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A US-based rights group said on Monday it had confirmed the deaths of nearly 6,000 people during a wave of protests in Iran suppressed by security forces, as Tehran warned Washington against intervening.The protests started in late December, driven by economic grievances, but turned into a mass movement against the Islamic republic, with huge street demonstrations for several days from January 8.But rights groups have accused authorities of launching an unprecedented crackdown by shooting directly at the protesters under the cover of an internet shutdown that has now lasted an unprecedented 18 days.The clerical leadership who took power after the 1979 Islamic revolution remains in place despite the protests, with many opponents of the system looking to outside intervention as the most likely driver of change.US President Donald Trump had appeared to step back from military intervention, but has since insisted it remains an option.He said last week that Washington was sending a “massive fleet” to the region “just in case”. Iran’s foreign ministry warned on Monday of a “comprehensive and regret-inducing response to any aggression”.NGOs tracking the toll from the crackdown have said their task has been impeded by the internet shutdown, warning that confirmed figures are likely to be far lower than the actual toll.The US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) said it had confirmed that 5,848 people had been killed, including 209 members of the security forces. But the group added it was still investigating another 17,091 possible fatalities.  At least 41,283 people have been arrested, it said. Giving their first official toll from the protests, Iranian authorities last week said 3,117 people were killed, the majority of whom it described as members of the security forces or innocent bystanders killed by “rioters”.- ‘Reap the whirlwind’ -Confirming that the internet blackout remains in place, monitor Netblocks said the shutdown was “obscuring the extent of a deadly crackdown on civilians”.”Gaps in the filternet are being tightened to limit circumvention while whitelisted regime accounts promote the Islamic Republic’s narrative,” it added.Over the weekend, Persian-language TV channel Iran International, which is based outside Iran, said more than 36,500 Iranians were killed by security forces from January 8 to 9, citing reports, documents and sources. It was not immediately possible to verify the report.Meanwhile, the US was massing forces in the region with Trump keeping open the possibility of military intervention, having threatened Tehran at the height of the protests.Trump said last week:”I’d rather not see anything happen but we’re watching them very closely.”US media reported that Washington has sent the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln to the region.The US briefly joined Israel’s war against Iran in June, striking its nuclear facilities. Israel also targeted Tehran’s ballistic missile programme and killed several senior Iranian security officials during 12 days of air strikes.In Iran, foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei warned against intervention and said Iran was “confident in its own capabilities”.In apparent reference to the Lincoln, he added: “The arrival of such a battleship is not going to affect Iran’s determination and seriousness to defend the Iranian nation.”Meanwhile, a new anti-US billboard has appeared in the central Enghelab Square in Tehran, appearing to show an American aircraft carrier being destroyed. “If you sow the wind, you will reap the whirlwind,” the English-language slogan read.Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei last appeared in public on January 17, warning in a speech broadcast on state television that authorities would “break the back of the seditionists”.In Lebanon, Iran-backed Shiite militant group Hezbollah, whose capabilities and leadership were severely degraded in a war with Israel in 2024, was organising a rally in several areas on Monday in support of Iran “in the face of American-Zionist sabotage and threats”, with leader Naim Qassem set to speak.

An appeal trial opened in Paris on Monday for four men convicted over the 2020 jihadist beheading of schoolteacher Samuel Paty, a killing that horrified France.Paty, 47, was murdered in October 2020 by an 18-year-old Islamist radical of Chechen origin after showing cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed in class.His attacker, Abdoullakh Anzorov, was killed in a shootout with police.In December 2024, seven men and one woman were found guilty of contributing to the climate of hatred that led to the beheading of the history and geography teacher in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, west of Paris.Four of the men have appealed against sentences ranging from 13 to 16 years in prison.Two friends of Anzorov, Naim Boudaoud and Azim Epsirkhanov, have appealed against convictions for complicity in the killing, for which they were sentenced to 16 years in prison.At the first trial, prosecutors accused them of giving Anzorov logistical support, including to buy weapons.Two other defendants, convicted of “terrorist” criminal association for their role in the hate campaign against Paty ahead of his murder, have also appealed against their sentences.Brahim Chnina, the Moroccan father of a schoolgirl who falsely claimed that Paty had asked Muslim students to leave his classroom before showing the caricatures, was sentenced to 13 years.His daughter, then aged 13, was not actually in the classroom at the time and in the first trial apologised to her former teacher’s family.Abdelhakim Sefrioui, a Franco-Moroccan Islamist activist, was jailed for 15 years.- Freedom of expression laws -Prosecutors alleged during the first trial that Chnina and Sefrioui spread the teenager’s false claims on social media to provoke a “feeling of hatred”.But Chnina’s lawyers said their client’s role would be “put into perspective” during the appeal trial, adding that he “never participated in terrorist activity”.A lawyer for Sefrioui said there was “nothing linking” his client to Anzorov’s crimes.The remaining four defendants, described as part of a network of jihadist sympathisers around Anzorov who spread inflammatory content online, did not appeal against their convictions, which included prison or suspended terms. The trial at the Special Assize Court of Appeal in Paris is set to last until February 27.Paty, who has become a free-speech icon, had used the cartoons as part of an ethics class to discuss freedom of expression laws in France.They were first published in the satirical Charlie Hebdo magazine in 2015.Blasphemy is legal in a nation that prides itself on its secular values and there is a long history of cartoons mocking religious figures.Paty’s killing took place just weeks after Charlie Hebdo republished the cartoons.After the magazine first published them, Islamist gunmen stormed its offices, killing 12 people.

Israel said Monday it would only allow pedestrians to travel through the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt as part of its “limited reopening” once it has recovered the remains of the last hostage in the Palestinian territory.Reopening Rafah, a vital entry point for aid into Gaza, forms part of a truce framework announced by US President Donald Trump in October, but the crossing has remained closed since Israeli forces took control of it during the war in the Palestinian territory.Visiting US envoys had reportedly pressed Israeli officials to reopen the crossing during talks in Jerusalem over the weekend.World leaders and aid agencies have repeatedly pushed for more humanitarian convoys to be able to access Gaza, which has been left devastated by more than two years of war and depends on the inflow of essential medical equipment, food and other supplies.Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said on Monday that Israel had agreed to a reopening “for pedestrian passage only, subject to a full Israeli inspection mechanism”.The move would depend on “the return of all living hostages and a 100 percent effort by Hamas to locate and return all deceased hostages”, it said on X.It remained unclear whether the reopening would allow medical patients to leave Gaza for treatment in Egypt or other countries.The Israeli military said it was searching a cemetery in the Gaza Strip on Sunday for the remains of the last hostage, Ran Gvili.”Upon completion of this operation, and in accordance with what has been agreed upon with the US, Israel will open the Rafah Crossing,” said Netanyahu’s office.The announcement came after Gaza’s newly appointed administrator, Ali Shaath, said the crossing would open “in both directions” this week.”For Palestinians in Gaza, Rafah is more than a gate, it is a lifeline and a symbol of opportunity,” Shaath said at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Thursday.Several Gazans told AFP that it was depressing to hear Israel had only agreed to a limited reopening of the crossing.”After two and a half years of war, doesn’t the world realise that the entire population of Gaza is ill, and that people have the right to choose whether to stay or leave, even if only temporarily?” said Mohammed Ala, 49, who has not seen his wife since she travelled to Egypt for medical treatment before the war began.Maha Youssef, 37, who was displaced to eastern Gaza City during the war, said “travel is a dream of returning to life” for Gazans.”Even if it is financially difficult and likely unstable, my children would be able to see what a normal life looks like and live it, at least they would be able to go to school,” she said.Israeli media had also reported that US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner had urged Netanyahu to reopen Rafah during their Jerusalem talks.Before the war erupted in October 2023, Rafah had been the only gateway connecting Gazans to the outside world and enabling international humanitarian aid to enter the territory, home to 2.2 million people living under Israeli blockade.- Last hostage -A spokesman for Hamas’s Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades, Abu Obeida, said on Sunday that the group had “provided mediators with all the details and information in our possession regarding the location of the captive’s body”, referring to Gvili.Obeida added that “the enemy (Israel) is currently searching one of the sites based on information transmitted by the Al-Qassam Brigades”.Except for Gvili, all of the 251 people taken hostage during Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel have since been returned, whether living or dead.A non-commissioned officer in the Israeli police’s elite Yassam unit, Gvili was killed in action on the day of the attack and his body was taken to Gaza.The first phase of the US-backed ceasefire deal had stipulated that Hamas hand over all the hostages in Gaza.Gvili’s family has expressed strong opposition to launching the second phase of the plan, which includes reopening Rafah, before they have received his remains.”First and foremost, Ran must be brought home,” his family said in a statement on Sunday.The Gaza war was sparked by Hamas’s attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,221 people, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.The Israeli retaliation flattened much of Gaza, a territory that was already suffering severely from previous rounds of fighting and from an Israeli blockade imposed since 2007.The two-year war between Israel and Hamas has left at least 71,660 people dead in Gaza, according to the territory’s health ministry, figures considered reliable by the United Nations.burs-my-jd/jfx