CIA issues rare Persian-language appeal to Iranians for secure contact

Mexico has deployed thousands of troops after coordinated attacks erupted across at least 20 states following the capture and death of Jalisco New Generation Cartel leader Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, known as El Mencho.

Cartel fighters torched buses, blocked highways and clashed with security forces, leaving dozens dead and forcing authorities to mobilize nearly 10,000 personnel nationwide.

While Mexican authorities frame the unrest as cartel retaliation, security analysts say such episodes increasingly unfold within transnational financial and trafficking systems that extend beyond Mexico’s borders.

Those systems, experts say, have in some cases intersected with Iranian state-aligned networks operating across Latin America.

“There are longstanding money-laundering and trafficking ecosystems that connect Latin American cartels, Iranian state-aligned networks and global criminal finance,” investigative journalist Sam Cooper told Iran International, pointing to investigations linking criminal actors across North and South America.

Cooper who has reported extensively on transnational crime networks, stressed that the overlap does not necessarily indicate direct operational control by Tehran but reflects a convergence of interests that could benefit the theocracy during periods of heightened pressure.

“I don’t have direct evidence their intelligence would be involved in helping the cartel push back against the Mexican state,” he said. “But I do believe the Iranian regime would want to benefit very much from increasing the turmoil in Mexico.”

That convergence of illicit finance and geopolitical competition, analysts say, creates openings for states such as Iran to benefit from regional instability.

'Using gangs for dirty work'

Janatan Sayeh, a research analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies focusing on Iranian domestic affairs and regional influence, says the Islamic Republic frequently advances its objectives indirectly, relying on criminal intermediaries to apply pressure while maintaining distance from direct involvement.

“They (Iran's regime) do try to put a distance between themselves and their criminal activity, specifically assassination plots,” Sayeh said.

“They increasingly are leveraging some of these gangs… to do the dirty work.”

In 2011, US officials brought charges against several Iranian nationals, among them an operative linked to the IRGC’s Quds Force, accusing them of conspiring to kill the Saudi ambassador in Washington.

According to prosecutors, an Iranian go-between attempted to recruit individuals he thought were tied to a Mexican drug cartel, offering payment to carry out the assassination. Those individuals were in fact informants working with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.

Networks built over decades

Analysts say many of these connections trace back decades, particularly through Iran’s partnership with the former regime ruling Venezuela, where Iranian Revolutionary Guard-aligned networks and Hezbollah operatives established financial and logistical footholds across Latin America.

Hezbollah has long been accused of running criminal networks in Latin America that intersect with drug trafficking routes.

Dr. Walid Phares, a foreign policy expert and co-secretary general of the Transatlantic Parliamentary Group, said those networks gradually expanded into cooperation with organized crime groups operating across the region.

“Hezbollah had developed relationships with similar organizations across Latin America, Brazil, Colombia and beyond,” Phares told Iran International. “But the most important move backed by the IRGC regime was in Mexico.”

According to Phares, access to trafficking routes and financial channels allowed militant networks to expand their reach while maintaining distance through criminal intermediaries.

“The most important goal of Hezbollah was to get to the American and Mexican border,” he said.

Sayeh added that Western governments often mischaracterize the threat by treating such activity solely as organized crime rather than part of a broader national security challenge.

“A lot of times when it comes to the Americas it is treated as a criminal network, not a terrorism network,” he said. “Accurately labeling it for what it is important.”

For Iran, "it’s anything anti-America… and cartel is just part of that paradigm for them,” he said. “Any opportunity just to exert pressure on the Americas.”

Crime and geopolitics converge

Security specialists say the convergence has blurred the traditional boundary between criminal activity and geopolitical competition. Networks originally built for sanctions evasion and terror financing can also serve narcotics trafficking and money laundering operations, creating mutually beneficial partnerships between state and non-state actors.

For Cooper, the violence unfolding in Mexico reflects a wider shift in the Western Hemisphere, where criminal networks increasingly intersect with global rivalries.

“The level of threats that are emerging in the Western Hemisphere right now,” he said, “is all related.”

As Mexico contains the fallout from El Mencho’s death, experts say the episode highlights how criminal violence in the Western Hemisphere increasingly intersects with global power competition.

Arezoo Abedi, a mountaineer and fitness coach, was shot on Baghe Daryacheh Street on January 8 while her children were with her, sources said.

Bystanders helped her children transport her to Saadi Hospital, but the facility declined to admit her, according to her family. They then headed toward Alzahra Hospital.

On the way, members of the Basij and other security forces stopped the vehicle and fired warning shots in an attempt to force the passengers out, sources said.

The family was eventually allowed to proceed, but Abedi died before reaching the hospital. Her body was transferred to Alzahra’s morgue.

Her family said authorities released the body after three days on the condition that no public funeral be held. She was buried at night under security presence at Bagh-e Rezvan cemetery beside her father’s grave.

The official forensic report listed the cause of death as “cardiac arrest.”

Kazem Gharibabadi, Iran’s deputy foreign minister for legal and international affairs, spoke before the council in Geneva as most delegates remained seated, despite calls from campaigners urging democratic governments to walk out.

For many Iranians, the moment underscored what they see as a stark reality: while families continue to mourn the thousands killed in the protests, representatives of the same government accused of carrying out the violence were again granted an international platform at the world’s leading human rights body.

“Several UN Human Rights bodies have found that the Islamic Republic is committing crimes against humanity. The regime’s perpetrators should be punished rather than given a platform,” Brandon Silver, director of policy and projects at the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights, told Iran International.

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  How Tehran whitewashes its crimes abroad

Walkout campaign falls short

In the days leading up to the session, human rights advocates and Iranian activists urged democratic governments to leave the chamber during the speech.

In an interview conducted before Gharibabadi was set to speak, UN Watch executive director Hillel Neuer called on governments to refuse participation, warning that granting Tehran a podium would send a devastating message to victims and their families.

“You cannot grant a false badge of international legitimacy to a regime that just murdered tens of thousands of its people,” Neuer told Eye for Iran, adding, “Shame on the UN for inviting the murderers who try to wound and kill innocent people.”

A global petition supporting the walkout effort gathered more than 360,000 signatures. But video from Monday’s session showed that most delegations remained in place as the Iranian official delivered his remarks.

Tehran’s narrative

During his speech, Gharibabadi dismissed reports of large-scale killings and instead accused the United States and Israel of orchestrating unrest inside Iran.

He claimed “enemies of Iran” had diverted economic protests into “riots and chaos,” alleging that demonstrators committed “Daesh-like atrocities,” while asserting official figures showed 3,117 total deaths — far below estimates reported by rights groups.

He further accused supporters of the protest movement abroad of spreading “fabricated casualty figures,” while insisting Iran itself was a defender of human rights.

The claims closely mirrored messaging that has circulated across state media and official channels since the crackdown.

A recent joint investigation by Iran International and The Free Press documented what it described as a coordinated international information campaign launched alongside the repression, blaming the domestic uprising on foreign conspiracies and amplifying those narratives through media personalities and social media networks.

Diplomacy over grief

For families of victims, the speech stood in sharp contrast to testimonies emerging from inside Iran.

One father told Eye for Iran that his 17-year-old son, wounded during demonstrations, was later killed inside a hospital while doctors were attempting to save him — one of many accounts shared by families seeking international recognition and accountability.

Activists say allowing such narratives to be delivered at the Human Rights Council risks amplifying disputed claims while survivors continue to demand justice.

Politics over principles

Later the same day in Geneva, Gharibabadi also appeared at the UN Conference on Disarmament, where images captured him greeting and shaking hands with UN Secretary-General António Guterres following the session.

For critics, the optics reinforced what they see as a rapid return to diplomatic normalcy despite the recent crackdown.

“The UN either stands for something or it doesn’t,” Hillel Neuer told Eye for Iran, arguing that international institutions cannot claim to defend human rights while granting legitimacy to officials accused of mass repression.

For many Iranians watching from inside the country and across the diaspora, the sequence—a speech at the Human Rights Council followed by diplomatic handshakes—symbolized the uneasy coexistence of international diplomacy and unresolved domestic trauma.

The prime-time speech offers Trump his most prominent platform yet to signal whether he is still betting on diplomacy in the days ahead, or preparing the public for strikes if talks fail.

While advisers have urged him to focus on affordability, immigration and the economy ahead of November’s midterm elections, the buildup toward a potential confrontation with Iran has overshadowed the run-up to the address.

Mainstream outlets have widely previewed Trump’s State of the Union address, highlighting how he might frame Iran alongside domestic political pressures.

Reuters wrote that the speech could be Trump’s best opportunity to rally skeptical voters behind his approach to Iran, including the possibility of military strikes if negotiations fail.

Trump on Monday brushed aside reports of internal dissent about military action, writing on social media: “I am the one that makes the decision… if we don’t make a deal, it will be a very bad day for that country.”

Democrats have sharply criticized his approach. Senator Tim Kaine said Trump was “bumbling his way toward war,” arguing he had scrapped a 2015 nuclear agreement that had constrained Iran’s program.

Bloomberg similarly described Iran as a major flashpoint Trump may address as he seeks to reset the political narrative after domestic setbacks.

The Associated Press said the address offers Trump a chance to make his case for possible action against Iran, citing polling that shows broad public unease with his handling of foreign affairs.

Iran in past State of the Unions

References to Iran in State of the Union speeches have typically surfaced at inflection points–the hostage crisis, regional conflict and terrorism, nuclear negotiations, or moments when presidents sought public backing for a tougher coercive strategy.

In the Cold War alliance era, Iran appeared mainly as a country whose stability and relationships mattered to Western cohesion.

President Dwight Eisenhower’s 1955 State of the Union message cited “Britain and Iran” among nations that had “resolved dangerous differences,” framing Tehran in terms of security and diplomacy rather than direct confrontation with Washington.

After the 1979 Islamic Revolution and the hostage crisis, Iran became the crisis itself.

Jimmy Carter’s 1980 address opened by saying that 50 Americans were still being held in Iran, calling the episode “terrorism and anarchy” and warning that if the hostages were harmed, “a severe price will be paid.”

After 9/11, Iran references shifted into the terror-and-WMD architecture of US strategy, placing Tehran within a broader post-attack security doctrine.

In 2002 and 2003, George W. Bush repeatedly cast Iran as a serious security threat, famously labeling it part of the “axis of evil” and describing its government as pursuing weapons of mass destruction, supporting terrorism and repressing its people, while distinguishing between the regime and Iranians who “speak out for liberty.”

President Barack Obama repeatedly used the address to press for diplomatic compromise while stressing that the United States would prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.

In 2014, Obama said diplomacy had halted the advance of Iran’s nuclear program, warned he would veto sanctions that could derail negotiations, and argued war should be a “last resort.”

In 2015 and 2016, he defended the nuclear agreement reached with Tehran, asserting that it had helped the world avoid another war.

During his first term, Trump invoked Iran to justify withdrawing from the 2015 deal and imposing sweeping sanctions under his “maximum pressure” campaign, portraying Tehran as a central destabilizing force in the Middle East.

In 2018, he said the United States stood with “the people of Iran” against a “corrupt dictatorship” and urged Congress to address what he called “the terrible Iran nuclear deal.”

In 2019, he called Iran the “world’s leading state sponsor of terror.” In 2020, he tied Iran to counterterrorism and deterrence, citing the killing of former IRGC-Quds commander Qasem Soleimani.

The pattern is consistent: presidents have used the nationally televised address to reset Iran policy at decisive moments–to sell diplomacy, justify confrontation, or redefine strategy.

Tuesday’s speech fits that same historical frame.

The three-member household - a dentist’s daughter and her elderly parents - treated injured demonstrators with minimal equipment until the last of them was able to leave.

For those struck by live ammunition, they took the added risk of bringing a trusted doctor into their home to remove bullets and continue care.

In the final hours of January 9, wounded protesters began arriving one by one. Some had been hit by pellet or live rounds in the streets; others said they feared arrest if they sought hospital treatment.

Maryam, the daughter, who spoke to Iran International under a pseudonym, said she initially removed superficial pellets herself. But as injuries proved more severe and the number of wounded grew, it became clear that several had been shot with live ammunition and could not safely be transferred to hospital.

“We knew if they went back outside, they might not survive,” she told Iran International.

For nearly three weeks, the house functioned as a makeshift clinic. The wounded slept there, were bandaged and monitored, and underwent procedures on mattresses laid side by side.

Maryam said she saw snipers positioned on rooftops firing live rounds at unarmed protesters. She said plainclothes agents, Basij militia members and other forces affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps were also shooting at close range.

Shot again in hospitals

A young doctor who assisted at the house said colleagues in several cities told him some wounded protesters were allegedly shot again in hospitals or during transfer.

“It wasn’t one or two cases,” he said. “Reports were coming from every city. People were being sprayed with bullets. Some who reached the hospital with gunshot wounds were later found dead with bullets to the head. It is clear that crimes were committed.”

As the condition of several live-fire victims worsened, those inside debated whether to risk hospital transfer — a step many believed could lead to detention or worse.

They ultimately agreed to bring the doctor to the house, where he remained for several days administering pain relief and extracting bullets with limited supplies.

Will to survive

One protester shot in the leg said he believed he would not survive. Two nights later, the bullet was removed. Before him, others had undergone similar procedures for wounds to their legs, stomachs and hands.

Some left as soon as they were able, fearing identification. Others relocated to different cities rather than return home.

Those sheltering there described nights marked by fear, grief and solidarity. They sang Kurdish, Luri and Azerbaijani songs and mourned those killed. When images of victims from Tehran and other cities appeared on television, they wept together.

The father, Khosrow, said internet and phone disruptions initially left them cut off. Only after satellite reception improved and they were able to watch Iran International did they realize the violence extended beyond their neighborhood.

The house has since returned to daily life. But the family says the memory of those 19 nights — when their home became a refuge for people who could neither remain in the streets nor safely seek hospital care — will not fade.

They insist they did only what they could under the circumstances and say they wish they had been able to save more lives.