Issuing motorcycle licenses to women requires changes to regulations and law, Iran’s traffic police chief said on Sunday, adding the force is waiting for a formal government order before taking action.
“For licenses for women, certain bylaws, laws and regulations must be revised. We are awaiting an official notification on women’s motorcycling so we can proceed,” said Brigadier General Teymour Hosseini, head of traffic police.
The current legal framework blocks issuance, Hosseini added, pointing to a traffic law that designates the police as the licensing authority for men and makes no reference to women.
He said any implementation would require a statutory amendment and a written directive from competent authorities.
Despite the legal bar, more women have taken up motorcycling in Iranian cities in recent years, especially after protests linked to the death of Mahsa Amini in morality police custody. Officials say the trend has spread from Tehran to other provinces, reflecting practical needs for mobility and work.
A 2010 change to the traffic code left women riders in a gray zone: riding without a license is an offense, but enforcement has been uneven, with officers alternately warning or seizing bikes.
The president’s parliamentary affairs deputy, Kazem Delkhosh, said in August that the government is working on a way to legalize women’s motorcycling. “We are preparing legislation for women who want to ride, and the women’s affairs office is also working on a bill,” he told the state-run Iran newspaper.
Conservative clerics often argue that public motorcycling by women could invite unwanted attention or offend social norms, positions that have helped keep the licensing door closed.
Speaking to Channel 12, Cohen said: “I always wanted to be proactive, identify threats, neutralize them. But the prevailing approach was avoidance—‘Oh, what will happen next?’ For example, I had a full plan to eliminate Qassem Soleimani in Syria. Everything was ready—intelligence, surveillance, logistics—but I was told I couldn’t carry it out because it would spark a war with Iran.”
During the interview, aired Saturday evening, he recalled then US President Donald Trump accusing Netanyahu of cowardice for backing out of the strike.
Cohen said Israeli reluctance “wasn’t because of the prime minister -- but because [Netanyahu] accepted the army and military intelligence’s position,” referring to then chief of staff Aviv Kohavi.
He recalled a security meeting in which he proposed that the IDF strike a site linked to Qassem Soleimani that the military had itself labeled a serious strategic threat, without giving a date. “The chief of staff opposed me, right there,” he said. “I told the prime minister: ‘Instruct him.’ But no directive was given.”
Cohen said Netanyahu sided with the generals, a stance he described as a “policy of consequences.”
Asked if the generals intimidated the premier, he said: “Absolutely.”
On June 13, Israel launched surprise attacks on Iran, killing many senior military leaders and nuclear experts, and triggering a 12-day war that brought destruction to both sides.
After Cohen’s remarks were aired Saturday evening, Kohavi issued a statement saying the IDF had opposed a different operation proposed by Cohen to kill Soleimani, and had backed what proved to be a successful operation.
Asked if Netanyahu might have acted differently in another environment, Cohen replied: “Yes, absolutely.”
Under Cohen's tenure, from 2016-2021, Operation House of Cards saw Israel target dozens of Iranian targets in Syria in 2018.
During his Saturday interview, Cohen said one of his major successes was acquiring Iran’s nuclear archive.
He said he devised the “exploding beepers” tactic used against Hezbollah last year, when pagers and walkie-talkies belonging to the Iran-backed group were rigged to detonate simultaneously, killing and wounding hundreds of its fighters across Lebanon.
“I’m the father of the concept," the long-time agent said. "In 2004, I told then-Mossad chief Meir Dagan I wanted a special operations center that would also handle equipment sales.”
Haghshenas said restoring the wetland requires $300 million and called for measures to stop industrial, agricultural and household wastewater from flowing into it.
He warned that decades of untreated sewage, sediment and pollution, compounded by falling Caspian water levels, have left the wetland on the brink of ecological collapse.
The wetland, registered under the international Ramsar Convention in 1975, is a critical habitat for fish, birds and local livelihoods.
Environmental officials said invasive plants, shrinking water flow and mismanagement have deepened the crisis, but stressed that “Anzali is not dead and can recover” if pollution is curbed and water retained.
In August, a senior Iranian environment official warned that Lake Urmia in northwestern Iran, once the Middle East’s largest, will completely dry up by the end of summer if current conditions persist.
“The lake's water level on August 1, 2025, was 1,269.74 meters, its area had shrunk to 581 square kilometers, and its volume was down to about half a billion cubic meters,” said Ahmadreza Lahijanzadeh, deputy for marine and wetland affairs at Iran’s Department of Environment.
