud, accusing “factions and militias affiliated with the Damascus government” of “a clear war crime”.

A Defence Ministry statement cited by the state-run news agency SANA said the hospital was a weapons depot.

In another post on X, the SDF said that government militias were attempting to advance on the neighbourhood with tanks, encountering “fierce and ongoing resistance by our forces”.

Later, the Syrian army said three of its soldiers had been killed and 12 injured in SDF attacks on its positions in Aleppo.

It also claimed that Kurdish fighters in the neighbourhood had killed more than 10 Kurdish youths who refused to take up arms with them, then burned their bodies to intimidate other residents.

The SDF said on X that the claims were part of the Syrian government’s “policy of lies and disinformation”.

At least 22 people have been killed and 173 others wounded in Aleppo since the fighting broke out on Tuesday, the worst violence in the city since Syria’s new authorities took power after toppling Bashar al-Assad a year ago.

The director of Syria’s civil defence told state media that 159,000 people had been displaced by fighting in Aleppo.

Mutual distrust

The violence in Aleppo has brought into focus one of the main faultlines in Syria, with powerful Kurdish forces that control swaths of Syria’s oil-rich northeast resisting integration efforts by Syria’s President Ahmed al-Sharaa’s government.

The agreement between the SDF and Damascus was struck in March last year, with the former supposed to integrate with the Syrian Defence Ministry by the end of 2025, ​but Syrian authorities say there has been little progress since.

Sheikh Maqsoud and Ashrafieh have remained under the control of Kurdish units linked to the SDF, despite the group’s assertion that it withdrew its fighters from Aleppo last year, leaving Kurdish neighbourhoods in the hands of the Kurdish Asayish police.

Marwan Bishara, senior political analyst with Al Jazeera, said there were significant gaps between the two sides, particularly when it came to integrating the Kurdish fighters into the army as individuals or groups.

“What would you do with the thousands of female fighters that are now part and parcel, of the Kurdish forces? Would they join the Syrian army? How would that work out?” said Bishara.

“The Kurdish are sceptical of the army and how it is formed in Damascus, and of the central government and its intentions. While … the central government is, of course, wary of and sceptical that the Kurds want to join as Syrians in a strong united country,” he added.

Turkiye refrains from military action

In the midst of the clashes, Syria’s President al-Sharaa spoke by phone with Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan, saying he was determined to “end the illegal armed presence” in Aleppo, according to a Syrian presidency statement.

Turkiye, which shares a 900-kilometre (550-mile) border with Syria, views the SDF as an extension of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which waged a four-decade armed struggle against the Turkish state, and has warned of military action if the integration agreement is not honoured.

Turkiye’s Defence Minister Yasar Guler welcomed the Syrian government operation, saying that “we view Syria’s security as our own security and … we support Syria’s fight against terrorist organisations”.

Omer Ozkizilcik, nonresident senior fellow for the Syria Project in the Atlantic Council, told Al Jazeera that Turkiye had been intending to launch an operation against SDF forces in Syria months ago, but had refrained at the request of the Syrian government.

Elham Ahmad, a senior official in the Kurdish administration in Syria’s northeast, accused Syria’s authorities of “choosing the path of war” by attacking Kurdish districts in Aleppo and of trying to end deals between the two sides.

Alarm spreads

Al-Sharaa spoke with Iraqi Kurdish leader Masoud Barzani on Friday, affirming that the Kurds were “a fundamental part of the Syrian national fabric”, the Syrian presidency said.

The former al-Qaeda commander has repeatedly pledged to protect minorities, but government-aligned fighters have killed hundreds of Alawites and Druze over the last year, spreading alarm in minority communities.

A spokesperson for the United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres expressed “grave concern” over the ongoing violence in Aleppo, despite efforts to de-escalate the situation.

“We call on all parties in Syria to show flexibility and return to negotiations to ensure the full implementation of the March 10 agreement,” said Stephane Dujarric.

France’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it was working with the United States, which has long been a key backer of the SDF, particularly during its fight to oust ISIL (ISIS) from Syria, to de-escalate.

French President Emmanuel Macron urged al-Sharaa on Thursday to “exercise restraint”, reiterating his country’s desire to see “a united Syria where all segments of Syrian society are represented and protected”.

As a ceasefire between the Syrian army and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces collapses, UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric reminded all parties that they’re bound by international humanitarian law to protect civilians.

Iranian authorities are enforcing an internet blackout after protests escalated in Tehran. It’s been two weeks since demonstrations flared up in protest at harsh economic conditions. They’ve spread to more than 100 towns and cities and taken on a political tone.

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The STC, which Saudi Arabia says is backed by the UAE, launched an offensive against Yemeni gov’t troops in December.

Yemen’s main southern separatists ‍have decided to disband following talks in Saudi Arabia, the secretary-general of the organisation has announced.

The Southern Transitional Council (STC) Secretary-General Abdulrahman Al-Subaihi said in a broadcast on Yemeni television on Friday that the dissolution of the group was taken to preserve peace and security in the south and in neighbouring countries.

He praised “the measures taken by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the solutions it has provided that meet the needs of the people of the South”.

However, there was no immediate ‍comment from those members of the separatist group who are not taking part in the ‍talks in Riyadh.

The STC had said it had lost contact with all members ‍of the delegation in Riyadh, indicating a split was emerging within the group.

A feud between Saudi Arabia and the UAE that came to light after the STC, which Riyadh says is backed by Abu Dhabi, launched an offensive against Saudi-backed Yemeni government troops in December.

On Thursday, the Saudi Arabia-led coalition in Yemen said the STC leader Aidarous ‌al-Zubaidi had fled to the UAE via Somaliland after skipping the talks in Riyadh, accusing the UAE of smuggling him out of the country.

More to come…

When Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar visited Somaliland on Tuesday, he became the first Israeli official to visit the breakaway republic since his country established full diplomatic relations with it in the closing days of last year.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced the diplomatic recognition of Somaliland – a breakaway part of Somalia – on December 26. He said that the recognition was in keeping with “the spirit of the Abraham Accords”, referring to the United States-led initiative encouraging a number of Arab countries to normalise relations with Israel in return for diplomatic and financial concessions from the US.

But Israel’s recognition of Somaliland has prompted protests within Somalia and complaints from dozens of countries and organisations, including Turkiye, Saudi Arabia and the African Union.

Meeting with Somaliland President Abdirahman Mohamed Abdullahi in the Somaliland capital of Hargeisa on Tuesday, Saar told reporters that Israel had not been discouraged by criticism of its decision.

“We hear the attacks, the criticism, the condemnations,” he said. “Nobody will determine for Israel who we recognise and who we maintain diplomatic relations with.”

Hegemon

Israel’s recognition of Somaliland comes after more than two years of its genocidal war on Gaza, and attacks on regional countries, including Lebanon, Iran, Syria, Yemen, and Qatar.

Attacks on Lebanon continue, and there are new indications that Israel may be seeking to launch renewed attacks on Iran, its main regional nemesis.

Israel’s wars appear to be an attempt to portray itself – with US backing – as the regional hegemon, uninterested in compromising with its enemies.

Recognition of Somaliland, despite regional opposition, marks the latest part of that strategy.

And Israel has found a new ally in the Horn of Africa on the back of its decision.

Despite being self-governing for more than 30 years, Somaliland has failed to gain international recognition, despite maintaining its own currency, passport and army.

Recognition has been elusive, meaning that even if there are qualms from some over ties with Israel, many are willing to overlook them in the hope that this decision will pave the path for other countries to follow.

“Clans, militias and corruption have ruined Somalia,” Somali journalist and human rights activist Abdalle Mumin, who was previously imprisoned by his country’s authorities, told Al Jazeera, “At least in Somaliland they have achieved some kind of peace and stability.”

“Many hope that other countries will follow Israel,” Mumin continued.

Why has Israel recognised Somaliland?

Nevertheless, speculation over why Israel chose to recognise Somaliland has mounted since Netanyahu’s announcement, with analysts pointing to its strategic location at the crossroads between the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean.

Somaliland’s port of Berbera lies close to some of the world’s busiest maritime routes, which have come under attack over the past two years from Yemen’s Houthi rebel movement, a sworn enemy of Israel.

These were all factors in Israel’s recognition, former Israeli peace negotiator Daniel Levy said, acknowledging that the Netanyahu government also benefitted from preserving the suggestion that Somaliland may take in Palestinians forced out of Gaza.

However, Levy suspects Israel’s ambitions may be grander still, including increasing the country’s value to its chief sponsor, the US.

By securing an ally in a strategically important region,

The key dynamic, according to Levy, is momentum.

“If you set out to do something like this, you can’t just stop [at recognition],” he told Al Jazeera. “You have to keep taking steps: more aircraft, more presence, more moves. Once you’ve committed to this kind of game, you need to stay at the table.”

The timing of the move, shortly before Netanyahu’s meeting with US President Donald Trump on December 29, also held significance, Levy said.

Israel was trying to place itself more firmly on what it imagines Washington’s agenda to be, and how it imagines great power competition in the Horn of Africa, particularly with China, which maintains a base in neighbouring Djibouti, might play out.

“We’ve seen before that Israel can put something on the table and the Americans follow later,” he said.

Israel may be implicitly telling the US, “We’re active, and we’re positioned in a way that helps you. Having us there helps you.”

Momentum

According to many observers, the past two years of war have already fundamentally changed the nature of Israel, with the strain of its genocidal war on Gaza, plus news assaults upon its regional neighbours, leaving the country fractured, isolated and with the hard right firmly in the ascendancy.

How enthusiastic the country might be for additional adventures in the Horn of Africa, a region, according to many observers, that remains largely unknown to much of the Israeli public, is unclear.

“Israelis have no idea what or where Somaliland is. It’s a non-issue in Israel,” Alon Pinkas, a former Israeli ambassador and consul general in New York, told Al Jazeera.

“The first time the news came out, it was published alongside maps showing the Horn of Africa, the Red Sea and its position across the Gulf of Aden. They had to show people where it was,” he said, dismissing the suggestion that Israel may ever station troops there.

“No, this is Netanyahu doing what he’s been doing ever since October 7, 2023: expanding the theatre of conflict,” he said. “Be that to Lebanon, Syria, Yemen or Iran. Now, it’s Somaliland. There’s no other rationale behind it. It’s about always moving forward.”

US president signals he is not ready to back the Israel-aligned opposition figure to lead Iran in case of regime change.

United States President Donald Trump has ruled out meeting with Iran’s self-proclaimed Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi, suggesting that Washington is not ready to back a successor to the Iranian government, should it collapse.

On Thursday, Trump called Pahlavi, the son of Iran’s last shah who was toppled by the Islamic revolution of 1979, a “nice person”. But Trump added that, as president, it would not be appropriate to meet with him.

“I think that we should let everybody go out there and see who emerges,” Trump told The Hugh Hewitt Show podcast. “I’m not sure necessarily that it would be an appropriate thing to do.”

The US-based Pahlavi, who has close ties to Israel, leads the monarchist faction of the fragmented Iranian opposition.

Trump’s comments signal that the US has not backed Pahlavi’s offer to “lead [a] transition” in governance in Iran, should the current system collapse.

The Iranian government is grappling with protests across several parts of the country.

Iranian authorities cut off access to the internet on Thursday in an apparent move to suppress the protest movement as Pahlavi called for more demonstrations.

The US president had previously warned that he would intervene if the Iranian government targets protesters. He renewed that threat on Thursday.

“They’re doing very poorly. And I have let them know that if they start killing people – which they tend to do during their riots, they have lots of riots – if they do it, we’re going to hit them very hard,” Trump said.

Iranian protests started last month in response to a deepening economic crisis as the value of the local currency, the rial, plunged amid suffocating US sanctions.

The economy-focused demonstrations started sporadically across the country, but they quickly morphed into broader antigovernment protests and appear to be gaining momentum, leading to the internet blackout.

Pahlavi expressed gratitude to Trump and claimed that “millions of Iranians” protested on Thursday night.

“I want to thank the leader of the free world, President Trump, for reiterating his promise to hold the regime to account,” he wrote in a social media post.

“It is time for others, including European leaders, to follow his lead, break their silence, and act more decisively in support of the people of Iran.”

Last month, Trump also threatened to attack Iran again if it rebuilds its nuclear or missile programmes.

The US bombed Iran’s three main nuclear facilities in June as part of a war that Israel launched against the country without provocation.

On top of its economic and political crises, Iran has faced environmental hurdles, including severe water shortages, deepening its domestic unrest.

Iran has also been dealt major blows to its foreign policy as its network of allies has shrunk over the past two years.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was toppled by armed opposition forces in December 2024; Hezbollah was weakened by Israeli attacks; and Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has been abducted by the US.

But Iran’s leaders have continued to dismiss US threats. Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei doubled down on his defiant rhetoric after the US raid in Caracas on Saturday.

“We will not give in to the enemy,” Khamenei wrote in a social media post. “We will bring the enemy to its knees.”

Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu announcemed the Bulgarian diplomat as the ‘designated’ director-general for Trump’s ‘board of peace’.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says that former United Nations Middle East envoy Nickolay Mladenov will direct a proposed United States-led “board of peace” in Gaza.

Netanyahu made the announcement after meeting Mladenov in Jerusalem on Thursday, referring to the Bulgarian diplomat as the “designated” director-general for the proposed board, a key part of US President Donald Trump’s 20-point plan to end Israel’s genocidal war on the Palestinian people of Gaza.

Trump’s Gaza plan led to a tenuous ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in October, but Israeli forces have continued to carry out attacks in the territory on a near-daily basis. Since the first full day of the truce on October 11, 2025, Israeli attacks have killed at least 425 Palestinians, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.

In a statement on Thursday, Netanyahu’s office said Mladenov “is slated to serve as Director General of the ‘Peace Council’ in the Gaza Strip”. Israel’s President Isaac Herzog also met Mladenov on Thursday, a spokesperson from his office said, without elaborating.

Under Trump’s plan to end the war, the proposed Board of Peace would supervise a new technocratic Palestinians government, the disarmament of Hamas, the deployment of an international security force, the further pushback of Israeli troops, and the reconstruction of the war-ravaged Gaza Strip.

Trump is expected to announce appointments to the board next week, according to the Axios news outlet, citing US officials and sources familiar with the matter.

“Among the countries expected to join the board are the UK, Germany, France, Italy, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Egypt and Turkiye,” Axios reported.

Mladenov, a former Bulgarian defence and foreign minister, previously served as the UN envoy to Iraq before being appointed as the UN Middle East peace envoy from 2015 to 2020.

During his time as Middle East envoy, Mladenov had good working relations with Israel and frequently worked to ease tensions between Israel and Hamas.

Saudi-backed “National Shield Forces” were seen deploying in Aden a day after separatist leader Aidarous al-Zubaidi fled Yemen for the United Arab Emirates. The city has been at the centre of al-Zubaidi’s Southern Transitional Council (STC).

Israeli gunfire killed 11-year-old Hamsa Hosou in northern Gaza, her family says, despite a ceasefire in place for nearly three months. She is among more than 400 Palestinians reported killed since the truce took effect.

Al Jazeera witnessed injured civilians arriving at an Aleppo hospital as intense artillery fire streaked across the sky and ricocheted off buildings. The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and Syrian army have been engaged in increasingly intense fighting after integration talks broke down.

Civilians were seen fleeing several northern Aleppo neighbourhoods en masse as the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces and the Syrian military escalate their fighting after a breakdown in integration talks. Estimates vary widely, but some have placed the number of evacuees at more than 100,000.

Fighting between Syrian government troops and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces continues in Aleppo, where shelling near residential areas has prompted tens of thousands of civilians to flee. Al Jazeera’s Resul Serdar was reporting live as shots rang out nearby.

Landing at Aden International Airport on a trip in late 2017, the plane had two flags visible as it moved along the tarmac. One was the flag of the former South Yemen, resurrected as a symbol of Yemen’s secessionist southern movement. The other was of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the movement’s primary backer.

Passing one checkpoint after another on the road out of Aden, the flag of the actual Republic of Yemen wasn’t visible, and only made an appearance towards the city of Taiz, to the north.

The UAE-backed secessionist Southern Transitional Council (STC) had been formed a few months earlier, in May 2017. Headed by Aidarous al-Zubaidi, it made clear that its ultimate goal was separation from the rest of Yemen, even if it found itself on the same side as the Yemeni government in the fight against the Houthi rebels occupying the Yemeni capital Sanaa.

By 2019, the STC and the Yemeni government fought in Aden and other areas of the south. The STC emerged on top, forcing the government out of Aden – the former capital of South Yemen and the city the government had designated as a temporary capital during the conflict against the Houthis.

Momentum continued to be on the STC’s side for the next few years, as it seized more territory. Even after al-Zubaidi joined the Saudi-backed Presidential Leadership Council (PLC) as a vice-president, officially making him a member of the Yemeni government, it was clear that on the ground, the STC had de facto control over much of the former South Yemen.

Al-Zubaidi must have felt close to achieving his goals when he found himself at the United Nations General Assembly in September. Speaking to the international media, he said that the “best solution for Yemen” was a “two-state solution”.

But then he went too far. His move last month to push STC forces into the eastern governorates of Hadhramout and al-Mahra, effectively securing control over all of the former South Yemen, was a red line for Saudi Arabia.

The STC leader is on the run, forces now loyal to the Yemeni government are in control of the majority of southern Yemen, and many of his allies have changed sides.

The UAE, meanwhile, appears to have accepted that Saudi Arabia is the primary foreign actor in Yemen, and has taken a step back – for now.

What now for South Yemen?

In a matter of weeks, secession has gone from a de facto reality to seemingly further away than it has been since the early days of Yemen’s war in the mid-2010s.

It was only last Friday that al-Zubaidi announced a two-year transitional period before a referendum on the independence of southern Yemen and the declaration of the state of “South Arabia”.

A week later, the STC looked divided – with Abdul Rahman al-Mahrami, a PLC member also known as Abu Zaraa, now in Riyadh, appearing to position himself in the Saudi camp.

The Yemeni government, with Saudi support, is attempting to reorganise the anti-Houthi military forces, with the aim of moving them away from being a divided band of groups under different commands to a force unified under the umbrella of the government.

Nods to the “southern issue” – the disenfranchisement of southern Yemen since the country’s brief 1994 north-south civil war – continues, with plans for a conference on the issue in Riyadh.

But the ultimate goal of hardline southerners – secession – is off the table under current circumstances, with consensus instead forming around the idea of a federal republic allowing for strong regional representation.

The Yemeni government also sees an opportunity to now use the momentum gained in the recent successes against the STC to advance against the Houthis, who control Yemen’s populous northwest – even if that remains an ambitious goal.

Of course, this is Yemen, and the winds can always change once again.

Support for the secession of southern Yemen remains strong in governorates like Al-Dhale, where al-Zubaidi is from. Hardcore STC supporters, those who have not been coopted, will be unlikely to simply give up, sowing the seeds for a potential insurgency.

And President Rashad al-Alimi will have to show that his power does not simply rest on Saudi Arabia’s military strength. One of the major tests of his legitimacy is whether he will be able to return with his government to Aden, and finally be based in Yemen for the first time in years.

That will be the ultimate challenge for the Yemeni government. Is it truly capable of being in control once again? Or are current events just a temporary setback for the STC and the cause of southern secession, waiting for the opportunity to rise up again?

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Secessionist leader took a boat to Berbera and then boarded a pane that flew to Abu Dhabi via Mogadishu, coalition says.

The Saudi Arabia-led coalition in Yemen has announced that the leader of the secessionist Southern Transitional Council (STC) has fled to the United Arab Emirates via Somaliland after skipping planned peace talks in Riyadh.

In a statement on Thursday, the coalition said Aidarous al-Zubaidi “escaped in the dead of night” on Wednesday aboard a vessel that departed Aden in Yemen for the port of Berbera in Somaliland.

Al-Zubaidi then boarded a plane along with UAE officers and flew to Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu. “The plane turned off its identification systems over the Gulf of Oman, then turned it back on ten minutes prior to arrival at Al reef military airport in Abu Dhabi,” the statement said.

There was no immediate comment from the STC or UAE.

If confirmed, the move could deepen the feud between Saudi Arabia and the UAE that came to light after the Abu Dhabi-backed STC launched an offensive against the Riyadh-backed Yemeni government troops in December.

The STC – which initially supported Yemen’s internationally recognised government against the Houthi rebels in northern Yemen – is seeking an independent state in southern Yemen. It seized the provinces of Hadramout and Mahra, which border Saudi Arabia, in a campaign that Riyadh described as a red line for its national security.

The Saudi-led coalition responded with air strikes on the Yemeni port of Mukalla on December 30, targeting what it called a UAE-linked weapons shipment, and backed a call by Yemen’s internationally recognised government for Emirati forces to withdraw from the country.

For its part, Abu Dhabi denied that the shipment contained weapons and expressed a commitment to ensure Riyadh’s security. On the same day, it announced an end to what it called its “counterterrorism mission” in Yemen.

Yemeni government troops, backed by Saudi Arabian air attacks, went on to reclaim Hadramout and Mahra, and the STC said on Saturday that it would attend peace talks hosted by Saudi Arabia.

But al-Zubaidi was not on board the Yemeni Air flight that took the STC delegation to Riyadh on Wednesday, the coalition said.

The head of the internationally recognised government’s Presidential Leadership Council, Rashad al-Alimi, has meanwhile announced that al-Zubaidi has been removed from the council for “committing high treason”.

Al-Alimi said he has asked the country’s Attorney General to launch an investigation against al-Zubaidi and take legal action.

The Saudi Arabia-led coalition in Yemen launched air strikes against secessionist forces in the south, after their leader failed to attend peace talks in Riyadh. Yemen’s internationally recognised government has accused Aidarous al-Zubaidi of “high treason.”

Army chief hits out at foreign ‘rhetoric’ targeting Iran, threatens decisive action to ‘cut off hand of any aggressor’.

Iran’s top judge warned protesters who have taken to the streets during a spiralling economic crisis there will be “no leniency for those who help the enemy against the Islamic Republic”, accusing the US and Israel of sowing chaos.

“Following announcements by Israel and the US president, there is no excuse for those coming to the streets for riots and unrest,” said Chief Justice Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei on Wednesday in comments on the deadly protests carried by Fars news agency.

Amid growing unrest, Iran is under international pressure after US President Donald Trump threatened last week that if Tehran “violently kills peaceful protesters, which is their custom, the United States of America will come to their rescue”.

His threat – accompanied by an assertion that the US is “locked and loaded and ready to go” – came seven months after Israeli and US forces bombed Iranian nuclear sites in a 12-day war.

Additionally, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu backed the protesters on Sunday, telling ministers, “It is quite possible that we are at a moment when the Iranian people are taking their fate into their own hands.”

Following Ejei’s warning, Iran’s army chief threatened preemptive military action over the “rhetoric” targeting Iran.

Speaking to military academy students, Major-General Amir Hatami – who took over as commander-in-chief of Iran’s army after a slew of top military commanders were killed in Israel’s 12-day war – said the country would “cut off the hand of any aggressor”.

“I can say with confidence that today the readiness of Iran’s armed forces is far greater than before the war. If the enemy commits an error, it will face a more decisive response,” said Hatami.

‘Longstanding anger’

The nationwide demonstrations, which have seen dozens of people killed so far, ignited at the end of last month when shopkeepers in Tehran’s Grand Bazaar shuttered their businesses in anger over the collapse of Iran’s rial currency, against a backdrop of deepening economic woes driven by mismanagement and punishing Western sanctions.

The Iranian state has not announced casualty figures. HRANA, a network of human rights activists, reported a death toll of at least 36 people as well as the arrest of at least 2,076 people. Al Jazeera has been unable to verify any figures.

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei promised not to “yield to the enemy” following Trump’s comments, which acquired added significance after the US military raid that seized Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, a longtime ally of Tehran, over the weekend.

Seeking to halt the anger, Iran’s government began on Wednesday paying the equivalent of $7 a month to subsidise rising costs for dinner-table essentials such as rice, meat and pasta – a measure widely deemed to be a meagre response.

“More than a week of protests in Iran reflects not only worsening economic conditions, but longstanding anger at government repression and regime policies that have led to Iran’s global isolation,” the New York-based Soufan Center think tank said.

United States President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio say they want to free up the flow of Venezuelan oil to benefit Venezuelans after US forces abducted President Nicolas Maduro from Caracas.

“We’re going to rebuild the oil infrastructure, which requires billions of dollars that will be paid for by the oil companies directly,” Trump said at a media briefing at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida hours after Maduro was seized on Saturday. “They will be reimbursed for what they’re doing, but it’s going to be paid, and we’re going to get the oil flowing.”

Then, on Tuesday, the US president said he wanted to use proceeds from the sale of Venezuelan oil “to benefit the people of Venezuela and the United States”. Rubio has echoed Trump in his comments in recent days.

But what has been holding back the flow of Venezuelan oil, preventing the country from attracting investments and driving the country into poverty?

A key reason is one that Trump and Rubio have been silent about: Washington’s own efforts to strangle Venezuela’s oil industry and economy through sanctions, which also have set off a refugee crisis.

What has Trump said about Venezuelan oil?

In a post on his Truth Social platform on Tuesday night, Trump said Venezuela will turn over 30 million to 50 million barrels of sanctioned oil to the US.

Trump wrote: “This Oil will be sold at its Market Price, and that money will be controlled by me, as President of the United States of America, to ensure it is used to benefit the people of Venezuela and the United States!”

Trump added that he had directed his energy secretary, Chris Wright, to execute the plan “immediately”.

“It will be taken by storage ships, and brought directly to unloading docks in the United States,” Trump wrote.

During the news conference on Saturday, Trump said US oil companies would fix Venezuela’s “broken infrastructure” and “start making money for the country”.

Earlier Trump had accused Venezuela in a Truth Social post of “stealing” US oil, land and other assets and using that oil to fund crime, “terrorism” and human trafficking. Top Trump adviser Stephen Miller has made similar claims in recent days.

What does it mean for the US to take Venezuelan oil?

Oil is trading at roughly $56 per barrel.

Based on this price, 30 million barrels of oil would be worth $1.68bn and 50 million barrels of oil would be worth $2.8bn.

“Trump’s statement about oil in Venezuela is beyond an act of war; it is an act of colonisation. That is also illegal based on the UN Charter,” Vijay Prashad, the director of the Tricontinental Institute for Social Research based in Argentina, Brazil, India, and South Africa, told Al Jazeera.

Ilias Bantekas, a professor of transnational law at Hamad Bin Khalifa University in Qatar, told Al Jazeera that the US involvement in Venezuela was “less about Maduro as it is about access to Venezuela’s oil deposits”.

“This [oil] is the number one target. Trump is not content with just allowing US oil firms to get concessions but to ‘run’ the country, which entails absolute and indefinite control over Venezuela’s resources.”

According to the website of the US Energy Information Administration, the US consumed an average of 20.25 million barrels of petroleum per day in 2023.

What has Rubio said about Venezuelan oil?

In an interview on the NBC TV network’s Meet the Press programme that aired on Sunday, Rubio said: “We are at war against drug trafficking organisations. That’s not a war against Venezuela.”

“No more drug trafficking … and no more using the oil industry to enrich all our adversaries around the world and not benefitting the people of Venezuela or, frankly, benefitting the United States and the region,” Rubio said.

Rubio said in the interview that since 2014, about eight million Venezuelans have fled the country, which he attributed to theft and corruption by Maduro and his allies. According to a report by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees from May, nearly 7.9 million people have indeed left Venezuela.

But he was silent on the US’s own role in creating that crisis.

What are the US sanctions against Venezuela’s oil?

Venezuela nationalised its oil industry in 1976 under then-President Carlos Andres Perez during an oil boom. He established the state-owned Petroleos de Venezuela SA (PDVSA) to control all oil resources.

Venezuela continued to be a major oil exporter to the US for some years, supplying 1.5 million to 2 million barrels per day in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

After President Hugo Chavez took office in 1998, he nationalised all oil assets, seized foreign-owned assets, restructured the PDVSA and prioritised using oil revenue for social programmes in Venezuela.

From 2003 to 2007, Venezuela under Chavez managed to cut its poverty rate in half – from 57 percent to 27.5 percent. Extreme poverty fell even more sharply, by 70 percent.

But exports declined, and government authorities were accused of mismanagement.

The US first imposed sanctions on Venezuela’s oil in retaliation for nationalising US oil assets in 2005.

Under US sanctions, many senior Venezuelan government officials and companies have been barred from accessing any property or financial assets held in the US. They cannot access US bank accounts, sell property or access their money if it passes through the US financial system.

Critically, any US companies or citizens doing business with any sanctioned individual or company will be penalised and risk becoming subject to enforcement actions.

Maduro took over as president in 2013 after Chavez’s death. In 2017, Trump, during his first term in office, imposed more sanctions and tightened them again in 2019. This further restricted sales to the US and access for Venezuelan companies to the global financial system. As a result, oil exports to the US nearly stopped, and Venezuela shifted its trade mainly to China with some sales to India and Cuba.

Last month, the Trump administration imposed yet more sanctions – this time on Maduro family members and Venezuelan tankers carrying sanctioned oil.

Today, the PDVSA controls the petroleum industry in Venezuela, and US involvement in Venezuelan oil drilling is limited. Houston-based Chevron is the only US company that still operates in Venezuela.

How have sanctions hurt Venezuela’s oil flows?

Trump might today be interested in getting Venezuelan oil flowing, but it is US sanctions that blocked that flow in the first place.

Venezuela’s oil reserves are concentrated primarily in the Orinoco Belt, a region in the eastern part of the country stretching across roughly 55,000sq km (21,235sq miles).

While the country is home to the world’s largest proven oil reserves – at an estimated 303 billion barrels – it earns only a fraction of the revenue it once did from exporting crude.

[BELOW: The sentence above promises statistics that will show how much oil exports have dropped, but the next graf doesn’t deliver. We should add that figure]

According to data from the Observatory of Economic Complexity, Venezuela exported $4.05bn of crude oil in 2023. This is far below other major exporters, including Saudi Arabia ($181bn), the US ($125bn) and Russia ($122bn).

How have US sanctions hurt Venezuelans and the country’s oil infrastructure?

The US sanctions on Venezuelan oil prevent US and non-US companies from doing business with the PDVSA. Because the US is a market no one wants to lose, firms, including banks, are wary of taking any steps that could invite Washington’s sanctions.

In effect, that has meant Venezuela’s oil industry has been almost entirely deprived of international financial investment.

The sanctions additionally restrict Venezuela from accessing oilfield equipment, specialised software, drilling services and refinery components from Western companies.

This has resulted in years of underinvestment in the PDVSA’s infrastructure, leading to chronic breakdowns, shutdowns and accidents.

The sanctions have also resulted in broader economic turmoil.

The country’s gross domestic product per capita stood at about $4,200 in 2024, according to World Bank data, down from more than $13,600 in 2010.

From about 2012, the economy went into a sharp decline, driven by domestic economic policies, a slump that was later deepened by US sanctions. The resulting hardships have pushed millions of Venezuelans to leave the country – the same people who Trump and Rubio now argue should benefit from Venezuela’s oil revenues.

Does the US have any claim to Venezuelan oil?

US companies began drilling for oil in Venezuela in the early 1900s.

In 1922, vast petroleum reserves were initially discovered by Royal Dutch Shell in Lake Maracaibo in Zulia state in northwestern Venezuela.

At this point, US companies ramped up their investments in the extraction and development of Venezuelan oil reserves. Companies such as Standard Oil led development under concession agreements, propelling Venezuela to a position as a key global supplier, especially for the US.

Venezuela was a founding member of OPEC, joining at its creation on September 14, 1960. OPEC is a group of major oil-exporting countries that work together to manage supply and influence global oil prices.

But the claims by Trump and Miller that Venezuela somehow “stole” US oil are baseless under international law, experts said.

The principle of permanent sovereignty over natural resources, adopted by the UN General Assembly in a resolution in 1962, is clear that sovereign states have the inherent right to control, use and dispose of their resources for their own development.

In other words, Venezuela alone owns its oil.

Violence, designation of ‘closed military zones’ and evacuations of civilians follow collapse of talks aimed at ending standoff over absorption of semiautonomous Kurdish forces by state institutions.

The Syrian army has declared Aleppo’s Kurdish areas “closed military zones” and ordered civilians to leave as clashes with the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) extended into a second day.

The Syrian Army Operations Command told Al Jazeera that all SDF military positions in Aleppo neighbourhoods are legitimate targets as sporadic fighting between the government forces and Kurdish-led SDF continued on Wednesday after violence flared the previous day.

The clashes, which killed nine people on Tuesday, according to officials, are the fiercest fighting since the two sides failed to implement a March deal to merge the United States-backed semiautonomous Kurdish administration and military force with Syria’s new government.

The Syrian army announced that two neighbourhoods in Aleppo would become “closed military zones” from 3pm (12:00 GMT). In the meantime, it said, it would operate “humanitarian corridors” to allow civilians to leave.

All “military sites of the SDF organisation within the Sheikh Maqsoud and Ashrafieh neighbourhoods of Aleppo are a legitimate military target for the Syrian Arab Army, following the organisation’s major escalation towards the neighbourhoods of Aleppo city and its perpetration of numerous massacres against civilians,” the Army Operations Authority said in a statement.

The SDF noted a large deployment of Syrian army vehicles near the Sheikh Maqsoud and Ashrafiyah neighborhoods, labelling it a “dangerous indicator that warns of escalation and the possibility of a major war”.

The army, meanwhile, said it “urges our civilian population in the Sheikh Maqsoud and Ashrafieh neighbourhoods of Aleppo to immediately stay away from the SDF positions”.

The state news agency SANA reported that the Syrian Civil Defence Forces and Syrian Arab Red Crescent are providing aid to people evacuating.

The Civil Defence said it had evacuated 850 civilians from Aleppo by about midday, citing deteriorating humanitarian conditions and shelling by the SDF.

A Syrian security source reported to Al Jazeera that prisoners have escaped from al-Shafiq prison, which is run by the SDF, to safe areas in Aleppo. He did not specify the number of prisoners that absconded.

Sectarian tensions

Both sides have blamed the other for sparking the violence, which broke out after talks this week between government officials and the main SDF commander stalled with “no tangible results” achieved, according to state media.

The incorporation of the SDF, which controls large chunks of Syria’s north and northeast, into state institutions has remained a subject of consternation since President Ahmed al-Sharaa took office a year ago.

The deal reached in March, in which the SDF agreed “all civil and military institutions in northeastern Syria” would be merged into “the Syrian state, including border crossings, the airport, and oil and gas fields”, has yet to be carried out.

Al-Sharaa’s efforts to amalgamate power and quell sectarian tensions among the numerous groups across Syria after the fall of longtime leader Bashar al-Assad have not been helped by Israel.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has carried out persistent raids and bombardments in a bid to demilitarise southern Syrian regions bordering Israel.

Over the past year, Israel has launched more than 600 air, drone and artillery attacks across Syria, averaging nearly two a day, according to a tally by the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project.

Marie Forestier, a nonresident senior fellow for the Atlantic Council’s Syria Project, told Al Jazeera that the distance between Syrian, Israeli and US goals is “very difficult”, especially given that “Israel is doing everything to destabilise Syria.”

Syria and Israel have agreed to set up a joint mechanism after US-mediated talks in Paris on Tuesday, in what they are calling a “dedicated communication cell” aimed at sharing intelligence and coordinating military de-escalation.

The two countries have had a US-backed security agreement in place since 1974. However, when the Assad regime fell on December 8, 2024, Israel began attacking Syrian military infrastructure and pushed their troops into the demilitarised zone that is Syrian territory.

Syria and Israel have been engaging in intermittent negotiations over the last year to find a security agreement that would stop Israel’s repeat aggression against Syrians and Syrian territory.

Here’s everything you need to know about these talks.

What is the mechanism?

“The mechanism will serve as a platform to address any disputes promptly and work to prevent misunderstandings,” a joint statement released by the two countries said after the agreement on Tuesday.

The idea is to have a body that will deal with grievances and resolve disputes between Israel and Syria, ideally in a way that brings Israeli attacks on Syrian land and people to an end. Both sides may also hope it can pave the way to a renewed security agreement.

What does Syria want?

A government source told state media SANA, that the focus for Syria is to reactivate “the 1974 Disengagement Agreement, with the aim of ensuring the withdrawal of Israeli forces to the lines in place prior to Dec. 8, 2024 within a reciprocal security agreement that prioritizes full Syrian sovereignty and guarantees the prevention of any form of interference in Syria’s internal affairs.”

The Syrian government, led by President Ahmed al-Sharaa, will want Israel to respect Syrian sovereignty by pulling back its forces and stopping attacks but also to stop meddling in domestic affairs.

The Washington Post reported that Israel has supported figures opposed to Syria’s new government, including Suwayda’s Hikmat al Hijri. Israel has previously said they want to protect Syria’s minority Druze community.

What does Israel want?

Three things mainly, according to Al Jazeera’s senior correspondent Resul Serdar.

“For Israel, it’s about more land, patronage of minorities, and long term leverage,” he said.

Israel has tried to paint the new government in Syria as extremist and a threat to its security. It has called for the area south of Damascus to be demilitarised, while also trying to build relations with Syrian minorities, particularly the Druze in Suwayda.

Analysts believe this could be part of a strategy by Israel to keep its neighbours weak.

Israel has come to the table at least partially due to US leverage and influence. US President Donald Trump and his Special Envoy Tom Barrack have both built warm relations with al-Sharaa.

But Israel may also want to counter Turkish influence in Syria. Israel has previously accused Turkiye of turning Syria into its protectorate.

What does the US want?

“For Washington the priority is containment,” Serdar said.

The US also sees Damascus as a crucial partner in the fight against ISIL. Stability in Syria, particularly under a central government in Damascus, could mean pulling US troops out of eastern Syria.

But the US also wants a strong Syria to avoid the return of Iranian influence in the country and to avoid any wider regional violence.

For his part, Trump is eager to expand the Abraham Accords that sees Arab and Muslim countries sign normalisation agreements with Israel and has said he hopes Syria will do so. Syria, however, has said they do not intend to sign the Abraham Accords.

Will the mechanism work?

There are doubts.

A Syrian official told Reuters news agency that his country isn’t willing to move forward on “strategic files” without an enforced timeline over Israel’s withdrawal from Syrian territory taken after December 2024.

In addition to moving into Syrian territory, Israel has conducted numerous attacks on Damascus, including on the Syrian Ministry of Defense building.

A similar mechanism between Israel and Lebanon was created after the November 2024 ceasefire there, with France and the United States involved to enforce the deal. However, the mechanism has not stopped near-daily attacks by Israel on Lebanese territory, nor has it led to the withdrawal of Israeli troops from five occupied points in Lebanon.

For the mechanism to work, the United States will have to do something it has rarely done in recent years: hold Israel accountable.

What about the Golan Heights?

Israel has illegally occupied areas of the Syrian Golan Heights since 1967.

Israeli officials have indicated they are not willing to return the Golan Heights to the new Syrian government.

After the fall of the Assad regime, Israel expanded into Syrian territory and seized the strategic outlook of Jabal al-Sheikh, a mountain that lies between Syria, Lebanon and Israel.

For now, Syria appears to be focused on getting Israel out of the areas it occupied since December 2024.

For years, Aidarous al-Zubaidi has been the undisputed strongman of southern Yemen, a former air force officer who transitioned from a rebel leader to a statesman courted by Western diplomats.

But on Wednesday, his political trajectory took a drastic turn.

In a decree that has shaken the country’s fragile power-sharing arrangement, the chairman of the Presidential Leadership Council (PLC), Rashad al-Alimi, removed al-Zubaidi from his post as council member, stripping him of his immunity and referring him to the public prosecutor on charges of “high treason”.

The decree accuses al-Zubaidi of “forming armed gangs”, “harming the Republic’s political and military standing”, and leading a military rebellion.

Simultaneously, the Saudi-led coalition announced that al-Zubaidi had “fled to an unknown destination” after failing to answer a summons to Riyadh—a claim the Southern Transitional Council (STC) vehemently denies, insisting their leader remains in Aden.

So, who is the man at the centre of these rapid developments in Yemen?

The ‘rebel’ officer

Born in 1967 in the Zubayd village of the mountainous Al-Dale governorate, al-Zubaidi’s life has mirrored the turbulent history of southern Yemen.

He graduated from the air force academy in Aden as a second lieutenant in 1988. However, his military career was upended by the 1994 civil war, in which northern forces under then-President Ali Abdullah Saleh crushed the southern separatist movement.

Al-Zubaidi fought on the losing side and was forced into exile in Djibouti.

He returned to Yemen in 1996 to found Haq Taqreer al-Maseer (HTM), which means the Movement of Right to Self-Determination, an armed group that carried out assassinations against northern military officials. A military court sentenced him to death in absentia, a ruling that stood until Saleh pardoned him in 2000.

After years of a low-level rebellion, al-Zubaidi re-emerged during the Arab Spring in 2011, when his movement claimed responsibility for attacks on Yemeni army vehicles in Al-Dale.

From governor to secessionist chief

The Houthi takeover of Sanaa in 2014 and their subsequent push south in 2015 provided al-Zubaidi with his biggest opening.

Leading southern resistance fighters, he played a pivotal role in repelling Houthi forces from Al-Dale and Aden. In recognition of his influence on the ground, President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi appointed him governor of Aden in December 2015.

However, the alliance was short-lived. Tensions between Hadi’s government and southern separatists boiled over, leading to al-Zubaidi’s dismissal in April 2017.

Less than a month later, al-Zubaidi formed the Southern Transitional Council (STC), declaring it the legitimate representative of the southern people. Backed by the United Arab Emirates, the STC built a formidable paramilitary force that frequently clashed with government troops, eventually seizing control of Aden.

In April 2022, in a bid to unify the anti-Houthi front, al-Zubaidi was appointed to the eight-member Presidential Leadership Council (PLC).

A vision of ‘South Arabia’

Despite joining the unity government, al-Zubaidi never abandoned his ultimate goal: the restoration of the pre-1990 southern state.

In interviews with international media, including United Arab Emirates state-run newspaper The National and Al Hurra, al-Zubaidi outlined a vision for a federal “State of South Arabia”. He argued that the “peace process is frozen” and that a two-state solution was the only viable path forward.

He also courted controversy by expressing openness to the Abraham Accords.

“If Palestine regains its rights … when we have our southern state, we will make our own decisions and I believe we will be part of these accords,” he told The National in September 2025.

Most recently, on January 2, 2026, al-Zubaidi issued a “constitutional declaration” announcing a two-year transition period leading to a referendum on independence – a move that appears to have triggered his dismissal.

The final rupture

The events of January 7 mark the collapse of the fragile alliance between the internationally recognised government and the STC.

Brigadier General Turki al-Maliki, spokesperson for the coalition, stated that al-Zubaidi had been distributing weapons in Aden to “cause chaos” and had fled the country after being given a 48-hour ultimatum to report to Riyadh.

Al-Maliki also confirmed “limited preemptive strikes” against STC forces mobilising near the Zind camp in Al-Dale.

The STC has rejected these accounts. In a statement issued on Wednesday morning, the council claimed al-Zubaidi is “continuing his duties from the capital, Aden”.

Instead, the STC raised the alarm about its own delegation in Riyadh, led by Secretary-General Abdulrahman Shaher al-Subaihi, claiming they have lost all contact with them.

“We demand the Saudi authorities … guarantee the safety of our delegation,” the statement read, condemning the air strikes on Al-Dale as “unjustified escalation”.

With “high treason” charges on the table and air strikes reported in the south, al-Zubaidi’s long game for independence appears to have pushed Yemen into a dangerous new phase of conflict.

Leader of Yemen’s Southern Transitional Council removed from government with the Saudi-led coalition saying he ‘fled to unknown location’.

Tehran, Iran – Bolder protests are being recorded across Iran amid an increasing deployment of armed security officers as the government’s efforts to contain an unravelling economic situation fall flat.

Footage circulating online showed huge protests on Tuesday night in the city of Abdanan, in the central province of Ilam, where several major demonstrations have taken place over the past week.

Thousands of people, from children accompanied by parents to the elderly, were filmed walking and chanting in the streets of the small city while helicopters flew overhead. The protesters appeared to have vastly outnumbered the security personnel deployed to contain them.

In the city of Ilam, the province’s capital, videos showed security forces storming the Imam Khomeini Hospital to root out and arrest protesters, something rights group Amnesty International said violates international law and again shows “how far the Iranian authorities are willing to go to crush dissent”.

The hospital became a target after protests in the county of Malekshahi earlier this week, where multiple demonstrators were shot dead while gathering at the entrance of a military base. Some wounded protesters were taken to the hospital.

Several graphic videos from the scene of the shooting circulating online showed people being sprayed with live fire and falling to the ground as they fled from the gate. The local governor said the shooting is under investigation.

State-linked media confirmed that at least three people were killed. They also announced on Tuesday that a police officer was shot dead after armed clashes took place in the aftermath of funeral processions for the dead protesters.

In Tehran, numerous videos showed traders and business owners at the Grand Bazaar, who closed down their shops, clashing with security forces in riot gear with batons and using tear gas.

People could be heard chanting “freedom” in the bazaar and shouting “dishonourable” at police officers. “Execute me if you want, I’m not a rioter,” one man shouted when pressured by security forces, to cheers and clapping from the crowd.

‘Show no mercy’

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said, in his first reaction to the protests this week, that rioters must be “put in their place”.

Meanwhile, Chief Justice Gholamhossein Mohseni-Ejei said, “We will show no mercy to rioters this time.”

The situation was similarly tense in adjacent streets and neighbourhoods, where the protests were originally started by shopkeepers on December 28. Multiple other major shopping areas in Tehran saw huge strikes and protests on Tuesday, including Yaftabad, where police were met with shouted slogans, “Neither Gaza nor Lebanon; my life for Iran”.

Iran’s government has been accused of providing support for armed groups in Gaza and Lebanon.

More clashes were recorded around the Sina Hospital in downtown Tehran, but the Tehran University of Medical Science said in a statement that the tear gas canisters filmed inside the hospital compound were not thrown by security forces.

Demonstrations also occurred in Lorestan and Kermanshah in the west; Mashhad in the northeast; Qazvin, south of the capital; the city of Shahrekord in Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari to the southwest; and the city of Hamedan, where a woman was filmed braving a police water cannon in the winter cold.

A foreign-based human rights monitor opposed to the theocratic establishment in Iran claimed at least 35 people have been killed in the protests so far. The Iranian state has not announced casualty figures, and Al Jazeera could not independently verify any.

Cooking oil triples in price

The country continues to have one of the highest inflation rates in the world, especially when it comes to the rampant increases in prices of essential food items.

The government of moderate President Masoud Pezeshkian says it is implementing plans to make sure the economic situation is contained, but a rapid decline continues to unfold.

The country’s embattled currency, the rial, was priced at more than 1.47 million to the US dollar in the open market in Tehran on Tuesday, marking yet another new all-time low that showed a lack of public and investor trust.

The price of cooking oil has experienced by far the sharpest price surge this week, more than tripling and falling further out of reach of the decimated Iranian middle class, which has seen its purchasing power dwindle since 2018, when the US unilaterally abandoned a 2015 nuclear deal and reimposed harsh sanctions.

The development comes after Pezeshkian presented a budget for the upcoming Iranian calendar year, starting in late March, that eliminated a subsidised currency rate used for certain imports, including foodstuffs.

Some economists have welcomed the rationale behind the move, which is to eliminate the rent-distributing subsidised currency rate in an attempt to combat corruption, particularly since the cheaper currency has only been abused and has failed to curb food prices.

The move was expected to lead to increased prices in the short term and face pushback from interest groups within the establishment that have benefitted from the cheap currency for years. But the oil price jump was very sudden, prompting the government to announce official prices of its own, though it remains to be seen whether the market will listen.

Using the resources to be freed from eliminating the cheaper subsidised currency, the government has offered to allocate online credits, each amounting to 10 million rials ($7 at the current exchange rate), to help people buy food.

Two renowned singers, Homayoun Shajarian and Alireza Ghorbani, joined the ranks of many people and celebrities online who said they would stop their professional activities, including scheduled concerts, in solemn observance and support for the protests.

“How can our officials lay down their heads and sleep?” asked Ali Daei, a legend of Iranian football and a respected national figure among the people, in a video interview released on Tuesday that is going viral.

“Perhaps many of them are not even Iranians, since they don’t feel sympathy for the Iranian nation.”