More People Die In Accidents Related To Tehran-Sponsored Pilgrimage

Reports in newspapers, websites and in social media indicate that the President Ebrahim Raisi’s administration might be pondering a new round of gasoline price increase, as some say Iran’s daily production has dropped from 107 million liters to 101 million.

The government that controls the distribution of energy and fuel in the country has been offering perhaps the world’s cheapest prices to consumers, with subisdized gasoline going for as little as 22 US cents a gallon.

A similar move to raise prices in November 2019 led to days of nationwide protests and the killing of at least 1.500 protesters.

A hardliner political figure, former lawmaker Hossein-Naghavi Hosseini, said this week that former President Hassan Rouhani should be put on trial for the 2019 nationwide protests.

At the time, the government was criticized by politicians and media for the way it handled both the price rise and the ensuing dangerous unrest that quickly turned into an anti-regime uprising.

In an interview with Didban Iran website on Saturday, September 10, Naghavi Hosseini added that Iran's Supreme Council of National Security was also responsible for the events that followed the price hike.

Naghavi-Hosseini further charged that one of Rouhani's ministers without naming him and said the minister was waiting for a regime change in Iran.

The ex-lawmaker, who is the former spokesman of the parliamentary committee for national security and foreign policy, reiterated that some of Rouhani's ministers were utterly enjoying wat was happening.

Naghavi-Hosseini added that Rouhani should have increased the gasoline price gradually year by year. But he waited for seven years and suddenly tried to make up for his inaction in the seventh year of his presidency.

Vice President Solat Mortazavi on Saturday [September 10] said that President Raisi will under no circumstance allow any increase in the price of gasoline. However, he added that the promise not to raise prices is for up to the end of the current Iranian year on March 20, 2023.

Earlier, Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi had also denied the rise in the price of gasoline. Vahidi added that "some people spread rumors about an imminent rise in the price of gasoline and the reduction of subsidized gasoline quota, but I deny those rumors."

The denial came while many media reports in Iran said that gas stations sell only 30 liters of gasoline at the subsidized price of 15,000 rials per liter every month and anything beyond that should be bought at 30,000 rials per liter (about $1 or $2.5 per gallon). Meanwhile, many drivers complained on social media that 30 liters of gasoline per month is not enough for them.

An Iran International report in June predicted that Iranians will most likely experience their next shock when the government reduces fuel subsidies and prices rise dramatically, pushing inflation even higher. The report said that the government is once again thinking of raising gasoline prices although officials and members of parliament continue to deny that it will happen this year.

Official estimates in Iran put the total annual subsidy of cheap energy and fuel as high as $60 billion, which is more than the country’s oil export revenues.

Pilgrims have been stranded at dangerously overcrowded border checkpoints and on the roads in the past few days. According to health authorities many of the pilgrims, including very young infants and the elderly, have been heat stricken due to the very hot and humid weather, or fallen ill with symptoms such as dizziness, nausea, and stomach cramps.

On Friday, Iran and Iraq closed all border crossings, suspending the pilgrimage due to “safety concerns”. Hundreds of thousands who already crossed into Iraq have great difficulty finding local transportation and housing. Photos emerged of thousands of Iranians sleeping in the streets. Hundreds of thousands more who were moving toward the border are confused and have to return home.

Iranian media have reported that dozens of pilgrims were killed or injured in road accidents on the way to the border areas in the past few days. Inside Iraq other hazards may also be awaiting pilgrims: The pro-Iranian Iraqi Shi'ite militia group Hashd al-Shaabi said in a statement Saturday that it had foiled a Islamic State terrorist plot against pilgrims in Karbala on Friday.

According to Iranian media at least two million Iranians had already set out on pilgrimage to Karbala by land and air until Saturday for the Arbaeen ceremony that will take place on September 18. Last Wednesday, first Vice President Mohammad Mokhber said the government expected five million pilgrims to participate in this year’s ceremonies at Iraqi Shiite holy sites.

On Thursday Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi asked Iranians not to leave for Iraq due to the high accumulation of travellers on roads leading to the border checkpoints and Iraqi border authorities’ inability to process such a huge number of pilgrims. The decision to abort the pilgrimage came after weeks of government propaganda and offers of financial assistance to potential pilgrims.

The head of Arbaeen Headquarters, Majid Mir-Ahmadi, said at Mehran border checkpoint in Ilam Province Thursday that Iraqi border crossings were not equipped to serve the huge number of Iranian pilgrims. He advised the elderly, children, and those with medical conditions including respiratory problems not to take the pilgrimage trip.

Mir-Ahmadi said Iraq has not permitted 2,200 buses designated by Iran for transportation of pilgrims inside Iraq to enter the country.

In an interview with the state-run television (IRIB) Thursday, Sohbatollah Rahmani, deputy head ofthe Hajj and Pilgrimage Organization, quoted the head of Arbaeen Headquarters, Majid Mir-Ahmadi, as saying that citizens should try to avoid domestic travel by bus or use their own cars to free as many buses for the transportation of pilgrims as possible.

The Hajj and Pilgrimage Organization is a subset of the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance which is responsible for determining Iran’s pilgrimage policies to Mecca and other holy cities and organizing transportation and other facilities for the pilgrims.

The government is spending hundreds of millions of dollars and huge resources, critics say, to sponsor the Arbaeen pilgrimage to Karbala, the largest annual gathering in the world, to show its Shia ideology is influential both domestically and in the region. The perks offered to Iranians to encourage them to take the pilgrimage include loans, a ration of cheap dollars, and free internet on the road and inside Iraq.

On Saturday the oil ministry announced that it had posted fourteen mobile fuel stations at border checkpoints in southwestern and western provinces to serve public city buses transporting pilgrims.

The United States Treasury Department Friday sanctioned Iran’s intelligence ministry and intelligence minister Esmail Khatib for alleged cyber operations against the US and its allies.

The sanctions were announced two days after Albania, a NATO member since 2009, broke off diplomatic relations with Iran alleging that Tehran was behind the disruption of Albanian government computer systems in mid-July.

“The US immediate support for Albania’s baseless accusation against Iran and Washington’s prompt action to repeat sanctions relying on the undocumented accusation against the Ministry of Intelligence indicate clearly that the maker of the scenario is not the Albanian government but the American administration,” the spokesman said.

Kanaani accused the United States of forcing Albania to host a “known terrorist cult”, MEK, on the government and people of Albania.

Kanaani added that the Islamic Republic would do everything within the framework of international laws to “fulfil the rights of its people and defend itself against sinister plots.”

In a new blog post September 8, Microsoft said its Security Threat Intelligence has assessed that the perpetrators of the cyberattack on Albania were a subgroup of Iranian threat actors.

“Microsoft assessed with high confidence that on July 15, 2022, actors sponsored by the Iranian government conducted a destructive cyberattack against the Albanian government, disrupting government websites and public services,” adding that Microsoft security intelligence assesses that a separate Iranian state-sponsored actor leaked sensitive information that had been exfiltrated months earlier through various websites and social media outlets.

“Microsoft assessed with moderate confidence that the actors involved in gaining initial access and exfiltrating data in the attack are linked to EUROPIUM, which has been publicly linked to Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS),” Microsoft said.

According to Microsoft, attackers were observed operating out of Iran and used tools and a wiper code previously used by other known Iranian attackers with a history of targeting other sectors and countries that are consistent with Iranian interests.

The messaging and target selection, according to Microsoft, indicate Tehran likely used the attacks as retaliation for cyberattacks it perceives were carried out by Israel and the MEK. The cyberattacks on Albania “closely mirrored the messaging used in cyberattacks against Iran, a common tactic of Iranian foreign policy suggesting an intent to signal the attack as a form of retaliation.”

“The messages in the information operations also emphasized targeting of corrupt government politicians and their support for terrorists and an interest in not harming the Albanian people. Similarly, the attack on Iranian steel companies claimed to target the steel factories for their connections to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) while avoiding harm to Iranians.”

Iran's state radio and television channels, government organizations, and infrastructures including the railway and fuel distribution systems, and prison security camerashave also been targeted by hacker groups in the past two years.

The television hacking in January included the appearance of supportive images of MEK leaders but MEK denied any involvement in the incident.

The representative of the northern city of Gorgan at the parliament, Ramezan-Ali Sangdavini, said on Saturday that the government's mismanagement is "evident" in the incidents during the Arbaeen ceremony, blaming authorities, the interior ministry in particular, for the mishaps and mayhem. 

Earlier in the day, a commander of Iran-backed Shiite militia Hashd al-Shaabi, also known as Popular Mobilization Forces, claimed that the group thwarted a "terrorist plan to target the pilgrims in the city of Karbala." He did not provide any details about the attack or attackers. 

The Iranian pilgrims, who had planned to visit Karbala in recent days, have faced other problems, such as a lack of means for transportation, that made them stay behind the borders for long hours, and lack of facilities and accommodation, which made them sleep on the streets. 

The hot weather also left tens of thousands of people dehydrated and in need of medical care. Iran’s Red Crescent Society said Friday that at least nine people have died and about 10,000 people have been referred to healthcare stations with signs of heatstroke. 

On Friday, Iraq and Iran closed land borders citing “worrying and serious dangerous incidents at two border crossings” as the reason.

According to the Guardian on Saturday, Sarah Shourd, her ex-husband and fellow journalist Shane Bauer, and their friend Josh Fattal were detained by Iranian security forces while hiking along Iraqi border in 2009 have filed a lawsuit overseen by federal judge Richard Leon in Washington, the same judge who in 2019 ordered Iran to pay Washington Post journalist Jason Rezaian $180 million for imprisoning him for more than a year on false espionage charges.

Any damages that the trio and their families might receive through their lawsuit would come out of Iranian government assets seized by the US due to sanctions, as part of the congressional Justice for Victims of State Sponsored Terrorism Fund.

The lawsuit said Shourd and Bauer moved to Yemen and then Syria in 2008 while dating because they wanted to continue practicing their Arabic language skills, and Fettel visited them in July of the following year and accompanied them on a hike to a waterfall in Iraqi Kurdistan, during which they apparently crossed into the Iranian territory without realizing it.

Iran let Shourd free in September 2010, describing her release as an act of clemency honoring the end of Ramadan after the intervention of the-then president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Bauer and Fattal were released a year later, presumably as a gesture meant to curry favor for Ahmadinejad as he was about to fly to New York to attend a United Nations general assembly meeting.