Renewed Protests in Iran’s Restive Southeast, Currency at New Low

People attend a protest over the death of Mahsa Amini, a woman who died after being arrested by the republic's "morality police", in Tehran, Iran September 21, 2022. (WANA (West Asia News Agency) via Reuters
People attend a protest over the death of Mahsa Amini, a woman who died after being arrested by the republic's "morality police", in Tehran, Iran September 21, 2022. (WANA (West Asia News Agency) via Reuters
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Renewed Protests in Iran’s Restive Southeast, Currency at New Low

People attend a protest over the death of Mahsa Amini, a woman who died after being arrested by the republic's "morality police", in Tehran, Iran September 21, 2022. (WANA (West Asia News Agency) via Reuters
People attend a protest over the death of Mahsa Amini, a woman who died after being arrested by the republic's "morality police", in Tehran, Iran September 21, 2022. (WANA (West Asia News Agency) via Reuters

Demonstrators marched in Iran's restive southeast on Friday amid reports on social media that security forces were surrounding a mosque at the center of weekly anti-government rallies.

Anti-government protests have been taking place across Iran since last September's death in custody of 22-year-old Kurdish Iranian woman Mahsa Amini for flouting hijab policy, which requires women to entirely cover their hair and bodies.

"We swear on our comrades' blood to stand strong until the end," hundreds of demonstrators were seen chanting in a video from the flashpoint city of Zahedan posted by the activist news agency HRANA.

Another widely-circulated video purported to show security forces beating and arresting a Baluch man trying to enter the Makki Mosque in Zahedan, capital of Sistan-Baluchistan province.

Reuters could not immediately verify the videos.

The Baluch minority, estimated to number up to 2 million people, has faced discrimination and repression for decades, according to rights groups. Sistan-Baluchistan, bordering Pakistan and Afghanistan, is one of Iran's poorest provinces and has seen repeated killings by security forces in recent years.

Zahedan saw one of the deadliest days of protests after Amini's death, with at least 66 people killed in a crackdown there on Sept. 30, Amnesty International said.

As with previous bouts of unrest, authorities appeared to have disrupted internet services on Friday.

"Confirmed: Real-time network data show a significant disruption to internet connectivity in Zahedan, #Iran; the incident comes amid a growing security presence during Friday protests," NetBlocks internet monitor said.

There was no immediate word on state media of Friday's protests. Tehran says the protests are instigated by its foreign enemies.

Meanwhile, Iran's currency continued its slide to hit new lows, weighed by the unrest and Tehran's increased isolation under mounting Western sanctions.

The rial plummeted to a new record low of 539,200 against the US dollar on Friday, compared to 526,500 on Thursday, according to foreign exchange site Bonbast.com, amid reports of new sanctions against Iran.

The US Commerce Department targeted Belarus, Iran and others in its latest response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, imposing export control measures and adding more targets to its entity list.

While the nationwide unrest has diminished in recent weeks, probably because of executions and crackdowns, acts of civil disobedience have continued from anti-government graffiti to unveiled women appearing in public.



NATO Needs More Long-range Missiles to Deter Russia, US General Says

An explosion of a drone lights up the sky over the city during a Russian drone and missile strike, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Kyiv, Ukraine July 10, 2025. REUTERS/Gleb Garanich/File Photo
An explosion of a drone lights up the sky over the city during a Russian drone and missile strike, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Kyiv, Ukraine July 10, 2025. REUTERS/Gleb Garanich/File Photo
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NATO Needs More Long-range Missiles to Deter Russia, US General Says

An explosion of a drone lights up the sky over the city during a Russian drone and missile strike, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Kyiv, Ukraine July 10, 2025. REUTERS/Gleb Garanich/File Photo
An explosion of a drone lights up the sky over the city during a Russian drone and missile strike, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Kyiv, Ukraine July 10, 2025. REUTERS/Gleb Garanich/File Photo

NATO will need more long-range missiles in its arsenal to deter Russia from attacking Europe because Moscow is expected to increase production of long-range weapons, a US Army general told Reuters.

Russia's effective use of long-range missiles in its war in Ukraine has convinced Western military officials of their importance for destroying command posts, transportation hubs and missile launchers far behind enemy lines.

"The Russian army is bigger today than it was when they started the war in Ukraine," Major General John Rafferty said in an interview at a US military base in Wiesbaden, Germany.

"And we know that they're going to continue to invest in long-range rockets and missiles and sophisticated air defences. So more alliance capability is really, really important."

The war in Ukraine has underscored Europe's heavy dependence on the United States to provide long-range missiles, with Kyiv seeking to strengthen its air defences.

Rafferty recently completed an assignment as commander of the US Army's 56th Artillery Command in the German town of Mainz-Kastel, which is preparing for temporary deployments of long-range US missiles on European soil from 2026.

At a meeting with US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth on Monday, German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius is expected to try to clarify whether such deployments, agreed between Berlin and Washington when Joe Biden was president, will go ahead now that Donald Trump is back in the White House.

The agreement foresaw the deployment of systems including Tomahawk missiles with a range of 1,800 km and the developmental hypersonic weapon Dark Eagle with a range of around 3,000 km.

Russia has criticised the planned deployment of longer-range US missiles in Germany as a serious threat to its national security. It has dismissed NATO concerns that it could attack an alliance member and cited concerns about NATO expansion as one of its reasons for invading Ukraine in 2022.

EUROPEAN PLANS

Fabian Hoffmann, a doctoral research fellow at Oslo University who specialises in missiles, estimated that the US provides some 90% of NATO's long-range missile capabilities.

"Long-range strike capabilities are crucial in modern warfare," he said. "You really, really don't want to be caught in a position like Ukraine (without such weapons) in the first year (of the war). That puts you at an immediate disadvantage."

Aware of this vulnerability, European countries in NATO have agreed to increase defence spending under pressure from Trump.

Some European countries have their own long-range missiles but their number and range are limited. US missiles can strike targets at a distance of several thousand km.

Europe's air-launched cruise missiles, such as the British Storm Shadow, the French Scalp and the German Taurus, have a range of several hundred km. France's sea-launched Missile de Croisiere Naval (MdCN) can travel more than 1,000 km.

They are all built by European arms maker MBDA which has branches in Britain, France, Germany and Italy.

France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Britain and Sweden are now participating in a programme to acquire long-range, ground-launched conventional missiles known as the European Long-Range Strike Approach (ELSA).

As part of the program, Britain and Germany announced in mid-May that they would start work on the development of a missile with a range of over 2,000 km.