Iran signals possible nuclear policy shift, threatens US retaliation

Akhlaghi secured 237 votes in favor and 15 against in a virtual parliamentary session attended by 277 lawmakers.

He replaces Aziz Nasirzadeh, who was killed on February 28 during the opening day of joint US-Israeli strikes on Iran. The ministry had since been overseen by acting minister Majid Ebn al-Reza.

Unlike several defense ministers who rose through military command positions, Akhlaghi built his career inside Iran's weapons manufacturing establishment, overseeing industrial organizations involved in missile production, aerospace technologies and military procurement.

His name has appeared on international sanctions lists since 2007, reflecting his longstanding involvement in institutions central to Iran's ballistic missile program.

From engineering to missile production

Born on September 10, 1958, in Rasht, northern Iran, Akhlaghi studied chemical engineering at Amirkabir University of Technology before earning a master's degree in strategic management from Malek Ashtar University of Technology, an institution affiliated with the Defense Ministry.

He entered Iran's defense industries in the early 1980s and spent more than four decades in technical, industrial and managerial positions, according to Iranian state-linked media.

Much of his career has involved solid-fuel missile propulsion systems and the management of industrial facilities associated with ballistic missile development.

Solid-fuel propulsion allows missiles to remain stored for extended periods and reduces preparation time before launch, making it a significant component of Iran's missile capabilities.

Akhlaghi previously headed the Shahid Bagheri Industrial Group, a subsidiary of the Aerospace Industries Organization involved in Iran's ballistic missile program.

In November 2014, then-Defense Minister Hossein Dehghan appointed him managing director of the Aerospace Industries Organization, replacing Mehdi Farahi.

He later became head of the Defense Industries Organization, which produces conventional weapons and supplies military equipment to Iran's armed forces.

Akhlaghi's role in the Fateh-110 missile project

Akhlaghi's close relationship with Hassan Tehrani Moghaddam, a founder of the Revolutionary Guards' missile program, was central to his involvement in developing Iran's missile industry.

Akhlaghi worked closely with Hassan Tehrani Moghaddam, widely known as the father of Iran's ballistic missile program. Tehrani Moghaddam oversaw the development of the Revolutionary Guards' missile arsenal before he was killed in a November 2011 explosion at a military facility near Tehran.

Iran's IRGC-linked Tasnim news agency, citing The Eternal Man, a biography by Masoumeh Sepehri, reported that Akhlaghi approved $10 million in equipment purchases and production facilities for the Fateh-110 missile despite uncertainty over whether the project would succeed.

The account, based on an interview with a senior missile designer, describes Akhlaghi's direct involvement in financing infrastructure used to produce missiles for the Revolutionary Guards.

Pezeshkian also referred to Akhlaghi's association with Tehrani Moghaddam during Sunday's parliamentary session, crediting figures such as the two men with developing Iran's military capabilities.

Nearly two decades under international sanctions

Akhlaghi's involvement in Iran's missile industry brought him under international sanctions long before his appointment to the cabinet.

The United Nations Security Council included him in Resolution 1747, adopted on March 24, 2007, identifying him as head of the Shahid Bagheri Industrial Group.

The group had previously been sanctioned over its involvement in Iran's ballistic missile program.

The US Treasury Department also placed Akhlaghi under sanctions in 2008.

US State Department information his activities identified him as a senior figure in missile-related industrial operations and described his participation in negotiations to purchase equipment for the missile industry.

In 2020, the first Trump administration sanctioned him in connection with his position as director of the Defense Industries Organization.

The European Union has also included Akhlaghi on its sanctions lists, identifying his senior roles within both the Defense Industries Organization and the Aerospace Industries Organization.

Britain imposed sanctions on him in 2023, citing his involvement in activities connected to the development of systems capable of delivering nuclear weapons.

His name was also included in UN sanctions lists following the reimposition of international sanctions in September 2025.

The measures have made Akhlaghi one of the more extensively sanctioned figures to enter Pezeshkian's cabinet, with restrictions linked to his work in institutions involved in missile development and weapons production.

Missile production and air defenses top priorities

Akhlaghi outlined plans to expand weapons production, strengthen air defenses and rebuild military industrial facilities during his parliamentary confirmation session.

His proposed program includes developing new military technologies, improving production efficiency and increasing cooperation with universities and technology companies.

Akhlaghi also proposed shortening the development cycle for certain new defense technologies to a maximum of six months.

The program envisages increasing the of production outsourced to companies outside the Defense Ministry to 75 percent in the Iranian year beginning in March 2026 and more than 85 percent the following year.

Highly classified weapons production would remain within facilities controlled by the ministry.

Akhlaghi has also identified continued support for armed groups aligned with the Islamic Republic across the region as a ministry priority.

His agenda builds on programs developed under Nasirzadeh, with adjustments intended to address the damage and military requirements arising from the recent wars.

Akhlaghi portrayed Iran's military capabilities as having frustrated US and Israeli objectives during the latest conflict.

"These capabilities have brought the American-Zionist enemy to the point of desperation in the recent war and placed it in a strategic deadlock," Akhlaghi told lawmakers.

His remarks came as the Defense Ministry faces the task of replacing damaged infrastructure and restoring weapons production capacity following months of military confrontation.

Warning to Washington over possible strikes

Akhlaghi also delivered a warning to the United States on the sidelines of Sunday's parliamentary session.

Asked the possibility of Washington using the GBU-43 bomb, commonly known as the Mother of All Bombs, against Iran, he said the Defense Ministry had prepared measures to respond.

"The US president should be thinking how to get his forces out of our region alive. If he drops one bomb, he will have to see how many of his troops he will have to take out of the region horizontally (dead)," Akhlaghi told reporters.

The remarks followed warnings by US officials the possibility of further military action against Iranian facilities.

President Donald Trump has raised the possibility of striking the underground Pickaxe Mountain complex near Natanz, while US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has warned of severe military consequences if negotiations with Iran fail.

A sanctioned missile official takes charge after the war

Akhlaghi's appointment follows the war with the United States and Israel, which killed senior Iranian military officials and exposed vulnerabilities in the Islamic Republic's military infrastructure and air defenses.

Pezeshkian told lawmakers that the new minister had the backing of the army, the Revolutionary Guards and other military and security institutions.

The president also referred to Akhlaghi's presence on US sanctions lists and expressed hope that he would remain alive to continue his work.

The decision to appoint an official sanctioned for nearly two decades over his involvement in Iran's ballistic missile program points to the leadership's continued reliance on the same military-industrial establishment that oversaw the development of its missile arsenal.

Akhlaghi now faces the task of rebuilding military production capacity and expanding weapons manufacturing at a time when Iran's missile program remains a major source of confrontation with Washington and European governments.

The investigation draws on eyewitness accounts and footage geolocated and verified by Iran International. The identities of the sources are being withheld for fear of reprisals by Iranian authorities.

It also found that hospital officials in Semnan province cooperated with security agencies to identify and arrest wounded protesters, in some cases before they could receive medical treatment.

The findings shed light on the methods used by authorities to suppress protests across the province during January's nationwide uprising.

Snipers stationed on government buildings

On January 8, as demonstrations intensified in Semnan, security forces deployed snipers and military-grade weapons on the rooftops of several prominent buildings.

The locations included the office of the provincial Friday prayer leader, the Maryam women's student dormitory and the provincial headquarters of Iran's state broadcaster, IRIB.

Witnesses described security personnel firing live ammunition at protesters from the elevated positions.

A machine gun was also deployed at the broadcasting building, where forces fired directly at protesters' heads and eyes in an attempt to suppress the crowds, according to the accounts.

On January 9, security forces raided the Kowsar student dormitory in Semnan, beating students with batons, using tear gas and arresting several people.

In the nearby city of Shahroud, witnesses described armed personnel patrolling residential streets on motorcycles and opening fire on residents.

Witnesses also said protesters detained at bases run by the Basij, a paramilitary force affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), were shot with pellets in the backs of their legs from one meter away, causing severe injuries, including torn tendons.

Security forces also used drones to identify demonstrators, armored vehicles to block roads and pepper spray against occupants of private vehicles, while widespread internet restrictions disrupted communications.

Hospitals used to identify wounded protesters

Kowsar Hospital in Semnan and other medical facilities were used to identify and arrest protesters during the January 8–12 crackdown, according to the investigation.

Hospital administrators and staff linked to security agencies systematically recorded the identities of patients arriving with pellet wounds or injuries from live ammunition and passed the information to security authorities.

Some wounded protesters were arrested immediately upon arrival, before receiving treatment.

In other cases, security personnel prevented emergency surgery on injured demonstrators, while medical resources were prioritized for government forces, according to accounts obtained by Iran International.

A Kowsar Hospital official who helped security forces identify protesters had previously served on a government election supervisory board.

The hospital also had close ties with IRGC officials and commanders and had hosted religious ceremonies and election-related gatherings.

Detainees subjected to torture, protestors killed

Witness accounts described protesters being transported to IRGC intelligence detention facilities and prisons with sacks covering their heads.

According to witness accounts, some detainees were held overnight alongside bloodied bodies, while others faced severe beatings, torture and verbal abuse targeting their ethnicity or gender.

Eyewitnesses previously told Iran International that at least 200 people were killed by security forces in Shahroud on January 8 and 9, although the figure could not be independently verified.

Iran International identified several of those killed, including Matin Montazerzohur , 31, who was shot in the chest on January 8, and Mahmoud Bijani , 24, who was shot dead outside the city's governor's office the following day.

Soleyman Norouzi , 31, was killed by live ammunition while returning from work on January 9. Hossein Gharib , 32, an electricity department employee and athlete, was also shot dead that day.

In another case documented by Iran International, security forces shot dead Saeed Golsorkhi , a 31-year-old powerlifter, outside his family on January 11, two days after he was wounded during protests. Sources close to his family said he was killed in front of his mother and young niece.

Iranian authorities also executed Javad Zamani and Abolfazl Saedi, two protesters arrested during January's demonstrations in Shahroud, Semnan province, on June 16, according to the judiciary's Mizan news agency.

Protests spread across Semnan province

The January demonstrations extended across Semnan, Shahroud, Garmsar and Damghan, four counties accounting for more than 83 percent of the province's population and roughly half its territory.

The unrest spread across administrative centers, industrial districts, university communities and agricultural areas, showing that protests were not confined to a single city or social group.

Semnan province, to approximately 700,000 people, has faced mounting economic and environmental pressures, including severe drought, declining groundwater supplies, land subsidence, industrial stagnation and rising living costs.

Despite numerous industrial estates along the Tehran-Mashhad corridor, the province has struggled with widening economic inequality and housing pressures.

Semnan also witnessed protests during nationwide uprisings in the Iranian calendar years beginning in March 2017 and March 2019, as well as the 2022 Woman, Life, Freedom uprising.

The province has also experienced labor and trade strikes, including those involving railway workers and merchants in Shahroud.

A sharp decline in voter turnout and growing political disillusionment reflect deep dissatisfaction with the continued rule of the Islamic Republic.

Official election figures show turnout in Semnan province fell from 87.82 percent in the 2009 presidential election to 49.11 percent in the first round of the 2024 vote.

The assistance includes help targeting drone and missile attacks, as well as training, intelligence and tactical guidance, according to the report. It has also contributed to rapid Houthi territorial gains in Yemen. The group now controls coastline along its side of the Bab al-Mandeb Strait and has attacked Saudi oil tankers, energy facilities and airports.

People briefed on regional intelligence cited by the WSJ said IRGC officers inside Yemen had helped the Houthis deploy missiles and radars threatening the Red Sea and Bab al-Mandeb.

The report said the Houthis used large numbers of fighters backed by missiles and drones during an offensive launched in early September, seizing the Red Sea port city of Mokha and territory around Bab al-Mandeb after catching Saudi-backed Yemeni forces off guard.

A person with forces opposing the Houthis cited by the WSJ said the group showed greater sophistication than in fighting, combining infantry assaults with missile and drone attacks, including first-person-view drones guided by fiber-optic wire.

Another anti-Houthi official cited by the newspaper said IRGC officers were on the front lines helping direct drone and missile attacks.

Danny Citrinowicz, a former head of the Iran branch for Israeli defense intelligence, said the operational relationship between Tehran and the Houthis was “very, very strong.”

“Iran has a major interest in the Houthis’ success,” he said, describing the relationship as strategic cooperation rather than a simple patron-client arrangement.

Senior Houthi official Mohammed al-Bukhaiti rejected allegations of Iranian military involvement, saying such claims exaggerated Tehran’s role and ignored the group’s own development of its capabilities.

“Iran does not interfere in Yemeni affairs,” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei said last month, describing the Houthis as “entirely independent actors who make their decisions based on their own interests.”

A UN panel of experts found in 2024 that the Houthis had established joint operations rooms in Lebanon and Iraq to coordinate activities.

Baraa Shiban, an associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) in London who took part in Yemen’s 2011 uprising and later negotiated with the Houthis, told Iran International’s Eye for Iran podcast that Tehran’s involvement began long before the group became a major regional force.

His account comes as Houthi missile and drone attacks on Saudi airports and energy infrastructure have opened another front in the wider war, threatening aviation and trade routes already disrupted by the confrontation over the Strait of Hormuz.

“I think we’re entering phase three,” Shiban said, describing what he sees as Tehran’s strategy of extending the economic cost of the war to US allies.

Iran, he argued, had kept the Houthis in reserve as a strategic asset until it needed them. Their attacks now serve Tehran’s interests while advancing the group’s own ambitions inside Yemen.

From democracy conferences to an IRGC handler

Young Yemenis who took part in the 2011 Arab Spring were invited to conferences in Lebanon that were presented as discussions of democratic reform, Shiban said. Those who went found that Hezbollah operatives were behind them.

Activists receptive to Iran’s revolutionary ideology were introduced to a Revolutionary Guards officer working in Lebanon under the alias Abu Hadi, he said, and some went on to Tehran.

“We were calling it the Arab Spring. The Iranians called it the Islamic Awakening,” he said. Tehran, he said, wanted to present Yemen’s uprising as an extension of Iran’s 1979 revolution.

Shiban identified the officer as Hassan Irlou , who in 2020 became Iran’s ambassador to the Houthi authorities in Sanaa, a post the United States said was held by a Quds Force official. Irlou died in December 2021.

Hezbollah ran much of the operation at first, Shiban said, before Revolutionary Guards personnel took a more prominent role.

The recruitment reached beyond political activists to women invited to conferences in Iran, some of whom came back converted to the Islamic Republic’s ideology. Shiban said he was shocked by one woman he knew as very liberal, who had protested alongside him and returned from Iran repeating Tehran’s case for crushing the Syrian revolution.

“She has absorbed that propaganda of what the Iranians were saying the Syrian revolution and why they need to kill all of those protesters until the last one, given this woman herself was protesting with us,” he said.

People drawn into these networks went on to help set up the Houthis’ political bureau in Sanaa, Shiban said. Iran International could not independently verify the full extent of the recruitment he described.

The account has new weight after Saudi Arabia disclosed on Thursday that the Houthis had rejected an invitation to negotiations in Oman in July.

Riyadh had sought talks to settle outstanding differences before the fighting escalated, Saudi Deputy Foreign Minister Rayed Krimly said.

The Saudi-led coalition said the Houthis had attacked King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh 20 times in October. At least 19 people have been killed in the recent attacks across the kingdom, according to Saudi officials.

Yemen analyst Fatima Alasrar said on X that the Houthis’ refusal reflected Tehran’s timetable rather than an effort to resolve their long-standing demands over airport access, and warned that Iran could keep leverage through the Bab el-Mandeb strait even if it reached a deal with Washington over Hormuz.

The Houthis also have their own aims, among them consolidating control over Yemen and forcing Saudi Arabia to end its support for rival Yemeni forces.

A second strategic chokepoint

The war has put Bab el-Mandeb, the narrow passage between the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, at the center of the regional confrontation.

Iran saw the leverage that disrupting Hormuz gave it and wanted the same at a second shipping route, Shiban said. “It saw how valuable and important the Strait of Hormuz was and it wanted to add another choke point.”

The consequences are visible inside Yemen. On Thursday, Houthi missiles struck the presidential palace compound in Aden, killing five people, according to Yemeni authorities. Houthi advances around Taiz have intensified fighting and displacement.

The escalation could prove costly for Tehran, Shiban said, having already antagonized Saudi Arabia and pushed Yemen’s internationally recognized government toward wider war. But Iran’s leaders appear willing to take that risk, he said, on the calculation that Western governments will hesitate to act decisively.

“I think right now they’re counting on the United States is going to be hesitant,” he said.

Even a long confrontation could suit Tehran, he said, if it raises the economic pressure on the Persian Gulf states and strains their ties with Washington.

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Threats, lies, humiliation and prison were the state’s weapons. Families were forced into silence under threat of having graves dug up, of rape and of execution. Many were denied even the right to mourn.

In a detailed report published four years after the uprising, Amnesty documented the killing of at least 377 people by security forces between September 2022 and early 2023, more than half of them in the first two weeks of protests, and said the true toll is far higher. The report also documents what happened to the families of the dead.

Immediately after each unlawful killing, Amnesty found, the authorities began a campaign of silencing and cruelty against the victim’s family. The body was the first hostage, returned only once the family accepted the state’s false account of the death.

A wide range of institutions took part: the Intelligence Ministry, the police’s crowd-control units, the Revolutionary Guards’ Intelligence Organization, local Basij units, judicial and provincial officials, governors and local Friday prayer leaders.

‘Rioters,’ accidents and drugs

The pattern of forced narratives was almost identical across the country. A death had to be blamed on “rioters,” “counter-revolutionary groups,” “terrorists” or the opposition Mojahedin-e Khalq, or else on suicide, illness, an accident or drug use.

In Divandarreh, in Kordestan province in western Iran, hours after Fuad Ghadimi was killed on September 19, 2022, officials took his father to the state broadcaster and forced him to make false statements on air, threatening to withhold his son’s body and endanger his other children.

Plainclothes agents watched the grave and repeatedly replaced the headstone to remove the word shahid, martyr, which the family had carved on it.

In Kermanshah, Ardalan Ghasemi was shot on November 10 while writing slogans on a wall. An official at the hospital told his family that if they filed a complaint, his body would stay in the morgue for months, and to make the point, showed them the decomposed body of another person.

The family got Ardalan back only after signing a false statement that he had been killed while stealing a car.

The case of Fereshteh Ahmadi in Mahabad, in West Azarbaijan province, is among the most chilling in the report. Half an hour after she died on October 27, four agents dressed as nurses tried to take her body secretly out of the hospital. When the family stopped them, one agent held a gun to her husband’s head and threatened to kill him.

Her brother, Ebrahim Ahmadi, was arrested and held for 28 days in solitary confinement by the Revolutionary Guards’ intelligence arm in Sardasht. Agents offered him double the usual blood money if he would blame Kurdish opposition groups for her death. He refused.

The denial was even more intense when the victims were women and girls, Amnesty found. The UN Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Iran also concluded that, compared with men, the deaths of women protesters were routinely blamed on alcohol, suicide, ordinary crime, illness, road accidents, family disputes or falls from windows and buildings. The authorities played down women’s deaths to stop them becoming symbols.

Burials became another front for intimidation. Security forces tried to move bodies to undisclosed locations. In Javanrud, in Kermanshah province, the Revolutionary Guards took the body of Ismail Golanbar to their regional Najaf Ashraf base and returned it only on condition that he be buried outside the town.

Kumar Daraftadeh, a 16-year-old boy killed in Piranshahr on October 30, was given an hour for washing and burial; after repeated pleas, his family was allowed to bury him the day, in a village 25 kilometers away.

Violence against mourners at times exceeded the violence against protesters. At the funeral of Zanyar Abubakri in Mahabad on October 27, hundreds of mourners carried his body above their heads while police special forces fired on them with assault rifles, birdshot and tear gas.

In Bukan, the brother of Shahriar Mohammadi, killed on November 18, described throwing himself onto his brother’s body to stop agents from seizing it. They beat him repeatedly on the head, kicked the body and shot him in the leg with birdshot at close range.

Hospitals, morgues and death certificates

Another layer of repression ran through hospitals, morgues and the coroner’s office. By forcing hasty burials, often within hours, the authorities sidestepped the legal requirement for an autopsy. When autopsies were carried out, families were usually denied the results.

In Sanandaj, the capital of Kordestan province, the coroner told the family of Hooman Abdollahi, shot directly in the heart on December 7, the cause of death only verbally. The family never received a written report or even a burial certificate.

Police seized the ambulance carrying his body and took it to an unknown location, and the family was made to bury him at night with no one else present.

Minoo Majidi, killed in Kermanshah on September 20, had 167 pellets in her body. A forensic expert told her family so, but no written report was ever issued.

Even the language of death certificates was changed to hide the truth. Phrases such as “impact of hard objects” or “hunting pellets” appeared without any indication of their source.

For Habibollah Fathi, killed by a live round to the head on November 19, a first certificate gave the cause of death as “unknown.” When the family asked for it to be corrected, a second certificate cited heart disease.

The authorities also kept families from seeing their dead. In Sanandaj, relatives of Peyman Monbari, killed on October 8, were made to sign a document stating they had viewed the body, while what they received at the cemetery was a body already washed and shrouded.

Some families, despite everything, tried to seek justice through the courts. Amnesty was able to gather and examine ten such cases from eight provinces.

In four, prosecutors cleared the killers with a single line citing insufficient evidence. Two were referred to military courts to set blood money, without any investigation.

In two more, the authorities themselves admitted that security agents had fired the shots, but sent the cases not to a criminal court but to a military court to determine compensation, and only on condition that the victim be proven innocent.

One case did end in a sentence of qisas, retribution in kind. Mohammad Jamehbozorg was shot in the face in Malard, west of Tehran, after agents raided his , where he had sheltered protesters.

A court sentenced the agent to death and the Supreme Court upheld the ruling. Then, after direct intervention by Revolutionary Guards commanders and Malard’s Friday prayer leader, the charge was reduced from intentional to unintentional killing, and the killer received three years in prison.

The cases of Sepehr Beiranvand in Khorramabad and Mehran Samak in Bandar Anzali followed the same course: an initial conviction, then the ruling overturned and the case sent back for review. Samak was shot after honking his car horn in solidarity with people celebrating Iran’s World Cup defeat to the United States.

The Bloody Friday case in Zahedan, the capital of Sistan and Baluchestan province, where security forces killed at least 87 people, most of them Baluch worshippers, on September 30, 2022, ended with prison sentences for a few low-ranking officers. All the commanders were acquitted.

The forces of repression were ready to kill and to intimidate. Security agents were trained to cover up the killings and to threaten families, and the judiciary stood ready to clear the killers and protect the forces behind them.

These accounts are an undeniable part of the Islamic Republic’s crimes against humanity: crimes that began in the streets and continued, for months and years afterward, in the suppression of families.