Khamenei aide vows harsh response to any aggression after Trump warning

What began as anger over the surging price of the US dollar and the collapse of the rial has widened into a broader wave of unrest, moving beyond market corridors and into streets, squares and university campuses across multiple provinces.

In Tehran, major sections of the bazaar were shuttered, including major commercial centers in the Grand Bazaar as well as the Alaeddin mall.

Crowds poured into streets in several parts of central Tehran, where security forces deployed tear gas and clashes were reported.

One widely shared video shows a protester sitting on the ground in front of security forces. Many viewers compared the scene to the “Tank Man” moment during China’s 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, a symbol of solitary defiance in the face of state power. The protester was quickly beaten and removed.

The unrest deepened outside the capital. Protests and nighttime rallies were reported from Qeshm Island in the south to Zanjan and Hamadan in the north, and from Malard and Pardis near Tehran to Kerman in the southeast.

In Hamadan, security forces reportedly shot directly at demonstrators, and in Malard, tear gas was fired at protesters.

While the slogans were mainly focused on economic issues on the first day, the second day's chants underscored a transition from economic frustration to more explicit political dissent.

Chants in several cities targeted Iran's political authority, with crowds shouting slogans such as 'death to the dictator" and "Seyyed Ali (Khamenei) will be toppled this year".

Pro-monarchy slogans like "This is the final battle, Pahlavi will return," and "Reza Shah may God bless your soul" were also heard in various parts of Tehran and other cities during Monday protests, videos obtained by Iran International show.

Exiled Prince Reza Pahlavi in a message on Instagram called on Iranian people to join protesters in the streets and put an end to the rule of Tehran's theocracy which toppled his father's monarchy in 1979.

Root causes of protests

At the core of the crisis is the dollar’s surge to roughly 144,000 tomans over the weekend before easing slightly to 136,000 tomans on Monday.

Shopkeepers say the volatility has made it impossible to price goods, secure supply or plan for basic business survival.

Amid the turmoil, the governor of Iran’s central bank resigned and President Masoud Pezeshkian appointed Abdolnaser Hemmati as the new chief in an effort widely seen as aimed at calming markets and protests.

However, there was no immediate sign the move influenced protesters, and momentum continued to build.

Tehran shopkeepers have vowed to extend their strikes into Tuesday, marking a third consecutive day of action.

Students at Shahid Beheshti University and Amirkabir University, prestigious academic centers in Tehran, also announced plans for a protest gathering Tuesday morning.

With protests spreading nationwide, turning more confrontational and carrying into the night, the coming days will test whether this wave remains anchored in economic collapse or develops into a broader challenge to authority.

Speaking to reporters alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Florida, Trump said the United States will deal a heavy blow on Iran if it tries to recover from the US and Israeli strikes in June.

"I'm hearing that Iran is trying to recover—if that happens, we'll have to hit them hard," Trump added.

"If they will continue with the missiles, yes. The nuclear, fast. Okay? One will be yes, absolutely. The other was, we'll do it immediately," Trump said when asked if he would support Israel's strikes on Iran in case it further develops its ballistic missile and nuclear programs.

In a joint press conference with Netanyahu later in the day, Trump said he hopes Iran is "not trying to build up again, because if they are, we're going to have no choice, but very quickly to eradicate that buildup."

"I hope Iran is not trying to build up, as I've been reading, that they're building up weapons and other things. And if they are, they're not using the sites that we obliterated, but they're using possibly different sites. We know exactly where they're going, what they're doing, and I hope they're not doing it, because we don't want to waste the fuel on B-2, it's a 37-hour trip both ways. I don't want to waste a lot of fuel," he said.

The United States held five rounds of negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program earlier this year, for which Trump set a 60-day deadline.

When no agreement was reached by the 61st day on June 13, Israel launched a surprise military offensive followed by US strikes on June 22 targeting key nuclear facilities in Isfahan, Natanz and Fordow.

The attacks killed nuclear scientists along with hundreds of military personnel and civilians. Iranian counterattacks killed 32 Israeli civilians and an off-duty soldier.

Iran denies seeking nuclear weapons and says its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has said dealing with Trump is beneath the dignity of the Islamic Republic, while Iranian officials have rejected US demands to end uranium enrichment and curb missile capabilities.

Meanwhile, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi spoke with Oman’s Foreign Minister on Monday over the phone. Oman has previously mediated negotiations between Tehran and Washington.

Trump blames Obama for nuclear Iran

Ahead of his meeting with Netanyahu, Trump shared a post on his Truth Social account of an old share on X that the Obama and Biden administrations gave money to Iran to fund its nuclear program.

The message originated on X from an account using the pen name Chris Bjornberg and was part of a promotion for his 2023 book “The Night Rider and the Warrior Queen.”

“One of Obama’s most treasonous policies was to fund Iran’s nuclear program,” the post shared by Trump said, alongside an image of a nuclear explosion over New York City and further criticism of Democratic administrations’ Iran policy.

“Biden and Obama gave Iran over $220 billion to research and build nukes. Iran nearly had 6 nuclear bombs and Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBM’s) that would have destroyed Israel and 5 cities in the US," the post said.

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The Obama administration negotiated the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which restricted Tehran’s nuclear activities in return for sanctions relief, before Trump withdrew the United States from the agreement in 2018.

Iran has since expanded its nuclear program beyond JCPOA limits, and the deal has effectively stalled.

The IRGC Aerospace Force is working on the unconventional warheads for ballistic missiles as it transfers missile launchers to eastern regions of Iran, the sources said.

The sources, who requested anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter, said these activities have accelerated in recent months and are being pursued amid rising regional tensions and Tehran’s concerns about the possibility of another direct confrontation with Israel and the United States.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is in Florida to meet the US president on Monday, when he plans to brief Donald Trump on options for potential future strikes against Iran, amid concerns that Tehran is rebuilding ballistic missile production facilities and repairing air defenses damaged during a brief war in June.

Iran International’s sources say these programs are largely carried out under the supervision of the IRGC Aerospace Force and include optimizing ballistic missiles to carry chemical and biological agents, as well as upgrading the associated command-and-control systems.

The Revolutionary Guard, anticipating scenarios of large-scale conflict, is building capabilities that, in the view of the Islamic Republic’s decision-makers, would serve as a “complementary deterrent factor” alongside Iran’s conventional missile program, one source said.

The pursuit of chemical and biological warheads comes six months after Iran’s foreign minister described his country as “the largest victim of chemical weapons in modern history,” citing Saddam Hussein’s chemical attack on Sardasht in western Iran, which, according to OPCW documentation, killed more than 100 people in a large-scale mustard gas assault.

Asked about the contradiction, one source told Iran International, “The Iranian leadership views potential Israeli and American attacks as a threat to its very existence and intends, in the event of a conflict, to significantly raise the cost for the opposing side.”

There is a perception at the highest decision-making levels of the Islamic Republic that “the use of unconventional weapons can be justified in situations of existential threat," the source added.

Last week, Iran International reported that Western intelligence agencies had identified “unusual” activities by the IRGC Aerospace Force and had increased monitoring and surveillance of these movements.

Sources said intelligence services were tracking command-and-control signals as well as deployments and logistical movements linked to the force.

'Drastic change in Mideast deterrence balance'

Military analysts told Iran International that if these reports are confirmed, the development of chemical and biological warheads could drastically alter the region’s deterrence balance and trigger broad international reactions.

The deployment of such weapons would face widespread global condemnation and could pave the way for additional sanctions and intensified pressure on Tehran.

Tehran has consistently denied any effort to acquire unconventional weapons and has declared itself committed to its international obligations.

Over recent years, Iran has steadily increased the range, accuracy, and variety of its ballistic missiles, a program that has been one of the main sources of concern for Western countries and regional states.

Mobile phone traders gathered outside the Iran Mobile Center and the Alaeddin Mobile Shopping Center on Hafez Street in central Tehran, according to eyewitness accounts and videos sent Iran International.

An eyewitness said the chants began with shopkeepers, with passersby later joining in on Jomhouri Street near the Hafez underpass on Sunday.

Reports also circulated on social media of protests at Tehran’s Charsou mall.

Separately, iron market traders in Tehran stopped work on Sunday morning, closing their shops to protest the rial’s decline, according to reports on social media.

The protests come as Iran’s rial weakened to new historic lows on Sunday, falling to about 1,445,000 per dollar, 1,700,000 per euro and 1,950,000 per pound, according to Tehran's open market rates.

A day earlier, the rial was trading at about 1,370,000 to the dollar. About a month earlier, it was valued at around 1,140,000 per dollar on the open market.

In recent months, runaway inflation and the rial's declining value have added to concerns over worsening economic conditions in Iran.

Over the past year, prices of food items in Iran have risen by an average of more than 66 percent, according to official data.

Iran’s Statistics Center said on Saturday that year-on-year, or point-to-point, inflation rose to 52.6 percent.

The satellites were placed into orbit from Russia’s Vostochny Cosmodrome in a multi-payload launch that Iranian officials described as the country’s seventh satellite mission carried out using Russian launch vehicles.

“These satellites were designed and manufactured by Iranian scientists, and both government bodies and the private sector have been involved,” Iran’s ambassador to Russia, Kazem Jalali, said in remarks published ahead of the launch.

“Two of the satellites belong to the government and one belongs to the private sector, and our knowledge-based companies and universities are active in this field.”

Jalali said Iran had continued to advance its space capabilities despite international pressure. “Despite all the threats and sanctions that exist, we have something to say in this field.”

Iran’s space agency chief, Hassan Salarieh, said the launch reflected what he described as Iran’s standing among a small group of countries with end-to-end space capabilities.

“Iran is among 10 or 11 countries in the world that simultaneously possess the capability to design and build satellites, launch vehicles and the infrastructure for launching, receiving data and processing images,” he said.

Salarieh said Iran aimed to expand both the number and precision of its satellites. “What is necessary for us is increasing the number of satellites, improving their accuracy and quality, and developing different classes of satellites,” he said.

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  Iran set to orbit three satellites in joint launch from Russia

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  Iran plans first launch from Chabahar space center as three satellites near liftoff

Iranian media identified the satellites as Paya, also known as Tolou-3, Zafar-2, and a prototype satellite called Kowsar-1.5. The spacecraft were launched alongside a large cluster of mainly Russian satellites into a sun-synchronous low Earth orbit.

Paya (Tolou-3), built by the Iranian Space Agency, is Iran’s heaviest Earth-observation satellite to date, weighing about 150 kilograms.

Iranian officials say it is capable of producing black-and-white images with a resolution of about five meters and color images with a resolution of around 10 meters, and is intended for applications including agriculture, water management, environmental monitoring and disaster assessment.

Zafar-2, developed by Iran University of Science and Technology, is also an Earth-observation satellite designed for mapping, environmental monitoring and tracking natural hazards.

Kowsar-1.5 combines imaging and internet-of-things capabilities and is aimed primarily at agricultural and farm-monitoring uses, Iranian officials say.

Jalali described Iran’s space cooperation with Russia as extensive and said Moscow’s experience had played a key role.

“Russia is advanced in the space field, including satellites, launch vehicles and satellite launches, and we have been able to transfer part of the technology and work together,” he said.

He also described the Soyuz rocket as highly reliable. “Before Russia’s relations with the West deteriorated, many Western satellites were launched using Soyuz,” Jalali said.

The launch also carried Russian Earth-observation satellites, internet-of-things platforms and university-built spacecraft, according to launch data, as well as satellites from partner countries including Belarus, Kuwait and Montenegro.

Iran says its space program is civilian and focused on scientific and economic goals, but Western governments argue that satellite launch technology overlaps with systems used to develop intercontinental ballistic missiles.