Sepah Bank, a major state-owned bank tied to the Islamic Republic's military has warned staff to pursue pay and workplace grievances only through authorized channels, according to an internal notice obtained by Iran International.
The September 9 directive told employees working at the bank to avoid conduct outside normal administrative procedures when seeking pay, benefits or other employment rights.
The bank's personnel department said staff who failed to follow the administrative chain of command or professional rules could face disciplinary action, including decisions affecting their employment status.
Sepah Bank is one of Iran’s largest state-owned lenders and has long had close ties to the country’s military establishment. It absorbed several banks and financial institutions affiliated with Iran’s armed forces as part of a government-led consolidation of the banking sector.
The clashes began around a residential property in the Bakhshan area before dawn and were still continuing nearly eight hours later, extending to the vicinity of the Madani Grand Mosque and parts of Jahadabad, according to the group’s updates.
Local sources cited by Haalvsh said gunmen attacked at least three vehicles carrying military and security personnel, as well as two locations where forces had gathered. The reported casualty figures have not been independently confirmed.
Sources described sustained gunfire, repeated explosions and the use of heavy weapons, with fighting resuming after brief pauses. Haalvsh said it had not independently established the precise locations of all the exchanges.
Several ambulances were reportedly stationed nearby. Local sources said wounded personnel and bodies had been removed by other security forces, with some transported by ambulance to medical facilities. The identities and exact number of those killed or wounded remained unknown.
Roads blocked around residential area
Security forces blocked streets and access routes around the Madani Grand Mosque, roughly 200 meters from the house targeted in the initial operation, local sources said. A substantial deployment remained in the area, restricting movement around the fighting.
Gunmen inside the house exchanged fire with security personnel, some of whom were wearing traditional Baluch clothing, according to the sources. The property was described as belonging to a local resident, but the reports did not establish his connection, if any, to the gunmen.
Haalvsh reported civilians close to some of the clashes. Their situation remained unclear as fighting continued and roads were blocked, with no confirmed information on civilian casualties.
The gunmen’s identities and affiliations, the reason for the initial operation and any casualties among the armed group were also unknown. Military and security authorities had not issued an official account by the time of its latest update.
Saravan is in Sistan and Baluchestan, a southeastern province bordering Pakistan and Afghanistan and home to Iran’s mainly Sunni Muslim Baluch minority. The province has a long history of armed insurgency, although the reports provided no established link between Saturday’s gunmen and any known group.
An analysis published by Tejarat News on Wednesday estimated that a package of common women’s screenings and consultations could cost as much as 518 million rials in 2026, up from 138 million rials two years earlier.
For workers earning the average monthly pay of 250 million rials, the upper-end estimate represents more than two months of income.
“People can’t afford bread to eat. Staying healthy has become a luxury, like studying and going to university,” one social media user wrote in response to the figures.
Mammograms triple in price
The maximum listed price of a mammogram rose from 10 million rials in the Iranian year beginning March 2024 to 30 million rials in the year beginning March 2026, according to Tejarat News.
That represents a threefold increase in two years for an imaging procedure commonly used to screen for and detect breast cancer.
Ultrasound examinations have also become considerably more expensive. The maximum cost of a transvaginal ultrasound increased by about 80 percent in two years, while an ultrasound of the uterus and ovaries rose from 18 million to 44 million rials, an increase of more than 140 percent.
Pap smears showed an even steeper increase at the upper end of the reported range, with the maximum listed price rising from 9 million rials in 2024 to more than 130 million rials in 2026.
Tejarat News cautioned that the highest figure should not be treated as a typical nationwide price, with testing methods, accompanying services and providers producing substantial differences in the final cost.
Official tariffs for visits to gynecologists have also risen. A specialist consultation increased from just under 2 million to 5 million rials between 2024 and 2026.
The figures are based on tariffs approved by Iran’s Health Ministry, though Tejarat News said many specialists charge more than the official rates.
Healthcare prices outpace wages
The increases come as Iranian households contend with rapidly rising living costs and a sharp decline in the value of the rial.
The currency has lost around three-quarters of its value against the dollar since March 2024, while annual pay increases for many salaried workers have been around 20 percent. As a result, wages have failed to keep pace with the rising cost of many goods and services.
The burden has particular implications for women, according to journalist Roghayeh Rezaei, who pointed to a contradiction between rising healthcare costs and government policies encouraging women to have more children while restricting access to contraception.
“The issue is no longer simply a woman’s body and her own personal choices. It is a political body that the Islamic Republic uses ideologically,” Rezaei told Iran International.
She said women were expected to serve the state’s population policies while being left to bear much of the financial burden of examinations and treatment.
The problem is particularly acute for women who must choose between preventive healthcare and other household necessities, she said.
“There are women in Iran who see that if they get a Pap smear or a mammogram, they have to take money away from feeding their children,” Rezaei said. “They postpone these tests.”
‘Just don’t live at all’
Rezaei said doctors had described patients, particularly from poorer and more marginalized groups, delaying medical care until their conditions became more serious because they could not afford treatment.
The Tejarat News estimate also excludes medicines, additional laboratory tests, transportation, sanitary products and other medical expenses.
The healthcare figures also prompted broader expressions of frustration over living costs on social media.
One user listed expenses people are increasingly expected to cut, including fuel, restaurants, meat, chicken, shoes and other purchases.
“Just don’t live at all, only so the clerics can rule for two more days,” the user wrote.
One document, a confidential letter from the Supreme National Security Council’s protection unit to the Oil Ministry, raises concerns over the ministry’s decision to hand large volumes of crude to four trusted intermediaries, known as trustees, on credit and at steep discounts.
The crude was allocated after a new oil sales team took control in July, according to the letter.
The former chief executive of Naftiran Intertrade Company (NICO) had identified the intermediaries as carrying large debts and failing to return billions of dollars from previous oil sales, the document says.
The ministry nevertheless offered the intermediaries a discount of $8.50 per barrel, a level the confidential letter described as unusual.
The documents and two Oil Ministry sources point to Mohammad Javad Bavand, a former Revolutionary Guards intelligence official appointed to oversee oil trading, as a central figure in the new arrangement.
Disputed cargo tied to sanctioned tankers
A second confidential document records a closed Oil Ministry meeting on June 28 concerning Iranian crude exported to China aboard three sanctioned tankers linked to Hossein Shamkhani, also known as Hector, an oil trader and son of Ali Shamkhani, a former adviser to slain Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
Two million barrels of crude were shipped through a front company aboard the tanker Lily to China’s Dongjiakou port on March 24, according to the document.
The owner of Lily subsequently took control of the cargo, citing a financial dispute with Panel Good Wholesalers, the company involved in the shipment, the document says.
Lily belongs to a shipping network and shadow fleet controlled by Hossein Shamkhani that has been sanctioned by the US Treasury. Dubai-registered Panel Good Wholesalers is also one of Shamkhani’s companies used for oil trading.
Oil trader Mohammad Hadi Momenin recovered the two-million-barrel cargo at NICO’s request and stored it in tanks at Dongjiakou, participants at the June meeting were told, according to the document.
Momenin then sought $33 million in compensation from the Iranian oil company, including $27 million for the loss in value of the tanker Covenio following US sanctions and $6 million for charter costs involving another tanker, Jaya.
Bavand instructed Momenin to return ownership of the cargo to the Oil Ministry and, through one of Momenin’s companies, charter Covenio for one year at $90,000 per day, according to the meeting record.
Both Covenio and Jaya belong to Shamkhani’s sanctioned shadow fleet.
Iran International reported three weeks ago that Momenin was a member of an Intelligence Ministry network known as the Shayan network. Momenin, born in 1989, has failed to return about $2 billion in Iranian oil proceeds, according to Iran International’s previous investigation.
Five traders form Bavand’s network
Momenin is one of five trustees in an oil trading network assembled by Bavand following his return to the Oil Ministry, two ministry sources told Iran International.
Another member is Mostafa Niazazari, the fifth defendant in the corruption case involving former senior judiciary official Akbar Tabari.
Niazazari was accused in the case of giving Tabari 15,000 square meters of land as a bribe. After fleeing to Canada, he returned to Iran four years ago and has since resumed oil trading while residing in a European country.
Niazazari is the son of Kioumars Niazazari, a former Intelligence Ministry director-general in Mazandaran province.
Two businessmen known for importing essential commodities have also joined Bavand’s network after entering the oil trade during the tenure of former NICO chief executive Saeed Sadeghi, according to the Oil Ministry sources.
Hassan Afrashtehpour, also known as Dariush and the owner of Afra Holding, has for years controlled imports of some essential commodities. An Iranian court sentenced him to 25 years in prison for economic corruption in 1997, but he was released four years later.
Masoud Modallal, a major importer of cooking oil and animal feed who has faced large banking debts, is another member of the network, the sources said.
Modallal previously received $985 million in preferential-rate foreign currency for essential-goods imports and owed 5.75 trillion rials to Sarmayeh Bank and 7.82 trillion rials to Pasargad Bank.
Modallal shifted his focus toward oil trading after Iran ended preferential currency allocations, according to the sources.
The fifth member is Ali Bayandorian, a trader sanctioned by the United States six years ago over what Washington described as financing for the Revolutionary Guards’ Quds Force.
Bayandorian uses a network of companies registered in Iran and Southeast Asia to sell oil and petrochemical products outside conventional markets, according to the sources.
Together, the five traders make up what the Oil Ministry sources described as Bavand’s new trustee network.
The two confidential documents obtained by Iran International show members of this network continuing to receive Iranian oil despite outstanding proceeds from previous sales.
From Guards intelligence to oil sales
Bavand studied at Imam Sadiq University, known for combining Islamic studies with modern social sciences, and until 2021, served as deputy to Mostafa Ahadi, the economic deputy of the Revolutionary Guards Intelligence Organization.
Ahadi is a nephew of Ali Akbar Hosseini Mehrab, a security official whose name has appeared in major Iranian corruption cases, including the Crescent gas dispute.
Bavand entered a Supreme National Security Council committee in 2018 following the US withdrawal from the nuclear agreement and Washington’s restoration of sanctions on Iranian oil.
The council created a working group to manage oil sales designed to bypass the restrictions, alongside a security committee composed of representatives from Iranian military and intelligence organizations.
The Revolutionary Guards Intelligence Organization sent Bavand, then deputy head of its economic division, to the security committee.
Bavand built a network of trusted oil intermediaries during his time on the committee, including Majid Azami, chief executive of Sepehr Energy Jahan Nama Pars, Majid Taj, brother of Iranian Football Federation president Mehdi Taj, and trader Hamed Kachoui.
Iran’s oil sales structure changed further after Ebrahim Raisi became president in 2021 and his government authorized the armed forces to participate formally in oil trading.
The Revolutionary Guards subsequently sent Bavand to the Oil Ministry, where he took responsibility for trading oil under sanctions.
A significant part of the problems involving trustees and unreturned oil proceeds emerged during that period.
Following Raisi’s death, Oil Minister Mohsen Paknejad initially entrusted management of sanctioned oil sales to officials with previous links to Shayan, an Intelligence Ministry official involved in fuel operations.
Bavand returned to the Oil Ministry following Shayan’s removal.
Paknejad appointed Bavand special assistant to the oil minister for supervision of oil trading after the previous NICO chief executive was removed following disclosures concerning trustees and unreturned oil proceeds.
Bavand is also related to Hossein Taeb, the former head of the Revolutionary Guards Intelligence Organization, who is currently the commander of the Basij paramilitary unit, and a figure close to Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei.
Bavand now plays a central role in decisions over sanctioned oil sales and has assembled a new group of trusted intermediaries.
The documents show that traders carrying large outstanding debts from earlier oil sales have again been entrusted with millions of barrels of Iranian crude, placing Bavand and his network at the center of the system used to sell Iran’s oil under sanctions.
