Iran parliament ousts two hardline critics of US talks from security panel

“Iran absolutely has capabilities to get real-time, immediate, and continuous location information,” Gary Miller, a senior research fellow at cybersecurity watchdog Citizen Lab, told the FT.

“It would surprise me very much if Iran were not using SS7, or mobile network access in the region, to track US users.”

Telecom networks under pressure

Middle Eastern telecom networks, according to the report, blocked repeated requests known as SS7 pings, which can reveal the approximate location of phones roaming outside their home networks.

Two cybersecurity experts who reviewed the data told the FT the activity appeared to be part of a coordinated effort to locate specific devices.

The tracking attempts came in the build-up to the US-Israeli attack on Iran in late February and continued during the early days of the conflict, when Iran launched missile and drone attacks on US forces and military installations across the region.

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A person familiar with the matter told the FT that Persian Gulf officials suspected Iran or allied groups had exploited roaming agreements with regional mobile operators to track US personnel.

Separately, a US official speaking anonymously said actors linked to Iran were also believed to have used commercial advertising databases to locate phones in Iraqi Kurdistan.

US lawmakers renew security concerns

US Central Command told Congress in April that it had received multiple threat reports about adversaries exploiting commercial location data to monitor or target US personnel deployed in the region.

However, Centcom said it had taken force-protection measures to safeguard its forces, while a US official told the FT there was no evidence that data tracking had played a significant role in attacks.

At least some blocked tracking attempts could be linked to an Iranian mobile operator based on a shared technical fingerprint.

“This appears to be very specific user targeting,” Miller told the FT. “They are targeting specific devices.”

The Iranian embassy in London did not immediately respond to the newspaper's request for comment.

The report also said Iran was suspected of using commercially available advertising technology to identify hotels housing US government employees and contractors.

Advertising identifiers assigned to smartphones can enable devices to be tracked without directly compromising the phones themselves.

US lawmakers cited by the FT said the findings underscored longstanding concerns about the military's exposure through commercial location data.

Ron Wyden, a Democratic senator, said he had warned successive administrations for years about the national security risks, while Republican Representative Pat Harrigan said legislation was needed to prevent technology companies from selling location data linked to government employees.

A ministry spokesperson said federal security agencies were closely monitoring developments related to the Middle East and were examining various leads concerning suspected reconnaissance activities or preparations for possible attacks.

The spokesperson said the agencies were working closely with Germany's regional authorities and international partners to continuously assess the threat environment.

The review comes after the publication of an Iranian "retaliation list" that included German Chancellor Friedrich Merz among a number of foreign leaders identified as targets for revenge.

The ministry said it had taken note of the publication and its threats, adding that security measures provided by the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) were being continuously reviewed and adjusted where necessary.

According to the ministry, the latest escalation between the United States and Iran has not, at this stage, led to a deterioration of Germany's already elevated security assessment.

The ministry also pointed to what it described as Iran's reliance on asymmetric tactics, including intelligence gathering, intimidation of regime opponents abroad and the mobilization of supporters.

It cited Lebanon's Hezbollah, the Palestinian militant group Hamas and Yemen's Houthis as groups aligned with Tehran's so-called "Axis of Resistance."

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On Saturday, Tehran municipality-affiliated newspaper Hamshahri published an image of 13 world leaders, including Merz, claiming they were on the Islamic Republic’s revenge list.

It showed them in prison uniforms in crosshairs, alongside the caption: “Revenge is certain.”

The image also showed European leaders Giorgia Meloni, Friedrich Merz, Emmanuel Macron and Keir Starmer.

Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani told Iran International on Monday that the threat against the Italian prime minister was unacceptable, adding that, “Italy is not fighting against Iran, so we do not understand this attack against Italy.”

The image also depicted US and Israeli officials, including US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The cuts, the outlet said, reflected the Islamic Republic's failure to support people covered by the welfare system, particularly those with disabilities, during a deepening economic crisis.

“For me, the question is why they cut my living allowance when even they say my disability is severe and I have developed pressure sores,” 44-year-old Hossein, whose payments stopped last month, told ILNA.

Hossein said the State Welfare Organization also provides no meaningful assistance with medication costs and refused to reimburse expenses from a surgery because it was performed during the past year.

The worsening economic situation, he added, had also reduced the ability of charities to support people with disabilities.

Rising costs deepen hardship

Many people with disabilities, ILNA said, are unable to work and depend largely on modest welfare stipends and subsidies for their livelihoods.

The report argued that deteriorating conditions stem from ineffective state policies and a lack of equal social, economic and political opportunities, warning that services become even more limited outside the capital.

The economic downturn, coupled with sharply higher healthcare and medicine costs, has placed additional strain on people with disabilities, many of whom require continuous medical treatment, rehabilitation services and specialized equipment.

In May, Khabar Online news outlet reported that rising prices for hygiene and medical supplies had affected around 45,000 people living with spinal cord injuries. Prices for essential items including sterile dressings, catheters, catheter bags, syringes and medicines for pressure sores had increased two- to three-fold.

Subsidies cover only days of expenses

Raheleh, a 45-year-old woman with a spinal cord injury, told that the monthly hygiene subsidy of 15 million rials ($8.2) was far below what was needed.

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“I have to use disposable catheters every day, and this amount only covers one week or 10 days. It cannot cover the whole month ... I have never had the opportunity to work, so in these conditions of inflation I have no salary,” she said.

She described the monthly caregiver allowance of 42 million rials ($23) as “close to nothing” given her medical expenses, adding that doctor visits, diagnostic tests and transportation costs leave her unable to meet basic needs by the middle of each month.

Fatemeh Abbasi, deputy head of rehabilitation at the State Welfare Organization, said in May that the agency had requested an 80% to 90% increase in caregiver allowances, but implementation depends on government approval.

"We're taking over the strait. They've got nothing," Trump said in a phone interview with Fox News.

Trump said the United States would assume responsibility for protecting shipping through the strait and expected other Middle Eastern countries to pay for the mission.

"And we're going to keep the strait, and we'll probably run it. We'll become the guardian of the strait. Maybe we'll call it the 'guardian angel of the strait.' And we should be reimbursed for that. When we do that, we're going to be reimbursed because the other nations are very wealthy, they're on our side."

He later elaborated on the proposal in a Truth Social post, saying Washington would restore a blockade targeting Iranian shipping while allowing all other commercial traffic to pass.

"The Hormuz strait is open, and will remain open, with or without Iran. We are reinstating the Iranian blockade, so named because it is only stopping Iran's ships or customers from entering or leaving. All other countries will have fair and open use of the strait," he said.

"The U.S.A. will be, from this point forward, known as 'the guardian of the Hormuz strait,'" Trump added.

He also said the United States would charge countries using the waterway a fee equal to 20% of the value of cargo shipped to cover "any and all costs necessary to do the job of providing safety and security to this very volatile section of the World." It was not immediately clear whether US allies had agreed to such an arrangement.

Trump said his administration had believed it had reached a lasting understanding with Tehran before deciding Iran had violated it.

"What nobody knows, we had a deal. It was a done deal, and then they broke it. They always break it. We've had 10 deals with these people, and so we're just going to hit them very hard."

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  Trump reinstates Iran naval blockade, notifies Congress of renewed fighting

The remarks came after the United States carried out another round of strikes against Iran following Iranian attacks on US facilities across the Persian Gulf and Tehran's renewed declaration that the Strait of Hormuz was closed.

The exchange has effectively collapsed the interim memorandum of understanding reached in June, which had aimed to reopen the waterway and provide a framework for further negotiations.

Iran says it charges less

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi rejected Trump's statement that Washington would become the strait's guardian.

"POTUS is absolutely right. Whoever provides secure and safe passage of commercial vessels through the Strait of Hormuz should be compensated for this service," he said. "Iran has always been the guardian of the Strait and will remain so forever. 20% is of course too much. We will be fair."

New attacks on nuclear sites

Trump also said on Monday that Iran's Pickaxe Mountain nuclear site could soon become a US target.

Speaking to conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt, Trump said the United States was closely monitoring the deeply buried facility.

"A nice big fat shot right in the front door," Trump said, adding the United States would "probably give Pickaxe a shot relatively soon."

Trump also indicated further military action was imminent.

"It was a test. We didn't know," he said of the memorandum of understanding with Iran. "Memorandums of understanding, when you're dealing with sleazebags, don't mean much. It was sort of a test, and they weren't there. They didn't honor the test."

The renewed campaign has also reignited opposition in Congress.

Democratic Senator Adam Schiff said he would introduce a new War Powers Resolution this week to force another Senate vote on ending US military involvement in Iran, while Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said Trump's "so-called understanding" with Iran had collapsed.

"Enough is enough. End the war," Schumer wrote on X.

Critics from both parties also argued the administration was stretching its legal authority. "The president can't just wish away months of war he said would last only four to six weeks," a senior Democratic aide in the House of Representatives told Reuters.

Meanwhile, the US military operation has continued alongside Trump's remarks. US Central Command said American forces have struck more than 300 Iranian military targets over the past week and announced additional attacks on Monday.

"These strikes will continue imposing a heavy cost on Iranian forces and degrade their ability to attack innocent civilians and commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz," CENTCOM said.

The revenge-laden rhetoric that dominated the week-long mourning ceremonies for former Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei is rapidly evolving into something broader.

State media have published images depicting not only US officials but also European leaders, including France’s Emmanuel Macron and Italy’s Giorgia Meloni, as targets.

On Monday, July 13, Ali Mahdian, a hardline seminarian and academic associated with the late Ayatollah Mohammad-Taqi Mesbah Yazdi, the ideological father of the ultraconservative Paydari Front, went further still, seeking to provide a religious justification for political assassination.

Writing in the Tehran municipality’s daily Hamshahri, Mahdian presented the killing of Western leaders and those he held responsible for the deaths of senior Iranian figures not as terrorism but as a “divine mission.”

Citing Ayatollah Khomeini’s fatwa against author Salman Rushdie, he rejected the argument that a sovereign state should not engage in targeted killings. Referring to remarks by Quds Force commander Esmail Qaani, Mahdian even suggested that an actor inside the United States might carry out such an attack.

“This is a global wrath… an era in which the head of Satan must be cut off,” he concluded with an apocalyptic call to action. “Everyone must help: scholars, clerics, preachers, speakers, broadcasters, channel writers, officials, Iranians, Iraqis, everyone.”

The significance lies less in the practicality of his appeal than in how openly such arguments are now being advanced in an established state newspaper.

Late last week, US forces resumed strikes on Iranian military infrastructure, while Iran retaliated against American bases across the Persian Gulf. President Donald Trump announced a renewed blockade of Iranian shipping, saying the United States would keep the Strait of Hormuz open.

Tehran, meanwhile, says transit through the strait is no longer possible because of US military action and insists it retains control over the strategic waterway, while threatening further retaliation.

The same day, Kayhan offered a strategic counterpart to Mahdian’s theological argument.

In a commentary by Alireza Mashouri, introduced as a scholar of international relations, the newspaper called for Iran to abandon its longstanding policy of “strategic patience” in favour of what he termed “offensive diplomacy.”

“When a state exercises restraint, enemies do not see it as moral high ground or peace-loving nature; they calculate it as a lack of capability or will to respond,” he wrote.

Mashouri argued that Iran’s year of compliance after the US withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear deal convinced its adversaries that Tehran lacked the will to respond, paving the way for “maximum pressure,” targeted assassinations and progressively bolder military attacks.

“In global politics, there is no such thing as a moral ledger where a state is rewarded later for its past good behavior,” Mashouri wrote. “This does not mean starting a war; it means making the cost of aggression real for the enemy.”

None of this necessarily means that Tehran has adopted political assassination or uncontrolled escalation as formal policy.

Iran has a long history of violence against opposition figures and regional adversaries, but public appeals for the killing of sitting Western leaders represent a notable escalation in the language emerging from influential hardline circles.

More significant than the rhetoric itself may be the erosion of the political and ideological case for restraint. As US and Iranian forces exchange attacks and the dispute over Hormuz becomes another front in the war, hardline voices increasingly portray negotiation not as a means of protecting Iran but as proof of weakness.

What began as funeral rhetoric is becoming something more consequential: an argument that the era of strategic patience is over, and that peace now demands a justification war no longer does.