AMERICA FRYS PRISON AND AREA WITH A SMALL EMP WEAPON.SO THE IRANIANS CAN'T BE HANGED.

JEWISH KING JESUS IS COMING AT THE RAPTURE FOR US IN THE CLOUDS-DON'T MISS IT FOR THE WORLD.THE BIBLE TAKEN LITERALLY- WHEN THE PLAIN SENSE MAKES GOOD SENSE-SEEK NO OTHER SENSE-LEST YOU END UP IN NONSENSE.GET SAVED NOW- CALL ON JESUS TODAY.THE ONLY SAVIOR OF THE WHOLE EARTH - NO OTHER. 1 COR 15:23-JESUS THE FIRST FRUITS-CHRISTIANS RAPTURED TO JESUS-FIRST FRUITS OF THE SPIRIT-23 But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ’s at his coming.ROMANS 8:23 And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.(THE PRE-TRIB RAPTURE)

AMERICA FRYS PRISON AND AREA WITH A SMALL EMP WEAPON.SO THE IRANIANS CAN'T BE HANGED.

JEREMEIAH 49:35-37 (IN IRAN AT THE BUSHEHR OR ARAK NUKE SITE SOME BELIEVE)
35  Thus saith the LORD of hosts; Behold, I will break the bow of Elam,(IRAN/BUSHEHR NUCLEAR SITE) the chief of their might.(MOST DANGEROUS NUKE SITE IN IRAN)
36  And upon Elam will I bring the four winds from the four quarters of heaven,(IRANIANS SCATTERED OR MASS IMIGARATION) and will scatter them toward all those winds; and there shall be no nation whither the outcasts of Elam shall not come.(WORLD IMMIGRATION)
37  For I will cause Elam (IRAN-BUSHEHR NUKE SITE) to be dismayed before their enemies, and before them that seek their life: and I will bring evil upon them, even my fierce anger,(ISRAELS NUKES POSSIBLY) saith the LORD; and I will send the sword after them, till I have consumed them:(IRAN AND ITS NUKE SITES DESTROYED)
38 I will set My throne in Elam,And will destroy from there the king and the princes,’ says the Lord.
39 ‘But it shall come to pass in the latter days:I will bring back the captives of Elam,’ says the Lord.”

Ezekiel 32:24
24 There [is] Elam and all her multitude round about her grave, all of them slain, fallen by the sword, which are gone down uncircumcised into the nether parts of the earth, which caused their terror in the land of the living; yet have they borne their shame with them that go down to the pit.

JEREMEIAH 49:23-27
23  Concerning Damascus.(SYRIA) Hamath is confounded, and Arpad: for they have heard evil tidings: they are fainthearted; there is sorrow on the sea;(WAR SHIPS WITH NUKES COMING ON SYRIA) it cannot be quiet.
24  Damascus is waxed feeble, and turneth herself to flee, and fear hath seized on her: anguish and sorrows have taken her, as a woman in travail.
25  How is the city of praise not left, the city of my joy!
26  Therefore her young men shall fall in her streets, and all the men of war shall be cut off in that day, saith the LORD of hosts.
27  And I will kindle a fire (NUKES OR BOMBS) in the wall of Damascus, and it shall consume the palaces of Benhadad.(ASSADS PALACES POSSIBLY IN DAMASCUS)

ITS REPORTED BY PAUL BEGLEY FROM HIS GOVERNMENT INSIDER THAT AMERICA SUNK AN IRANIAN FREIGHTER BY THE NAME OF RONA.THIS FREIGHTER HAS BEEN CARRYING WEAPONS TO RUSSIA AGAINST UKRAINE FROM 3 DIFFERENT PORTS. AMERICA SUNK THE RONA. AND TO STOP IRAN FROM HANGING PEOPLE. AMERICA FRYED OR MICROWAVED ALL THE EQUIPMENT IN THE JAIL. TO PUT IT IN ONE SENTENCE. AMERICA USED AN EMP AGAINST THAT IRANIAN JAIL AND AREA. ITS CALLED A HPM THERMAL BLOOM. THERMAL BLOOMING. THAT FRYS ALL ELECTRICAL EQUIPMENT. IN A SMALL AREA.

"HPM bloom weapon" is not a standard term, but seems to be a combination of two distinct concepts:
High-Power Microwave (HPM) Weapons
HPM weapons are a type of real-world directed-energy weapon (DEW) that emit concentrated electromagnetic energy in the microwave frequency range to disrupt, damage, or destroy electronic systems. 
Key aspects of HPM weapons include:
Function: They disrupt or fry the electronic components of targets like drones, missiles, aircraft, and command-and-control systems.
Effects: The effects can range from temporary disruption to permanent damage, and they offer non-lethal options for specific scenarios.
Examples: The U.S. Navy and other militaries are developing and testing such systems, including counter-drone measures like the Russian Stupor and Ukrainian KVS G-6.
Advantages: They can offer cost-effective, precise attacks with minimal collateral damage compared to traditional kinetic weapons. 

In Iran,hangings are the primary method of execution and occur in various prisons across the country, as well as sometimes in public. 
Human rights organizations have identified several prisons that frequently carry out executions: 
Ghezel Hesar Prison in Karaj.
Vakilabad Prison in Mashhad, which has been the site of unannounced mass executions.
Evin Prison in Tehran, a notorious facility often associated with the detention and execution of political prisoners.
Adelabad Prison in Shiraz.
Dastgerd Prison in Isfahan.
Dieselabad Prison (or Kermanshah Prison) in Kermanshah.
Gohardasht Prison (also known as Rajaee Shahr Prison) in Karaj.
Sanandaj Central Prison. 
Executions are carried out for a wide range of charges, including murder, drug-related offenses, espionage, and political charges like "waging war against God" (moharebeh). The number of executions in Iran has surged in recent years, with thousands having been executed since the 1979 revolution. 

Iranian Freighter Sinks in the Caspian Sea-Published Jan 14, 2026 8:47 PM by The Maritime Executive

An Iranian-flagged freighter has gone down in the Caspian Sea, according to Turkmenistan's ministry of foreign affairs. On January 14, the cargo ship Rona issued a distress call off the coast of Turkmenistan. Turkmen responders reached the scene promptly and rescued all 14 people aboard the vessel, the ministry said. The crew was composed of Iranian and Indian nationals. Unverified footage on Ukrainian social media showed apparent damage amidships, accompanied by smoke, and the vessel appeared to be trimmed heavily by the stern. Rona provided a regular service rotation between ports in Iran and the Russian ports of Astrakhan, Makhachkala and Azov, according Ukrainian news channel Astra. This profile happens to align with the shipping route for deliveries of Iranian arms to Russian buyers for use in the war in Ukraine. In 2023, the Wall Street Journal revealed details of the volume of trade on this known arms-trafficking corridor. Iran has provided the Russian government with billions of dollars in weaponry over the course of the last few years, according to Western officials, including ballistic missiles, artillery shells and long-range drones - much of it shipped across the Caspian.There is no confirmation of the cause of Rona's sinking, but speculation has quickly turned to Ukraine's long-range strike drone forces. Ukrainian special operations forces have hit targets in the Caspian before, including a claimed strike on two Russian military cargo vessels just last month. 

Iranian Ship Sinks in Caspian Sea, Possibly Linked to Arms Shipments to Russia-Vladyslav Khomenko-January 14, 2026-21:47

A bulk carrier sailing under the Iranian flag, RONA, sank in the Caspian Sea.The incident was reported by Turkmenistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.Turkmen rescue units received an SOS signal from the vessel and promptly launched a rescue operation.Rescuers saved all 14 people on board. It was previously established that those rescued were citizens of Iran and India.According to ASTRA, RONA regularly sailed between Iranian ports and Russia’s Astrakhan, Makhachkala and Azov. This route coincides with the main maritime corridor used for transporting Iranian arms to Russia.This has previously been highlighted in investigative reports by CNN and The Wall Street Journal, which documented the use of the Caspian Sea as a channel for shipping ammunition and military cargo from Iran to the Russian Federation.The bulk carrier RONA was built in 1983 and has a displacement of 2,453 tons. The vessel is 114 meters long and 13 meters wide.

Sentenced to death within days': Who is Erfan Soltani, Iranian protester reportedly facing execution? 9 hours ago-Malu Cursino-JAN 14,26

A man arrested in connection with the current wave of protests in Iran has been sentenced to death and told he faces execution, his family and a human rights group say.Erfan Soltani, 26, was arrested last Thursday in the city of Fardis, just west of Tehran. Days later, authorities informed his family his execution had been scheduled for Wednesday without giving any additional details, according to Norway-based Kurdish human rights group Hengaw.On Wednesday, Hengaw said it had "serious and ongoing concerns regarding Soltani's right to life" but that, according to information obtained through relatives, his execution had been postponed.Iran's judiciary has not yet commented on Soltani's case or announced any execution in connections with the protests. The internet blackout imposed by the government has also made obtaining information on his status - and others in potentially similar situations - difficult.Awyer Shekhi of Hengaw told the BBC she feared there were "many" cases like Soltani's, highlighting the scale and speed to which Iranian authorities were carrying out violent crackdowns compared to previous protests.On Tuesday, one of Soltani's relatives told BBC Persian that a court had issued a death sentence "in an extremely rapid process, within just two days".Soltani is a resident of Fardis, Karaj, where he owns a clothes shop. He was arrested "at his private residence", Hengaw said in a statement.Iranian authorities have reportedly failed to give Soltani's family any more information about his case, citing only that he had been arrested in connection with a protest.His sister, who is a lawyer, tried to pursue the case but authorities told her there was nothing to pursue, Shekhi told BBC Radio 4's Today programme."He is just someone who is against the current situation in Iran... now he's received a death sentence for expressing his opinion."Shekhi said prisoners on death row in Iran were typically granted a final visit by their loved ones before their execution.While the Iranian authorities had told the family they would allow a meeting with Erfan before his execution, he had not been allowed any contact with his family since his arrest, she added.There was a "high chance" other people in Iran were in a similar position to Soltani, but there was little information about them because of the internet shutdown, according to Shekhi.President Donald Trump has said the US will take "very strong action" against Iran if it executes protesters - telling Iranians to "KEEP PROTESTING" in a post on his Truth Social platform. He also said he has cancelled all meetings with Iranian officials "until the senseless killing of protesters STOPS. HELP IS ON ITS WAY".He has since said that his administration had been told "on good authority" that "the killing in Iran is stopping, and there's no plan for executions".Authorities in Tehran imposed an internet blackout last Thursday, as the protests escalated and authorities stepped up their deadly crackdown.The BBC and most other international news organisations are also unable to report from inside Iran, making obtaining and verifying information difficult.The US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) said it had so far confirmed the killing of 2,417 protesters, as well as 12 children and 10 uninvolved civilians, despite the blackout. Nearly 150 people affiliated with the security forces or government had also been killed, the group said.At least 18,434 protesters have been arrested during the unrest, according to HRANA.Iran's judiciary chief Gholamhossein Mohseni-Ejei has pledged swift legal action against what he called "rioters". According to Mohseni-Ejei, those who have "committed terrorist acts should definitely be given priority for trial and punishment".Authorities were planning to hold open trials for some of the main figures involved in recent unrest, with proceedings accessible to the media, he said on Wednesday.But Iran's handling of Soltani's case "constitutes a clear violation of international human rights law", Hengaw's statement said, adding: "The rushed and non-transparent handling of this case has heightened concerns over the use of the death penalty as a tool to suppress public protests.""Erfan is the first protester to be sentenced to death, but he won't be the last," the US State Department said on its Farsi-language X account.The protests, which have reportedly spread to more than 180 cities and towns in all 31 provinces, were sparked by anger over the collapse of the Iranian currency and soaring cost of living.They quickly widened into demands for political change and became one of the most serious challenges to the clerical establishment since the 1979 Islamic revolution.Horizontal bar chart titled “Countries with the most executions in 2024”. Subtitle reads “Iran’s recorded executions rose about 14% from year before”. China has the longest bar, labeled “1,000s” (Amnesty International estimate thousands executed). Iran follows with “972+”, then Saudi Arabia “345+”. Other countries: Iraq “63+”, Yemen “38+”, Somalia “34+”, US “25”, Egypt “13”, Singapore “9”, Kuwait “6”. Note at bottom: “Numbers with a ‘+’ indicate minimum figures; China’s exact data unavailable.” Source: Amnesty International-At least 12 men have been executed in Iran over the past three years after being sentenced to death in connection with the 2022 "Woman, Life, Freedom" protests.That nationwide unrest was triggered by the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, a young Kurdish woman who was accused by morality police of wearing "improper" hijab.Human rights groups say the last such execution happened on 6 September, when Mehran Bahramian was hanged in Isfahan.The Norway-based group, Iran Human Rights, reported at the time that the authorities had tortured Bahramian to obtain confessions and that he did not receive a fair trial.He was sentenced to death by a court in January 2024 on the charge of "enmity against God" for allegedly killing a member of the Revolutionary Guards at a protest in Semirom in December 2022, it said.

Free Starlink access seen as game changer in helping Iran protesters get their message out-SpaceX hasn’t confirmed decision to provide internet service for free though activists say it has also pushed an update to help circumvent regime efforts to jam the satellite signal By AP Today, 5:27 am-JAN 15,26

Iranian demonstrators’ ability to get details of bloody nationwide protests out to the world has been given a strong boost, with SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet service dropping its fees to allow more people to circumvent the Tehran government’s strongest attempt ever to prevent information from spilling outside its borders, activists said Wednesday.The move by the American aerospace company run by Elon Musk follows the complete shutdown of telecommunications and internet access to Iran’s 85 million people on January 8, as protests expanded over the Islamic Republic’s faltering economy and the collapse of its currency.SpaceX has not officially announced the decision and did not respond to a request for comment, but activists told The Associated Press that Starlink has been available for free to anyone in Iran with the receivers since Tuesday and that the company has gone even further by pushing a firmware update to help circumvent government efforts to jam the satellite signals.The moves by Starlink came two days after US President Donald Trump told reporters on Air Force One that he was going to reach out to Musk to ask for Starlink help for protesters, a call later confirmed by his press secretary, though it’s not clear if that is what prompted Musk to act.“Starlink has been crucial,” said Mehdi Yahyanejad, an Iranian whose nonprofit Net Freedom Pioneers has helped smuggle units into Iran, pointing to video that emerged Sunday showing rows of bodies at a forensic medical center near Tehran.“That showed a few hundred bodies on the ground, that came out because of Starlink,” he said in an interview from Los Angeles. “I think that those videos from the center pretty much changed everyone’s understanding of what’s happening because they saw it with their own eyes.”Since the outbreak of demonstrations December 28, the death toll has risen to more than 2,500 people, primarily protesters but also security personnel, according to the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency.Starlink is banned in Iran by telecommunication regulations, as the country never authorized the importation, sale or use of the devices. Activists fear they could be accused of helping the US or Israel by using Starlink and charged with espionage, which can carry the death penalty.Cat-and-mouse as authorities hunt for Starlink devicesThe first units were smuggled into Iran in 2022 during protests over the country’s mandatory headscarf law, after Musk got the Biden administration to exempt the Starlink service from Iran sanctions.Since then, more than 50,000 units are estimated to have been sneaked in, with people going to great lengths to conceal them, using virtual private networks while on the system to hide IP addresses and taking other precautions, said Ahmad Ahmadian, the executive director of Holistic Resilience, a Los Angeles-based organization that was responsible for getting some of the first Starlink units into Iran.Starlink is a global internet network that relies on some 10,000 satellites orbiting Earth. Subscribers need to have equipment, including an antenna that requires a line of sight to the satellite, so must be deployed in the open, where it could be spotted by authorities. Many Iranians disguise them as solar panels, Ahmadian said.After efforts to shut down communications during the 12-day war with Israel in June proved to be not terribly effective, Iranian security services have taken more “extreme tactics” now to jam Starlink’s radio signals and GPS systems, Ahmadian said in a phone interview. After Holistic Resilience passed on reports to SpaceX, Ahmadian said, the company pushed its firmware update to avoid jamming.Security services also rely on informers to tell them who might be using Starlink, and search internet and social media traffic for signs it has been used. There have been reports they have raided apartments with satellite dishes.“There has always been a cat-and-mouse game,” said Ahmadian, who fled Iran in 2012 after serving time in prison for student activism. “The government is using every tool in its toolbox.”Still, Ahmadian noted that the government jamming attempts had only been effective in certain urban areas, suggesting that security services lack the resources to block Starlink more broadly.A free Starlink could increase the flow of information out of Iran-Iran did begin to allow people to call out internationally on Tuesday via mobile phones, but calls from outside the country into Iran remain blocked.Compared to protests in 2019, when lesser measures by the government were able to effectively stifle information reaching the rest of the world for more than a week, Ahmadian said the proliferation of Starlink has made it impossible to prevent communications. He said the flow could increase now that the service has been made free.“This time around they really shut it down, even fixed landlines were not working,” he said. “But despite this, the information was coming out, and it also shows how distributed this community of Starlink users is in the country.”Musk has made Starlink free for use during several natural disasters, and Ukraine has relied heavily on the service since Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022. It was initially funded by SpaceX and later through an American government contract.Musk’s involvement had raised concerns over the power of such a system being in the hands of one person, after he refused to extend Ukraine’s Starlink coverage to support a planned Ukrainian counterattack in Russian-occupied Crimea.As a proponent of Starlink for Iran, Ahmadian said the Crimea decision was a wake-up call for him, but that he couldn’t see any reason why Musk might be inclined to act similarly in Iran.“Looking at the political Elon, I think he would have more interest … in a free Iran as a new market,” he said.Starlink’s moves to circumvent Tehran’s efforts to shut down communications is being watched closely around the world. The satellite service has expanded rapidly in recent years, securing licenses in more than 120 countries, including some with authoritarian rulers who have persecuted journalists and protesters.Julia Voo, who heads the International Institute for Strategic Studies’ Cyber Power and Future Conflict Program in Singapore, said there is a risk of activists becoming reliant on one company as a lifeline, as it “creates a single point of failure,” though currently there are no comparable alternatives.China has been exploring ways to hunt and destroy Starlink satellites, and Voo said the more effective Starlink proves itself at penetrating “government-mandated terrestrial blackouts, the more states will be observing.”“It’s just going to result in more efforts to broaden controls over various ways of communication, for those in Iran and everywhere else watching,” she said.

Iranian FM declares Tehran 'in full control' amid crackdown-Reports suggest US may strike Iran in coming days, as Trump says killing is ‘stopping’Islamic Republic threatens ‘decisive’ action against US and Israel if targeted; Hezbollah warned against joining fray; IDF ups defensive posture, tells Israelis to ‘avoid spreading rumors’By Agencies, Stav Levaton,Jacob Magid and ToI Staff Today, 12:54 am-JAN 15,26

The likelihood of a US strike on Iran has increased significantly in recent days, Israeli television reported Wednesday, as the Islamic Republic threatened that it was ready to respond “decisively” to any action taken against it on the 17th day of deadly protests that have swept the troubled nation.According to Channel 12 news, Washington’s shift toward the possibility of striking Iran came about after US President Donald Trump held a lengthy discussion with his advisers on the matter on Tuesday.An American source quoted by the outlet said that as “the bloodshed in Iran is continuing,” it was likely that Trump “will have to do something within a day or two at the latest.”According to the New York Times, Trump was presented with several options in recent days, including new strikes on Iran’s nuclear program — which the US joined Israel in targeting last June — or on its ballistic missile program.Other options included striking the Islamic Republic’s internal security infrastructure, or launching cyberattacks, the US daily said, noting that these two options were “more likely” than targeting nuclear or missile sites.Officials cited by the newspaper said it would likely be “at least several days” until the course of action decided upon by the Trump administration becomes apparent.Trump has been openly threatening to intervene in Iran for days, though without giving specifics, as protests have continued unabated across all of Iran’s 31 provinces. The protests began as economic rallies on December 28, but rapidly ballooned into mass anti-regime demonstrations.But on Wednesday, the US president said Washington had been informed that the killing of protesters had ceased, and that the Islamic Republic would not proceed with executions as feared.“We have been notified pretty strongly — but we’ll find out what that all means… We’ve been told that the killing in Iran is stopping, and it’s stopped,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office without elaborating on who passed along that message to Tehran.However, he avoided saying definitively that military action was off the table, while refusing to specify who had informed him that the killings had ceased when pressed by journalists.“We have been informed by very, very important sources on the other side, and they said the killing has stopped, and the executions won’t take place,” Trump said.“There was supposed to be a lot of executions today, and [those] won’t take place,” The added. “We’ve been told on good authority, and I hope it’s true, [but] who knows.”Trump said footage of protesters in body bags is from previous days, suggesting that the extrajudicial killings have ceased more recently.“We’re going to watch and see what the process is, but we were given a very good statement by people [who] are aware of what’s going on.”Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, had been in touch with Trump’s top aide Steve Witkoff over the weekend.Araghchi declared on Wednesday that the government was in full control after brutally cracking down on the protests.“After three days of terrorist operation, now there is a calm. We are in full control,” Araghchi told US broadcaster Fox News’s “Special Report” program.Earlier on Wednesday, the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency said that at least 2,571 people had been killed and more than 18,100 had been arrested in the more than two weeks of protests. The Mossad is said to believe the death toll is more than twice as high.‘Unpredictability is part of the strategy’Amid Trump’s threats of action, the Iranian regime has threatened to retaliate, warning that it will target both US military bases in the US and Israel should Washington act.The commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) accused Israel and the US on Wednesday of being behind the protests that have upended the country, and reiterated that Tehran was ready to respond “decisively” should it be threatened.The Guard is at “the height of readiness to respond decisively to the miscalculation of the enemy,” said IRGC Commander Mohammad Pakpour in a written statement quoted by state television, accusing Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of being the “murderers of the youth of Iran.”Israel, too, was said to be preparing Wednesday for the possibility of escalation between Washington and Tehran, and Channel 12 reported that Netanyahu has been in frequent contact with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio about the issue.The pair spoke on Saturday and Monday, and another call was expected to take place on Wednesday, it said.It was unclear, however, whether Netanyahu had spoken directly with Trump in recent days, or if a call between the two leaders was planned.Addressing the possibility of Iranian retaliation against Israel, the report cited a senior Israeli security source as saying that “if Iran attacks, there won’t be another round — we will act to topple the regime.”According the network, Arab diplomats have delivered similar warnings to the Iran-backed Hezbollah terrorist group in Lebanon, threatening unprecedented consequences if it takes any aggressive action against Israel in the event of a US strike on Iran.A Lebanese source familiar with the terror organization’s thinking told Reuters that Hezbollah did not offer explicit guarantees that it would withhold from military action against Israel, but said it had no plans to act unless a US strike on Iran was deemed to be “existential” for the regime’s leadership.The Israel Defense Forces said on Wednesday night that it has stepped up its defensive posture and was closely monitoring developments in the region, but urged the public to rely only on official updates and avoid spreading rumors.“I am aware of the reports over the past day and especially in the last few hours and request to clarify – the IDF is closely following the developments,” IDF Spokesman Brig. Gen. Effie Defrin said in a statement posted on X.Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir has been holding ongoing situational assessments in recent days, Defrin said, and the military is on full alert.“Rely only on official IDF statements and avoid spreading rumors that could cause public concern,” he wrote, urging the public not to rely on unofficial information. “At this stage, there is no change in the Home Front Command’s defensive guidelines.”“The IDF is prepared and will continue to act responsibly to protect the security of the citizens of the State of Israel,” he said.Meanwhile, after some personnel were advised to leave the US military’s Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar on Wednesday, The UK’s newspaper reported that Britain was also withdrawing some personnel from an airbase in Qatar.The British defense ministry had no immediate comment on the report.“All the signals are that a US attack is imminent, but that is also how this administration behaves to keep everyone on their toes. Unpredictability is part of the strategy,” a Western military official told Reuters later on Wednesday.Two European officials stated that US military intervention could occur within the next 24 hours, corroborating Channel 12’s account.Later on Wednesday night, six American Stratotanker aircraft took off from the base, according to flight tracking websites.It was unclear whether the KC-135s were repositioning to US bases further from Iran or were preparing to support a US strike in the region.Commercial ships anchor outside Iran’s port limits-Separately, data and shipping sources showed on Wednesday that dozens of commercial ships had dropped anchor at a distance outside Iran’s port limits in recent days.Such movements were precautionary given the tensions amid ongoing protests in Iran, the shipping sources said. Port limits are significant because they run a higher risk of collateral damage in the event of air strikes on nearby infrastructure.The country relies on seaborne trade for imports using dry bulkers, general cargo and container ships as well as oil tankers for oil exports.The number of tankers moving into Iran’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ), a stretch of water along its Gulf and Caspian coasts that extends up to 24 miles and beyond local territorial limits of 12 nautical miles, jumped from 1 vessel to 36 tankers between January 6 and January 12, analysis by maritime intelligence solutions provider Pole Star Global shows.At least 25 bulk carriers were stationary in Iran’s EEZ off the major port of Bandar Imam Khomeini, data from ship tracking and maritime analytics provider MarineTraffic showed.A further 25 ships including container and cargo vessels had dropped anchor further south off the port of Bandar Abbas, MarineTraffic data showed.The level of interference with GNSS navigation systems, which included GPS, had increased to “substantial” in the Gulf and Strait of Hormuz area over the past week, the US Navy’s Combined Maritime Force said in a note on Monday.“This is highly likely due to force protection measures being taken in relation to the ongoing political tensions in the region. Vessels transiting this area could be impacted,” the note said.The flow of information from inside Iran has been hampered by an internet blackout.The government’s prestige was hammered by its 12-day war with Israel last June that followed setbacks for Iran’s regional allies in Lebanon and Syria. European powers restored UN sanctions over Iran’s nuclear program, compounding the economic crisis there.The unrest on such a scale caught the authorities off guard at a vulnerable time, but it does not appear that the government faces imminent collapse, and its security apparatus still appears to be in control, one Western official said.The authorities have sought to project images showing they retain public support. Iranian state TV broadcast footage of large funeral processions for people killed in the unrest in Tehran, Isfahan, Bushehr and other cities.People waved flags and pictures of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and held aloft signs with anti-riot slogans.Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, an elected figure whose power is subordinate to that of Khamenei, told a cabinet meeting that as long as the government had popular support, “all the enemies’ efforts against the country will come to nothing.”State media reported that the head of Iran’s top security body, Ali Larijani, had spoken to the foreign minister of Qatar, while Iran’s top diplomat Araghchi had spoken to his Emirati and Turkish counterparts. Araghchi told UAE Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed that “calm has prevailed.”

Op-ed: Day 831 of the war-etic justice for October 7, but it’s not guaranteed-Hamas sought to destroy Israel 27 months ago, enabled and cheered by the Islamic Republic. Now that regime is facing collapse and massacring its own citizens. How and when will Trump honor his promise to help? By David Horovitz-14 January 2026, 3:53 pm

The current protests against the regime in Iran are seen as the biggest since 2009, when masses took to the streets in outrage over the faked reelection of president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at the expense of his challenger, the former prime minister and relative reformist Mir-Hossain Mousavi, who remains under house arrest to this day. And they are being suppressed with a brutality that may be unprecedented since the ayatollahs seized power in 1979, with anything from 2,500, to 5,000, to 12,000 people reported gunned down by regime forces, and tens of thousands injured.Initially fueled by economic dissent, they have swelled to become what the regime recognizes as a threat to its rule. Doing its best to conceal the horrors it is unleashing by closing down the internet, it has moved to ruthlessly massacre its own protesting people.As they did in 2009, the protesters are looking to the international community for support, and especially to the United States. Then-president Barack Obama declared gravely in June 2009 that “when I see violence directed at peaceful protesters, when I see peaceful dissent being suppressed… it is of concern to me and it is of concern to the American people.” But he provided no practical assistance.Current President Donald Trump has been warning the regime for days that if it starts shooting its citizenry, “we will start shooting,” and on Tuesday threatened “very strong action” if the regime starts executing people. As of this writing, the ayatollahs and their security forces are doing precisely what the president warned them not to do, blithely ignoring his threats, and Trump has yet to act on them.There can be no doubt that the murderous regime in Iran should go. It is ideologically and territorially rapacious, in the cause of a death cult iteration of radical Islam.It incites and funds terror worldwide. It created Hezbollah to try and destroy Israel from the north. It armed and funded Hamas with its shared goal of destroying Israel from the south. It has journeyed most of the way to a nuclear weapons capability. Its ballistic missile arsenal had become an existential threat to Israel before the 12-day war set it back in the summer, and it promptly resumed manufacture afterward. It has constantly sought to expand its missile range to bring Europe and, eventually, it hopes, North America within reach. It is the prime fomenter of global instability. And right now, it is turning its guns on its own repressed, impoverished and captive people.It may never have been as vulnerable to defeat as it is today, in a Middle East that has seen an acceleration of immense and sudden shifts since Hamas invaded Israel 27 months ago: Israel was caught woefully unprepared on October 7, 2023, and still lives in a humbled, traumatized new reality, albeit reviving and insistently resilient; Hezbollah was radically degraded at the press of a button; Bashar Assad was ousted almost overnight… But getting rid of the ayatollahs, even in this roiling region and with Iranians risking their lives to challenge their rulers, is not straightforward or guaranteed.Markedly upbeat in his most recent address in Detroit on Tuesday evening, Trump devoted just a few sentences in a very lengthy speech to the fate of Iran and his capacity to impact it.Rattling through a list of foreign military interventions, he highlighted that each of them had been carried out precisely as planned:“We did [Islamic State chief Abu Bakr] al-Baghdadi [who killed himself during a US raid in 2019]: Flawless.“We did [Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Al-Quds chief Qasam] Soleimani [killed in a US drone strike in 2020]: Flawless.“We did the Iran nuclear attack (striking three Iranian nuclear facilities on June 22, 2025, the final day of the Israel-Iran war), where we wiped out their nuclear capacity, which would have been very bad. You wouldn’t have peace in the Middle East: Flawless.“We did them all: Flawless,” he repeated, and then added, “I want to keep it going that way too.”And therein lies the challenge.As of this writing, Trump has not indicated how he intends to provide the help that he has repeatedly promised the protesters “is on its way.” He seems to have set aside initial talk of diplomacy — apparently recognizing that even a professed readiness by the regime to now give up its demand to maintain the right to enrich uranium is just a case of playing for time.Is he about to wage war against the IRGC and the Basij, in their hundreds of thousands? By definition, that would not be flawless.Will he target symbols of the regime, to underline its helplessness? Might he seek to eliminate members of the leadership? Could he choose to strike energy infrastructure, which is unlikely to be a game-changer? Might he focus on that renewed missile program, though this, too, might not be sufficient to deter the regime from its ongoing massacre? How will he balance intervention with concerns that this could spark a lengthy conflict, potentially drawing in Israel, which is currently braced for a potential, if currently deemed unlikely, Iranian attack? Is there more that can be done to counter the ayatollahs’ ongoing internet blackout — and bring the awful reality of what the killers sent by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei are doing to the Iranian people more clearly into the global public domain? The relative paucity of massacre footage contributes to the relative indifference of much of the international community, and by extension the world’s political leadership.The indifference is widened, of course, because this is a case of Muslims killing Muslims — no ostensible colonialism, no alleged Jewish oppressors. And so a vicious regime mass-murdering its own people sparks no vast campus protests, only minor demonstrations in city centers, no impassioned pleas by Hollywood actors, little urgency at the UN, and of course no belated recognition that maybe Iran and the proxies who are trying to wipe out Israel might be on the wrong side of history and humanity.This is not Israel’s war, but Israel has an existential interest in its outcome. It also has a fervent desire for a relationship with a different Iran, much of whose public may not have fallen for the regime’s decades of anti-Israel indoctrination.This Iranian regime, its military proxies and its second battlefield demonization corps have worked relentlessly with every ounce of their perverted ingenuity to destroy the Jewish state — to mobilize global opinion against our legitimacy; to misrepresent the events of October 7, 2023, and their fallout, and seek to deny Israel the right to defend itself; to target Jews; to redefine Zionism not as movement to revive and maintain the historic homeland of the Jewish nation but as an illegitimate, terrorist cause.It would be bittersweet poetic justice were the cycle of events introduced by Yahya Sinwar’s invasion of southern Israel — the worst massacre and abduction of our people in our modern history, cheered and enabled in considerable part by the ayatollahs and their allies — to close not with the intended elimination of Israel but, rather, with the collapse of the malevolent Islamic Republic. (Bitter, of course, because of all the lives lost and ruined, all the pain, heartbreak and devastation.)-The Iranian people are, one more time, spearheading an effort to break out of a decades-long nightmare. The US president is avowedly committed to their freedom, and promising assistance. And the world waits, knowing that the last thing he would want is to be perceived, Obama-style, as a president who missed the moment to help liberate Iran.