THIS PAGE WILL BE UPDATED WITH THE LATEST NEWS
UPDATE: 7:30 PM CEST
Treasury Grounds Iranian Airlines with Sweeping Sanctions Action
WASHINGTON— Today, under Operation Economic Outcast, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned 36 targets for supporting Iran’s aviation sector, which the regime uses to move weapons, personnel, and illicit cargo. Today’s action also targeted covert front companies, foreign intermediaries, and deceptive transshipment routes that Iran relies on to obtain U.S.-origin aircraft and sensitive technology. In addition to OFAC’s action, Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) is issuing an Alert asking financial institutions to report procurement networks supporting Iran’s aviation industry.
“Under Operation Economic Outcast, we promised severe consequences for those providing financial lifelines to the Iranian regime,” said Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent. “Today, we followed through on that promise with sanctions on companies that continue to support Mahan Air. Let this be a warning to anyone doing business with Iran’s remaining airlines, all of which we sanctioned today: You are at risk of being cut off from the global financial system.”
Iranian Offshore Oil Inventories Expected to Run Out by Mid-October: Report
US naval blockade has halted new Iranian oil exports from the Persian Gulf, leaving Tehran reliant on dwindling offshore stockpiles that are expected to run dry soon.
According to a Wall Street Journal report, no Iranian crude has crossed the US blockade line since it was reinstated in mid-July.
Iran continues limited loadings onto tankers inside the Gulf, but those barrels remain trapped.
The country is surviving on floating stockpiles of oil that left before the blockade tightened—volumes that have fallen sharply to around 29 million barrels from about 90 million in mid-July, per ship-tracking firm Kpler.
Kpler estimates that deliveries of roughly 1 million barrels a day, mostly to China, could exhaust the remaining oil already on the water by mid-October.
Payments for previously delivered cargoes are projected to dry up by mid-December.
UPDATE: 6:30 PM CEST
When the Supreme Leader Speaks, Who Still Listens?
Mojtaba Khamenei inherited the most powerful office in the Islamic Republic. Yet six months into his tenure, a question once considered unthinkable is surfacing in Tehran. When the Supreme Leader speaks, who still listens?
For almost five decades, the answer was obvious. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini created a system in which factional warfare could rage beneath the surface, provided everyone ultimately bowed to the Supreme Leader. Ali Khamenei preserved that arrangement for more than three decades. Presidents came and went. Clerics competed. The Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) accumulated power. Yet one principle remained sacrosanct. The Supreme Leader had the final word.
Today that principle is under strain. On August 28, Mojtaba Khamenei warned officials against creating false choices between war and negotiation, compromise and confrontation. He urged them to avoid publicizing weaknesses and declared that anything damaging social cohesion was forbidden. The message appeared designed to impose discipline on a deeply divided regime. Within hours, President Masoud Pezeshkian was making the opposite argument. He has repeatedly highlighted the devastating consequences of sanctions, war, and economic isolation. Reuters reported on August 28 that he acknowledged a 35 percent decline in foreign trade.
UPDATE: 5:30 PM CEST
These Two Women Are the Most Serious Challenge to Ayatollah’s Brutal Regime in Iran
Women accused of adultery are routinely stoned to death in Iran. Neither domestic violence nor marital rape are crimes. Women face the lash for refusing to wear the veil, and they can be forced into marriage at the age of nine.
Female court testimony carries only half the weight of a male, they are banned from many vocations, cannot ride motorcycles and, of course, the state dictates the way they must dress. Almost every credible human rights group agrees women in Iran are very much second class citizens, and essentially the property of the male.
Which makes it all the more astonishing that the biggest and most serious challenge to both the mullahs’ religious fascism and the mediaeval-style male hegemony comes from two women.
Dissident Iranians in the UK on Sunday helped vote 67-year-old woman Mahnaz Maimanat to a key role in the fight against both the Ayatollah and his brutal attack dogs the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Maimanat joins Maryam Rajavi, President-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), as one of the most prominent female voices in the organised opposition to Tehran. She was elected Secretary General of the People’s Mojahedin Organisation of Iran (PMOI/MEK).
UPDATE: 3:30 PM CEST
Tehran Isn’t Asking If the Revolution Is Coming. It’s Arming for When
Iran’s rulers appear to be preparing for an outcome they increasingly fear is inevitable: another nationwide uprising.
Reports from inside Iran point to an intensified effort to recruit, train, and equip the Basij — the paramilitary force long serving as the regime’s principal instrument of domestic repression. At the same time, authorities are struggling to mobilize even their own base for state-organized demonstrations.
The contrast is revealing. Tehran is finding it harder to put loyalists on the streets even as it expands the security forces intended to confront future protesters. Meanwhile, organized opponents of the regime are demonstrating an increasingly audacious ability to operate publicly.
On Sept. 3, Resistance Units affiliated with the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK) staged an organized march through Karaj, a major city west of Tehran, using vehicles and motorcycles displaying MEK symbols. The action, marking the MEK’s 61st anniversary, was striking not merely because it occurred in broad daylight in a heavily monitored urban center, but because footage of it was subsequently published by Saberiyoun News, an outlet aligned with the regime’s so-called “Axis of Resistance.”
UPDATE: 1:00 PM CEST
Andy Burnham Has A Chance To Put Iran’s Tyranny Back On The International Agenda
Prime Minister Andy Burnham recently indicated that he will likely use this month’s United Nations General Assembly as an opportunity to meet allies and exert pressure on the White House over future support for Ukraine’s national defence. It is an admirable use of his new position and a valuable opportunity for Burnham to expand his international influence. However, as he prepares for his first state visit to the United States, he has a responsibility to broaden his focus far beyond the issue of Russian aggression.
The war in Ukraine is, after all, not the only current conflict involving a long-time British ally. War with the Islamic Republic of Iran has now been proceeding, off and on, for more than six months, underscoring the depth of the threat that Iran’s Islamist dictatorship poses to Western powers, the broader international community and its own people. Petroleum markets and international shipping continue to suffer the consequences of the Iranian regime’s belligerence and expansion of the war across the region, while the regime uses the ongoing conflict to justify an escalating campaign of violent repression and politically motivated executions within its own borders.
It is every bit as imperative for the United Kingdom to help resolve these crises as it is for Britain to continue contributing to the collective defence of Ukraine. Yet the issues surrounding Iran have received comparatively little attention in Western policy discussions, even as Iranian dissidents and advocates for democracy have called for international support and a reassessment of existing policies towards the Islamic Republic.
UPDATE: 7:30 AM CEST
Iranian Main Opposition Elects a Woman as New Secretary General
Amid one of the most tense phases in recent Iranian history, a development has taken place within the organized opposition that deserves greater attention in Europe as well. On September 6, the 61st anniversary of the founding of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK), Mahnaz Maimanat was elected as the new Secretary General for a two-year term.
The election took place in three stages with the participation of organization members in France, Germany, Great Britain, Sweden, Switzerland, the Netherlands, and Albania. In the first round, competing against two other female candidates, Maimanat received 56 percent of the vote, and 85 percent in the second round. In the final vote, she was elected with near-unanimous approval from the participating members. Maimanat has been part of the organization’s leadership for many years and had been serving at the level of Secretary General since 2021.
Change Must Come from Within Iran
The significance of this election goes beyond a simple change in personnel. Iran is in the midst of a deep economic and social crisis. At the same time, the leadership’s concern over new protests and another nationwide uprising is unmistakable. That one of the most important and most strongly organized opposition forces is renewing its leadership in this situation is therefore a signal of continuity—and simultaneously of preparation for a new political phase.
After Four Decades of Prison and Persecution, Ali Moezzi Marks 61 Years of PMOI Resistance
Veteran political prisoner Ali Moezzi has marked the 61st anniversary of the founding of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) with a message from Ghezel Hesar Prison declaring that decades of repression have failed to halt the organization’s growth or extinguish resistance inside Iran.
Moezzi’s confrontation with the regime stretches back more than four decades. He was imprisoned from 1981 to 1984 in Ghezel Hesar, Evin, and Gohardasht and suffered physical and psychological torture whose effects persisted long afterward. He has subsequently been repeatedly arrested over his support for the PMOI.
Most recently, in March 2026, Moezzi was among political prisoners forced into solitary confinement during the violent Ghezel Hesar raid that immediately preceded a succession of executions of six imprisoned PMOI members.
Yet his anniversary message focuses not on his own suffering but on what he describes as the PMOI’s “61 years of evolutionary life,” built around enduring principles of “unity, emancipation, and freedom” and opposition to dictatorship and dependence.
Iran’s Ruling Factions Clash Over Ending the War and the Strait of Hormuz as Hardliners Attack Rouhani
Former President Hassan Rouhani’s remarks on keeping the Strait of Hormuz commercially active, ending the war “with dignity” and consulting public opinion have triggered a new wave of attacks from hardline factions.
Hassan Rouhani’s latest remarks on the Strait of Hormuz and the need to end the war have brought back into public view a dispute that had been running inside Iran’s ruling establishment since the 40-day war and the Islamabad memorandum. This time, the confrontation is not limited to the former president and hardline media; at the same time in parliament, lawmakers close to the Paydari Front are clashing with the government and Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf over wartime security policies.
In his recent remarks, Rouhani placed three issues alongside one another: the importance of keeping the Strait of Hormuz commercially active, ending the war, and consulting the public over whether a prolonged conflict should continue. The newspaper Hammihan, quoting Rouhani, reported that he said the “prosperity” of the Strait of Hormuz matters and asked whether, if Iran were to be “at war with global powers for 20 years,” the public should not be consulted.
MEK Supporters in Heidelberg Commemorate the 61st Anniversary of the PMOI’s Founding
Heidelberg, Germany – September 5, 2026: Supporters of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) set up a book table and photo exhibition in Heidelberg to mark the 61st anniversary of the PMOI’s founding.
Alongside commemorating the anniversary, they renewed their pledge to honor the memory of those who have sacrificed their lives in the struggle for freedom—from the organization’s three founders to more than 100,000 PMOI members and supporters killed under the clerical dictatorship, as well as those who have lost their lives in Iran’s nationwide uprisings.
MEK Supporters Rally in Malmö to Mark the 61st Anniversary of the PMOI’s Founding
Malmö, Sweden – September 5, 2026: Supporters of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) gathered in Malmö to mark the 61st anniversary of the PMOI’s founding.
Alongside commemorating the anniversary, they renewed their pledge to honor the memory of those who have sacrificed their lives in the struggle for freedom—from the organization’s three founders to more than 100,000 PMOI members and supporters killed under the clerical dictatorship, as well as those who have lost their lives in Iran’s nationwide uprisings.
MEK Supporters in Berlin Commemorate the 61st Anniversary of the PMOI’s Founding
Berlin, Germany – September 5, 2026: Supporters of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) gathered in Berlin to celebrate and commemorate the 61st anniversary of the PMOI’s founding.
Alongside celebrating and commemorating the anniversary, they reaffirmed their unwavering support for the PMOI’s struggle to achieve freedom, democracy, and equality in a free and democratic republic in Iran.
They also emphasized their continued support for the PMOI’s Resistance Units inside Iran and for the courageous political prisoners who continue to stand against the regime from within its prisons and voice their support for the PMOI.