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Iran on Wednesday vowed fast-track trials for people arrested over a massive wave of protests, after US President Donald Trump threatened “very strong action” if the Islamic republic goes ahead with hangings.In Tehran, authorities held a funeral ceremony for over 100 members of the security forces and other “martyrs” killed in the demonstrations, which authorities have branded as “riots” while accusing protesters of waging “acts of terror”.The protest movement across Iran, initially sparked by economic grievances, has turned into one of the biggest challenges yet to the clerical leadership since it took power in 1979. Demonstrators have defied the authorities’ zero-tolerance for dissent by turning out in protests all around the country, even as authorities insist they have regained the upper hand.Iran’s judiciary chief Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei said on a visit to a prison holding protest detainees that “if a person burned someone, beheaded someone and set them on fire then we must do our work quickly”, in comments broadcast by state television.Iranian news agencies also quoted him as saying the trials should be held in public and said he had spent five hours in a prison in Tehran to examine the cases.Footage broadcast by state media showed the judiciary chief seated before an Iranian flag in a large, ornate room in the prison, interrogating a prisoner himself. The detainee, dressed in grey clothing and his face blurred, is accused of taking Molotov cocktails to a park in Tehran.- Blackout -Trump on Tuesday said in a CBS News interview that the United States would act if Iran began hanging protesters.”We will take very strong action if they do such a thing,” said the American leader, who has repeatedly threatened Iran with military intervention.”When they start killing thousands of people — and now you’re telling me about hanging. We’ll see how that’s going to work out for them,” Trump said.Iranian authorities called the American warnings a “pretext for military intervention”.Rights groups accuse the government of fatally shooting protesters and masking the scale of the crackdown with an internet blackout imposed on January 8.Internet monitor Netblocks said in a post to X on Wednesday that the blackout had now lasted 132 hours.Some information has trickled out of Iran however. New videos on social media, with locations verified by AFP, showed bodies lined up in the Kahrizak morgue just south of the Iranian capital, with the corpses wrapped in black bags and distraught relatives searching for loved ones.- Calls to halt executions -Iranian prosecutors have said authorities would press capital charges of “waging war against God” on some detainees. According to state media, hundreds of people have been arrested.State media has also reported on the arrest of a foreign national for espionage in connection with the protests. No details were given on the person’s nationality or identity.The US State Department on its Farsi language X account said 26-year-old protester Erfan Soltani had been sentenced to be executed on Wednesday.”Erfan is the first protester to be sentenced to death, but he won’t be the last,” the State Department said, adding more than 10,600 Iranians had been arrested. Rights group Amnesty International called on Iran to immediately halt all executions, including Soltani’s.Norway-based NGO Iran Human Rights said it had confirmed 734 people killed during the protests, including nine minors, but warned the death toll was likely far higher.”The real number of those killed is likely in the thousands,” IHR’s director Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam said.Iranian state media has said dozens of members of the security forces have been killed, with their funerals turning into large pro-government rallies. – Khamenei in hiding -At Wednesday’s funeral ceremony in Tehran, thousands of people waved flags of the Islamic republic as prayers were read out for the dead outside Tehran University, according to images broadcast on state television.”Death to America!” read banners held up by people attending the rally, while others carried photos of supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.Another image could be seen at the rally showing Trump’s assassination attempt, captioned: “This time it will not miss the target”.It appeared to be referring to the assassination attempt against Trump during a campaign rally in 2024.Amir, an Iraqi computer scientist, returned to Baghdad from Iran on Monday and described dramatic scenes in Tehran during protests on Thursday night.”My friends and I saw protesters in Tehran’s Sarsabz neighbourhood amid a heavy military presence. The police were firing rubber bullets,” he told AFP in Iraq. In power since 1989 and now aged 86, Khamenei has faced significant challenges, most recently the 12-day war in June against Israel, which forced him to go into hiding.Analysts have cautioned that it is premature to predict the immediate demise of the theocratic system, pointing to the repressive levers the leadership controls, including the Revolutionary Guard Corps, which is charged with safeguarding the Islamic revolution.

Syria’s army was moving reinforcements east of Aleppo city on Wednesday, a day after it told Kurdish forces to withdraw from the area following deadly clashes last week. The deployment comes as Syria’s Islamist-led government seeks to extend its authority across the country, but progress has stalled on integrating the Kurds’ de facto autonomous administration and forces into the central government under a deal reached in March.The United States, which for years has supported Kurdish fighters but also backs Syria’s new authorities, urged all parties to “avoid actions that could further escalate tensions” in a statement by the US military’s Central Command chief Admiral Brad Cooper.On Tuesday, Syrian state television published an army statement with a map declaring a large area east of Aleppo city a “closed military zone” and said “all armed groups in this area must withdraw to east of the Euphrates” River.The area, controlled by Kurdish forces, extends from near Deir Hafer, around 50 kilometres (30 miles) from Aleppo, to the Euphrates about 30 kilometres further east, as well as towards the south.State news agency SANA published images on Wednesday showing military reinforcements en route from the coastal province of Latakia, while a military source on the ground, requesting anonymity, said reinforcements were arriving from both Latakia and the Damascus region.Both sides reported limited skirmishes overnight. An AFP correspondent on the outskirts of Deir Hafer reported hearing intermittent artillery shelling on Wednesday, which the military source said was due to government targeting of positions belonging to the US-backed, Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces.- ‘Declaration of war’ -The SDF controls swathes of the country’s oil-rich north and northeast, much of which it captured during Syria’s civil war and the fight against the Islamic State group.On Monday, Syria accused the SDF of sending reinforcements to Deir Hafer and said it would send its own personnel there in response.Kurdish forces on Tuesday denied any build-up of their personnel and accused the government of attacking the town, while state television said SDF sniper fire there killed one person.Cooper urged “a durable diplomatic resolution through dialogue”.Elham Ahmad, a senior official in the Kurdish administration, said that government forces were “preparing themselves for another attack”.”The real intention is a full-scale attack” against Kurdish-held areas, she told an online press conference, accusing the government of having made a “declaration of war” and breaking the March agreement on integrating Kurdish forces.Syria’s government took full control of Aleppo city over the weekend after capturing its Kurdish-majority Sheikh Maqsud and Ashrafiyeh neighbourhoods and evacuating fighters there to Kurdish-controlled areas in the northeast.Both sides traded blame over who started the violence last week that killed dozens of people and displaced tens of thousands.- PKK, Turkey -On Tuesday in Qamishli, the main Kurdish city in the country’s northeast, thousands of people demonstrated against the Aleppo violence, with some burning pictures of Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa, an AFP correspondent said, while shops were shut in a general strike.Some protesters carried Kurdish flags and banners in support of the SDF.”Leave, Jolani!” they shouted, referring to President Sharaa by his former nom de guerre, Abu Mohammed al-Jolani.”This government has not honoured its commitments towards any Syrians,” said cafe owner Joudi Ali.Other protesters burned portraits of Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, whose country has lauded the Syrian government’s Aleppo operation “against terrorist organisations”.Turkey has long been hostile to the SDF, seeing it as an extension of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and a major threat along its southern border. Last year, the PKK announced an end to its long-running armed struggle against the Turkish state and began destroying its weapons, but Ankara has insisted that the move include armed Kurdish groups in Syria.On Tuesday, the PKK called the “attack on the Kurdish neighbourhoods in Aleppo” an attempt to sabotage peace efforts between it and Ankara.A day earlier, Ankara’s ruling party levelled the same accusation against Kurdish fighters.The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported 45 civilians and 60 soldiers and fighters from both sides killed in the Aleppo violence.Aleppo civil defence official Faysal Mohammad said Tuesday that 50 bodies had been recovered from the Kurdish-majority neighbourhoods after the fighting.bur-strs/lar/lg/axn

US President Donald Trump warned of unspecified “very strong action” if Iranian authorities go ahead with threatened hangings of some protesters, with Tehran calling American warnings a “pretext for military intervention”.International outrage has built over the crackdown that a rights group said has likely killed thousands during protests posing one of the biggest challenges yet to Iran’s clerical leadership.Iran’s UN mission posted a statement on X, vowing that Washington’s “playbook” would “fail again”.”US fantasies and policy toward Iran are rooted in regime change, with sanctions, threats, engineered unrest, and chaos serving as the modus operandi to manufacture a pretext for military intervention,” the post said.  Iranian authorities have insisted they had regained control of the country after successive nights of mass protests nationwide since.Rights groups accuse the government of fatally shooting protesters and masking the scale of the crackdown with an internet blackout that has now surpassed the five-day mark.New videos on social media, with locations verified by AFP, showed bodies lined up in the Kahrizak morgue just south of the Iranian capital, with the corpses wrapped in black bags and distraught relatives searching for loved ones.Trump — who earlier told the protesters in Iran that “help is on its way” — said Tuesday in a CBS News interview that the United States would act if Iran began hanging protesters.Tehran prosecutors have said Iranian authorities would press capital charges of “moharebeh”, or “waging war against God”, against some suspects arrested over recent demonstrations.”We will take very strong action if they do such a thing,” said the American leader, who has repeatedly threatened Iran with military intervention.”When they start killing thousands of people — and now you’re telling me about hanging. We’ll see how that’s going to work out for them,” Trump said.The US State Department on its Farsi language X account said 26-year-old protestor Erfan Soltani had been sentenced to be executed on Wednesday. “Erfan is the first protester to be sentenced to death, but he won’t be the last,” the State Department said, adding more than 10,600 Iranians had been arrested. Rights group Amnesty International called on Iran to immediately halt all executions, including Soltani’s.Trump urged on his Truth Social platform for Iranians to “KEEP PROTESTING”, adding: “I have cancelled all meetings with Iranian Officials until the senseless killing of protesters STOPS. HELP IS ON ITS WAY.”It was not immediately clear what meetings he was referring to or what the nature of the help would be. – ‘Rising casualties’ -European nations also signalled their anger over the crackdown, with France, Germany and the United Kingdom among the countries that summoned their Iranian ambassadors, as did the European Union. “The rising number of casualties in Iran is horrifying,” said EU chief Ursula von der Leyen, vowing further sanctions against those responsible.Norway-based NGO Iran Human Rights said it had confirmed 734 people killed during the protests, including nine minors, but warned the death toll was likely far higher.”The real number of those killed is likely in the thousands,” IHR’s director Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam said.Iranian state media has said dozens of members of the security forces have been killed, with their funerals turning into large pro-government rallies. Authorities in Tehran have announced a mass funeral ceremony in the capital on Wednesday for the “martyrs” of recent days.Amir, an Iraqi computer scientist, returned to Baghdad on Monday and described dramatic scenes in Tehran.”On Thursday night, my friends and I saw protesters in Tehran’s Sarsabz neighbourhood amid a heavy military presence. The police were firing rubber bullets,” he told AFP in Iraq.Reza Pahlavi, the US-based son of Iran’s ousted shah, called on the military to stop suppressing protests. “You are the national military of Iran, not the military of the Islamic Republic,” he said in a statement. – ‘Serious challenge -The government on Monday sought to regain control of the streets with mass nationwide rallies that supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei hailed as proof that the protest movement was defeated, calling them a “warning” to the United States. In power since 1989 and now aged 86, Khamenei has faced significant challenges, most recently the 12-day war in June against Israel, which forced him to go into hiding.Analysts have cautioned that it is premature to predict the immediate demise of the theocratic system, pointing to the repressive levers the leadership controls, including the Revolutionary Guard Corps, which is charged with safeguarding the Islamic revolution.Nicole Grajewski, professor at the Sciences Po Centre for International Studies, told AFP the protests represented a “serious challenge” to the Islamic republic, but it was unclear if they would unseat the leadership, pointing to “the sheer depth and resilience of Iran’s repressive apparatus”.

With heavy hearts, Bedouins in a West Bank village dismantle their sheep pens and load belongings onto trucks, forced from their homes in the Israeli-occupied territory by rising settler violence.While attacks by Israeli settlers affect communities across the West Bank, the semi-nomadic Bedouins are among the territory’s most vulnerable, saying they suffer from forced displacement due in large part to a lack of law enforcement.”What is happening today is the complete collapse of the community as a result of the settlers’ continuous and repeated attacks, day and night, for the past two years,” Farhan Jahaleen, a Bedouin in the village of Ras Ein al-Auja, told AFP.Since Israel took control of the West Bank in 1967, Israeli outposts have steadily expanded, with more than 500,000 settlers now living in the territory, which is also home to three million Palestinians. A minority of settlers engage in violence towards the locals aimed at coercing them to leave, with the UN recording an unprecedented 260 attacks in October last year.The threat of displacement has long hung over Jahaleen’s community, but the pressure has multiplied in recent months as about half of the hamlet’s 130 families decided to flee.Among them, 20 families from the local Ka’abneh clan left last week, he said, while around another 50 families have been dismantling their homes.- ‘We can’t do anything’ -The trailers of settlers dot the landscape around the village but are gradually being replaced by houses with permanent foundations, some built just 100 metres (300 feet) from Bedouin homes.In May last year, settlers diverted water from the village’s most precious resource — the spring after which it is named.Nestled between rocky hills to the west and the flat Jordan Valley that climbs up the Jordanian plateau to the east, the spring had allowed the community to remain self-sufficient.But Bedouin families have been driven away by the constant need to stand guard to avoid settlers cutting the power supply and irrigation pipes, or bringing their herds to graze near Bedouin houses.”If you defend your home, the (Israeli) police or army will come and arrest you. We can’t do anything,” lamented Naif Zayed, another local.”There is no specific place for people to go; people are acting on their own, to each their own.”Most Palestinian Bedouins are herders, which leaves them particularly exposed to violence when Israeli settlers bring their own herds that compete for grazing land in isolated rural areas.It is a strategy that settlement watchdog organisations have called “pastoral colonialism”.Israel’s military chief Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir said in November that he wanted to put a stop to the violence. This month the army announced new monitoring technology to enforce movement restrictions on both Israelis and Palestinians, with Israeli media reporting the move was largely aimed at reining in settler attacks.Asked for comment, the Israeli military said: “Incidents in the Ras al-Ain are well known. (Israeli military) forces enter the area in accordance with calls and operational needs, aiming to prevent friction between populations and to maintain order and security in the area.”It said it had increased its presence in the area “due to the many recent friction incidents”.- ‘Bedouin way of life’ -Naaman Ehrizat, another herder from Ras Ein al-Auja, told AFP he had already moved his sheep to the southern West Bank city of Hebron ahead of his relocation.But Jahaleen said moving to other rural parts of the territory risks exposing the herders to yet more displacement in the future.He pointed to other families pushed out of the nearby village of Jiftlik, who were again displaced after moving to a village in the Jordan Valley.Slogans spray-painted in Arabic have appeared along major roads in the West Bank in recent months that read: “No future in Palestine”.For Jahaleen, whose family has lived in Ras Ein al-Auja since 1991, the message sums up his feelings.”The settlers completely destroyed the Bedouin way of life, obliterated the culture and identity, and used every method to change the Bedouin way of life in general, with the complete destruction of life,” he said.