Khamenei warns Muslim states against aiding Israel, blocking Gaza aid

“I understand that the administration continues to be open to talks with Iran if we deem them necessary,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters.

Leavitt also said that the US airstrikes on Iran's atomic sites last month "obliterated their nuclear capability."

On June 22, the US carried out airstrikes on Iran’s key nuclear sites at Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan. The full extent of the damage remains unclear. Assessments continue to conflict, and Iranian authorities have not released a comprehensive evaluation.

Speaking to Fox News anchor Bret Baier, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said multiple enrichment sites had been “severely and seriously damaged,” though he said the extent of the impact is still being assessed by Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization.

The US operation, dubbed Operation Midnight Hammer by President Trump, involved B-2 stealth bombers armed with 30,000-pound Massive Ordnance Penetrators—so-called “bunker busters” designed to penetrate fortified underground facilities. The US strikes followed an earlier Israeli offensive known as Operation Rising Lion.

Iran won't give up enrichment

Araghchi told Fox News that the country will not abandon its uranium enrichment program, calling it both a scientific achievement and a matter of national pride.

“Our enrichment is so dear to us,” he said. “Obviously we cannot give up our enrichment, because it is an achievement of our own scientists and now more than that, it is a question of national pride.”

Iran’s uranium enrichment program has long been a source of international tension. While Tehran maintains that the program is for peaceful purposes, the UN nuclear watchdog argues that enriching uranium to high levels of purity lacks any civilian justification.

In a display of outrage, a poultry farmer dumped dead chickens in front of the Electric Distribution Management Center in Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad province, blaming the power outage for their deaths.

"Since this morning, there has been no electricity. At least inform us so we can use generators," the farmer says.

A baker also posted a video showing spoiled bread dough, saying that three separate outages in a single day caused the dough to go bad, forcing him to throw it all away.

A construction worker shared footage of cement bags hanging midair on a stalled hoist, explaining that the outage had brought their work to a halt.

"It’s been less than an hour since we started, and already we can’t continue. We can’t access the cement, and the entire operation is stopped — not just for us but for others too," he said in the video.

Sanctions, age and mismanagement have taxed Iran's energy infrastructure, and the country has long faced blackouts especially in summer months when water and electricity demand surge.

However, conditions appear to have worsened following the 12-day war with Israel, with Iranians reporting more frequent and severe blackouts.

Businesses and services are also struggling, with one factory worker filmed a halted production line saying: "We can’t do anything — there’s no electricity."

In another video, a shop in the Tabriz bazaar was shown operating on a generator during an outage.

Disrupted daily life

The blackouts are affecting not only businesses but also social and domestic life.

A student filmed herself using a kettle heated on a gas burner to iron her scarf, saying, "There’s no electricity, but since we still have gas, we find ways to manage."

"It’s 2025 — while most countries have stable electricity, I’m heating a kettle to iron my scarf before heading to university," she added ruefully.

Another video from the city of Ahvaz shows a man standing in 122-degree heat, complaining about the power outage and turning on a faucet to show that the lack of running water.

A member of the Iran's Electricity Market and Exchange Commission warned that if current trends in electricity supply and consumption continue, Iran will face managed blackouts for at least four more years.

"The total nominal capacity of the national power grid is 94,500 megawatts, but actual production is just over 63,400 megawatts," Ali Shahmohammadi told Shargh daily in June.

"Over the past five years, electricity demand has grown by about 5.5 percent, while power generation capacity has increased by only 2.2 percent up to 2024 — a figure that highlights the severity of the crisis," Shahmohammadi added.

Not even daily commutes to and from affected homes and workplaces provide a respite from the blackouts, with a video from the city of Mashhad showing heavy traffic caused by disabled traffic lights.

According to data released by Ukraine’s Air Force, Russia is intensifying drone swarm attacks while limiting their targets to two or three locations.

On Monday alone, Ukraine reported what it described as 200 Shahed-type strikes on its official Telegram channel.

The Shahed-136 drone was originally designed and manufactured in Iran. Russia has begun producing the drone domestically, giving it a Russian name and modifying it for greater speed to evade air defenses.

Russian-manufactured Shahed drones are called Geran, or Geranium, in keeping with a Soviet-era tradition of naming weapons after flowers.

Russia often uses Shahed drones in combination with ballistic missile barrages to overwhelm Ukrainian air defense systems.

Ukraine counters drone attacks through electronic jamming of guidance systems and the use of anti-aircraft guns.

Financial Times analysis shows that the likelihood of Shahed drones hitting their targets has tripled over the past month.

The United States has imposed multiple rounds of sanctions on Iran’s drone production and procurement networks.

In February, the Trump administration sanctioned six entities in Hong Kong and mainland China for facilitating the acquisition of components used in Iranian armed drones.

Mostafa Nourizadeh, the husband of Hakimeh Bakhto—one of the workers killed in the explosion—told the reformist-leaning paper that the cargo was not handled by regular customs brokers and could not have been transported by a private company.

This cargo belonged to a military institution, he said citing investigations by the victims' families.

“That’s where the questions begin: What entered the port? Why was it there? Why wasn’t it stored safely?”

The report also said, citing victims' families, that no officials have been dismissed or otherwise held accountable and that court proceedings have stalled, with case files marked as confidential.

While the judiciary announced compensation payments to the families of the 58 victims, Ham-Mihan said some relatives reported receiving no support, and injured workers had to pay medical expenses out of pocket.

According to the private security firm Ambrey, the explosion was “reportedly the result of improper handling of a shipment of solid fuel intended for use in Iranian ballistic missiles.”

Months later, officials have not publicly provided a detailed explanation.

According to the UN International Organization for Migration, nearly 700,000 Afghans were deported from Iran in the first half of 2025. A full 130,000 were expelled within just one week after the 12-day war between Iran and Israel. Many had lived in Iran for decades.

Far from an aberration, the recent wave of arrests, public humiliation and mass expulsions of Afghan migrants is a continuation of Tehran's decades-old political manipulation of one of the most vulnerable populations in the region.

The Islamic Republic's founder Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini famously declared that "Islam has no borders" and welcomed Afghan refugees fleeing a Soviet invasion in 1979.

But beyond this ideological gesture, Tehran never offered a clear legal or humanitarian framework for integration. Millions of Afghans entered Iran, only to be denied citizenship, legal employment or access to education and healthcare.

Over the decades, Afghan migrants have been treated as expendable tools in Tehran’s shifting policies in the region.

They were recruited to fight in Syria as part of the “Fatemiyoun” Brigade, exploited as cheap undocumented labor inside Iran and periodically threatened with mass expulsion in bouts of official populism.

During moments of domestic discontent, Afghan migrants became convenient targets to deflect public anger.

Under President Ebrahim Raisi, the policy of exploitation took on new dimensions. In the wake of the Taliban's return to power in 2021, a massive influx of Afghan refugees entered Iran and as many as around two million Afghans crossed the border within two years.

Rather than developing a comprehensive migration policy, Tehran allowed its border regions to turn into chaotic transit points run by smugglers and corrupt officials.

Xenophobia

In the aftermath of Israel’s devastating strikes on Iranian military and nuclear sites, domestic frustration reached boiling point.

The Islamic Republic, seeking to redirect the public's discontent, amplified xenophobic narratives portraying Afghans as a threat to national security.

Despite isolated claims of rising crime among Afghans, official figures show otherwise.

Iran's judiciary reports that Afghan nationals comprise only about 6% of the prison population—roughly in line with their proportion of the total population. The majority of these arrests are for undocumented entry or labor violations, not violent or organized crime.

Ghosts of policies past

In 2001, following the fall of the Taliban, I traveled to the border town of Taybad and the nearby Islam Qala crossing and I was able to personally witness the brutal consequences of this policy.

There, I saw mass graves of Hazara refugees who had been forcibly returned by the Islamic Republic and summarily executed by Taliban fighters in the deserts surrounding the town.

Tehran knew that these Shia Hazaras were at extreme risk, yet still arrested them in Iranian cities, detained them in camps in the east and deported them into the hands of their eventual killers. This memory haunts me to this day.

The recent expulsions have also generated heartbreaking testimonies. Haajar Shademani, a 19-year-old Afghan born in Shiraz, told AFP she was forced to leave the only home she ever knew.

Denied access to Iranian universities and now blocked from education under Taliban rule, she faces an uncertain future.

The Islamic Republic’s interference in Afghanistan has extended far beyond its borders. Over the past two decades, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), through its Ansar Corps based in eastern Iran, has pursued an interventionist policy in Afghan affairs.

Military and intelligence advisors operated on the ground while the Ministry of Foreign Affairs established a dedicated Afghanistan Affairs Office, often in conflict with the IRGC’s goals.

These interventions disrupted Afghanistan’s internal balance and forced thousands more civilians to flee.

Moreover, Tehran deliberately resettled the families of Afghan political and military elites inside Iran, creating dependencies that undermined Afghan sovereignty.

This too was part of a broader strategy: open-door policies were never humanitarian in intent—they were designed to serve Iran’s strategic interests.

As Tehran continues to wage psychological warfare against Afghan migrants, reports of mob violence, arson, and public beatings have become more frequent.

In this climate of state-sanctioned hostility, ultra-conservative media figures portray any defense of Afghan rights as treason.

Policymakers and human rights advocates in Washington and European capitals should call out Tehran's exploitation of Afghan refugees.

This community is not a plaything—Afghans are survivors of a conflict-plagued country, and their dignity must not be sacrificed for political expediency.

Afghan migrants deserve justice, protection, and the chance to live free from fear—not another generation of displacement and death.