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Iran Dismisses US Threat of 'Economic D-day'

FILE - Iran's Ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency, IAEA, Kazem Gharibabadi, waits for the start of the IAEA board of governors meeting at the International Center in Vienna, Austria, Nov. 21, 2019. (AP Photo/Ronald Zak, file)
FILE - Iran's Ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency, IAEA, Kazem Gharibabadi, waits for the start of the IAEA board of governors meeting at the International Center in Vienna, Austria, Nov. 21, 2019. (AP Photo/Ronald Zak, file)
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Iran Dismisses US Threat of 'Economic D-day'

FILE - Iran's Ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency, IAEA, Kazem Gharibabadi, waits for the start of the IAEA board of governors meeting at the International Center in Vienna, Austria, Nov. 21, 2019. (AP Photo/Ronald Zak, file)
FILE - Iran's Ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency, IAEA, Kazem Gharibabadi, waits for the start of the IAEA board of governors meeting at the International Center in Vienna, Austria, Nov. 21, 2019. (AP Photo/Ronald Zak, file)

Iran on Monday dismissed Washington's declaration of a massive economic pressure campaign, saying it disproved US claims to have dismantled Tehran's military and nuclear capabilities.

"Your narrative doesn't add up: you say that Iran's military power has been 'dismantled', 100% of its military factories 'destroyed' and its nuclear program 'buried'," Kazem Gharibabadi, deputy foreign minister, said in a post on X.

Yet, he added, "there is a need for 'the largest financial invasion in history' and the mobilization of 'all institutions and powers' of the United States! Is this a victory or an admission of America's defeat?"

Earlier, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent wrote in the Financial Times that Washington was launching the "single greatest financial offensive marshalled against an adversary" -- calling it an "economic D-Day".

Bessent posted on X that the measure came after the United States "dismantled Iran's military capabilities, destroyed nearly 100 percent of its military factories, and buried its nuclear program."

He is scheduled to explain the new US sanctions on Iran on Monday.

Meanwhile, Iran's foreign ministry warned countries against joining the US economic campaign. Spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei said taking part would "definitely have its own consequences".

The United States and Israel triggered the Middle East war with a massive wave of strikes against Iran on February 28, triggering Iranian retaliation across the region.

An April 8 ceasefire ended nearly 40 days of intense bombardment, but control over the Strait of Hormuz soon emerged as a key flashpoint in the conflict.

Iran has controlled the vital energy conduit since the war began. Reopening the strait, vital for global oil and gas supplies, has become a US priority, but Tehran insists the waterway will remain closed until Washington lifts its naval blockade on Iranian ports, removes oil sanctions and unfreezes Iranian assets abroad.

Last week, US President Donald Trump announced that Washington would ramp up economic pressure on Iran "on an unprecedented scale."

Washington has urged other governments, including Beijing, to join efforts to further isolate Iran's economy.

In an article published on Monday in Iran's Ettela'at newspaper, Tehran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said relations with China "have taken on deeper, more structural, and more comprehensive dimensions."

Iran has faced US and international sanctions since the 1979 Iranian revolution.

Trump has repeatedly pursued a "maximum pressure" policy of economic sanctions against Iran, reinstating the approach after returning to office in January 2025 following a similar campaign during his first term.

Iran has repeatedly dismissed the sanctions policy as a failure, insisting that economic pressure and threats will not force it to change course.

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World

Amnesty Says Iran Committed ‘Crimes Against Humanity’ in Crackdown on 2022 Protests

Iranian women walk in a street on the fourth anniversary of protests following Mahsa Amini's death in downtown Tehran, Iran, 16 September 2026. (EPA)
Iranian women walk in a street on the fourth anniversary of protests following Mahsa Amini's death in downtown Tehran, Iran, 16 September 2026. (EPA)
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Amnesty Says Iran Committed ‘Crimes Against Humanity’ in Crackdown on 2022 Protests

Iranian women walk in a street on the fourth anniversary of protests following Mahsa Amini's death in downtown Tehran, Iran, 16 September 2026. (EPA)
Iranian women walk in a street on the fourth anniversary of protests following Mahsa Amini's death in downtown Tehran, Iran, 16 September 2026. (EPA)

Iranian authorities committed crimes against humanity in the crackdown on 2022 protests that left hundreds dead, Amnesty International said Wednesday, adding Tehran's suppression of new demonstrations this year bore the "same hallmarks" but on an even wider scale.

The crackdown in 2022 amounted to "crimes against humanity" including murder, torture, rape and enforced disappearance, Amnesty said in a report marking four years since those protests, warning that the authorities' actions earlier this year were "on an even deadlier and more staggering scale".

The London-based rights group named 87 national and regional officials, six of whom were subsequently killed in US-Israeli air strikes, who it believed were responsible in the chain of command and should face international justice.

Several months of protests against the country's theocratic authorities known as the "Woman. Life. Freedom." movement erupted in September 2022 following the custody death of Iranian Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini who had been arrested for allegedly violating the strict dress rules for women.

These were the biggest protests in Iran in recent years until demonstrations earlier this year sparked by anger over the cost of living that peaked on the nights of January 8 and 9.

On both occasions authorities responded with a deadly crackdown that caused international outrage. Amnesty's 1,000 page report focused on the 2022 protests while making clear that the crackdown in 2026 followed the same pattern while being even more severe.

"The extensive evidence gathered and analyzed in our report leaves no doubt: Iranian authorities committed crimes against humanity to crush the 2022 Woman Life Freedom uprising," said Agnes Callamard, Amnesty International's Secretary General.

Amnesty urged the UN General Assembly to "create an international criminal justice mechanism aimed at prosecuting those most implicated".

- 'Unlawfully killed' -

The 87 officials it named included former supreme leader Ali Khamenei and top figures in the Revolutionary Guards who were killed in the US-Israeli war this year.

But some others, including Ahmad Vahidi, who was then the interior minister and now chief of the Revolutionary Guards, are still alive.

"The security forces deployed by the authorities unlawfully killed hundreds of protesters and bystanders, including dozens of children" in the crackdown from September to December 2022, Amnesty said.

"They subjected thousands more to arbitrary arrests, incommunicado detention, enforced disappearance and torture or other ill-treatment. They raped and committed other sexual violence against some of those arrested in connection with the protests," it added.

Amnesty said it had identified 377 protesters and bystanders, including 56 children, who lost their lives during the 2022 protests, of whom at least 326 were killed by security forces, including with metal pellets fired at close range.

- 'Unprecedented massacres' -

One of those killed identified by Amnesty in the report was 62-year-old Minoo Majidi who was hit by metal pellets while protesting in the western city of Kermanshah in September 2022.

"She was killed on the street. She had gone to the street for change, to shout 'freedom'," her daughter Mahsa Piraei, who lives outside Iran, told AFP.

"The world thinks the protests were about freedom for women. They were, but they were also about freedom for people and the right to life," she added.

Amnesty described the crackdown this year as the "unprecedented massacres of thousands of protesters and bystanders" which "bear the same hallmarks as the crimes against humanity documented in this report, yet on an even deadlier and more staggering scale".

"Seeking justice is partly for my mum but to help the still many lives who are in danger," Piraei added, referring to the dozens of people arrested during the January protests who rights groups say are at risk of execution.

They include Ali Zarei, who was blinded in one eye during 2022 protests and then took refuge in Germany, but returned to Iran this year and was arrested and sentenced to death.

"We need to shout out their names," Piraei added.

World

Russian Drones Hit Ukrainian Bus and Train, Killing Five, Officials Say

A woman crosses a road as smoke rises in the background from the site of a Russian drone strike, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in Kyiv, Ukraine, September 16, 2026. (Reuters)
A woman crosses a road as smoke rises in the background from the site of a Russian drone strike, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in Kyiv, Ukraine, September 16, 2026. (Reuters)
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Russian Drones Hit Ukrainian Bus and Train, Killing Five, Officials Say

A woman crosses a road as smoke rises in the background from the site of a Russian drone strike, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in Kyiv, Ukraine, September 16, 2026. (Reuters)
A woman crosses a road as smoke rises in the background from the site of a Russian drone strike, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in Kyiv, Ukraine, September 16, 2026. (Reuters)

Russian drones struck a passenger bus and a train in southern Ukraine on Wednesday, killing five people, Ukrainian officials said, as Moscow pressed on with strikes on transport links and infrastructure.

A photo posted on Telegram by a regional governor showed a white vehicle with blown-out windows and a line of what appeared to be blood streaming down its side. Reuters has not verified the image.

"There is no military logic to this, just another act of brutality," Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on social media, urging the US and ‌Europe to press ‌ahead with toughening sanctions against Russia.

ESCALATING STRIKES ON ECONOMIC TARGETS

Moscow ‌and ⁠Ukraine have traded ⁠escalating strikes in recent months on logistics and other economic targets, aimed at hampering each other's war effort and damaging morale.

With Ukraine's airspace closed since Russia's full-scale invasion in 2022, buses and trains have become a vital transport link for ordinary Ukrainians and businesses.

The drone attack on the passenger bus near the frontline city of Nikopol killed four men and a woman early on Wednesday, police said.

A further seven people were ⁠injured in the attack, said the governor of the surrounding Dnipropetrovsk ‌region, Oleksandr Hanzha, who posted the photo.

There was ‌no immediate comment from Russia on the attack. Both Ukraine and Russia deny deliberately targeting ‌civilians in the war, triggered by Moscow's full-scale invasion of its neighbor.

ATTACK ON PASSENGER ‌TRAIN

A Russian drone also attacked a passenger train in Ukraine's southern Mykolaiv region, the acting regional governor said.

All 168 passengers and crew were evacuated and no one was injured, Heorhii Reshetilov said on Telegram. The train was attacked twice more after the first strike, he ‌said.

Zelenskiy said that, in addition to the Mykolaiv train attack, a locomotive in Kovel — near the border with Poland — was also ⁠struck.

The incidents follow ⁠similar attacks recently, including on a train near Ukraine's border with NATO-member Poland on Sunday, shortly after European diplomats and political figures had used the same line.

Russia has intensified its attacks on Ukrainian railways, hitting 120 passenger wagons, 304 locomotives and 43 railway stations so far this year, the state rail operator told Reuters.

The company said that Russia has attacked 1,700 railway facilities in total since the start of the year, up from 1,206 facilities in 2025 and 842 in 2024.

"Russian forces strike passenger trains, locomotives, stations, and railway routes knowing exactly how essential they are for civilians, evacuations, and Ukraine's economy," Ukraine's Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said on X.

"This is not collateral damage. It is a systematic hunt for people and an attempt to paralyze civilian life," he said.

World

India Summons Pakistan’s Top Diplomat After a Naval Collision in International Waters

Indian Border Security Force personnel and Pakistani Rangers take part in a ceremony on the occasion of Pakistan's Independence Day and eve of India's Independence Day at the India-Pakistan Wagah border post on August 14, 2024. (AFP via Getty Images)
Indian Border Security Force personnel and Pakistani Rangers take part in a ceremony on the occasion of Pakistan's Independence Day and eve of India's Independence Day at the India-Pakistan Wagah border post on August 14, 2024. (AFP via Getty Images)
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India Summons Pakistan’s Top Diplomat After a Naval Collision in International Waters

Indian Border Security Force personnel and Pakistani Rangers take part in a ceremony on the occasion of Pakistan's Independence Day and eve of India's Independence Day at the India-Pakistan Wagah border post on August 14, 2024. (AFP via Getty Images)
Indian Border Security Force personnel and Pakistani Rangers take part in a ceremony on the occasion of Pakistan's Independence Day and eve of India's Independence Day at the India-Pakistan Wagah border post on August 14, 2024. (AFP via Getty Images)

India summoned Pakistan’s top diplomat on Wednesday over a collision involving Pakistani naval units and an Indian naval vessel in international waters, India’s foreign ministry said.

The collision occurred Tuesday in the northern Arabian Sea. No major damage was reported, the ministry said.

India described the incident as “unacceptable and unprofessional” and asked Pakistan to ensure its military units exercise caution and follow bilateral agreements to prevent similar incidents. India also asked its top diplomat in Islamabad to raise the issue with Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry.

There was no immediate comment from Pakistan’s government.

India and Pakistan have fought three wars since gaining independence from British rule in 1947, two over disputed Kashmir. Each country administers part of the region, but both claim it in full.

Tensions escalated sharply last year after suspected militants killed 26 people, mostly Hindu tourists, in Indian-controlled Kashmir. India blamed Pakistan, which denied involvement.

The attack was followed by tit-for-tat military strikes that brought the nuclear-armed rivals close to a wider war over the disputed region.