Lebanon’s Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri receives more than $500,000 per month from the Islamic Republic in order to support Tehran's interests and those of its allied group Hezbollah in Lebanon, informed sources told Iran International.
Officials in Tehran say the sums are meant to “buy” unity among Lebanon’s Shiite leadership to ensure that they “act in accordance with Iran’s interests, not Lebanon’s interests.”
Nabih Berri did not respond to Iran International’s request for comment. One of his advisers said that Berri would not comment on the matter at this time.
Berri has not publicly opposed Hezbollah’s attacks on Israel in support of Iran, the sources said, because he does not want to risk losing his financial resources.
The 88-year-old politician heads Lebanon's Amal Movement and holds significant sway in Lebanon’s domestic and foreign policy.
The Shiite organization, formed in the 1970s, remains one of the country’s main political actors. It maintains close political ties with Hezbollah, and both belong to Lebanon’s Shiite political camp.
On March 1, Hezbollah targeted Israel in support of Tehran. Israel launched a new military operation in retaliation.
The sources said Berri has been unwilling to support efforts by the Lebanese government to disarm Hezbollah because, in exchange for receiving large sums from Tehran, he must “advance measures in the Lebanese parliament that align with Tehran’s interests.”
In recent months, Lebanon’s President Joseph Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam have tried to pressure Hezbollah to disarm in order to reduce tensions with Israel and the international community.
Army forces have confiscated Hezbollah weapons in parts of southern Lebanon, but senior Lebanese officials have said that fully implementing the plan could trigger internal tensions, as Hezbollah has refused to hand over its entire arsenal.
Hezbollah Secretary-General Naim Qassem and officials of the Islamic Republic have repeatedly opposed disarming the group.
Following Hezbollah’s attack on Israel, the Lebanese government announced that the group's military activities would be banned.
On March 6, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz warned the Lebanese government that if it remains unable to fulfill its commitments regarding Hezbollah’s disarmament, Lebanon will “pay a very heavy price.”
Tehran considers Hezbollah one of the main pillars of the so-called Axis of Resistance—a term used by Iranian officials to refer to allied armed groups such as Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces, and the Houthis in Yemen.
The Wall Street Journal reported in November 2025 that Tehran transferred hundreds of millions of dollars in oil revenue to Hezbollah in the preceding year through exchange offices, private companies and a financing network in Dubai.
Israel’s Kan network reported in December 2025 that Tehran had agreed to pay $1 billion to Hezbollah.
Neither report can be independently verified by Iran International.
For days the conflict had focused largely on military bases, missile sites and command facilities, particularly in southern Iran, as part of the wider US-Israeli campaign that has struck thousands of targets across the country since the war began on February 28.
But since Wednesday evening, reported drone strikes on checkpoints in Tehran have pointed to a parallel line of pressure: the local security posts, patrol units and temporary deployments used to enforce control on the streets.
Iranian state-linked media said several checkpoints in Tehran were hit, killing members of the security forces and Basij militia. The reported locations included positions in multiple districts across the capital.
The development suggests the conflict is increasingly intersecting with the structures the state relies on to control neighborhoods rather than only its larger military infrastructure.
From fixed bases to moving checkpoints
Since the start of the war, residents across Iran say checkpoints and patrols have multiplied in major cities as authorities attempt to prevent unrest and maintain control.
At the same time, Iran International has received a steady stream of messages from viewers describing the locations of checkpoints, security deployments and temporary bases.
Some reports describe armed units inspecting vehicles at major highway entrances or intersections. Others mention security forces using schools, sports halls and religious institutions as temporary accommodation or staging points.
Messages received in recent days pointed to deployments in locations ranging from major Tehran highways to entrances to cities such as Karaj, Shiraz, Mashhad and Qazvin. Residents also described units stationed beneath highway bridges, near parks or inside parking areas where buses and motorcycles were parked overnight.
In several cases, viewers reported that checkpoints they had previously seen disappeared within hours or days, while others appeared to move to nearby streets or disperse into smaller patrol groups.
Some messages described security forces sleeping inside buses or personal vehicles and conducting mobile patrols rather than remaining in fixed positions.
Others said checkpoints that had been inspecting vehicles were suddenly dismantled, leaving only a few officers nearby.
Such reports cannot be independently verified in each case. But taken together they suggest that many deployments are becoming more fluid, with positions shifting frequently rather than remaining in one place.
A war over control of the neighborhood
The shift reflects a deeper pressure on the state’s local enforcement network.
For years the Islamic Republic has relied on a dense web of Basij, police and Revolutionary Guards positions to control neighborhoods and quickly suppress unrest.
During the recent nationwide protests earlier this year, these same networks formed the backbone of the crackdown that sealed off districts and quashed the demonstrations.
In wartime, those local security units appear to be playing an even more central role.
As larger bases and installations come under pressure from airstrikes, authorities appear to be relying more heavily on mobile checkpoints and temporary deployments to maintain control on the ground.
Now those fallback positions are also being drawn into the conflict.
The result is a battlefield that increasingly overlaps with everyday urban space. Instead of remaining confined to distant military facilities, the war is beginning to touch the street corners, highway entrances and neighborhood patrol routes where the state exerts day-to-day authority.
Players who arrived on Wednesday are being kept at a hotel where journalists and media are not allowed to enter, according to sources familiar with the situation.
Some players had their mobile phones confiscated, while others were allowed to keep them only under the supervision of security personnel from the Iranian football federation.
Sources told Iran International that pressure on the players began in Tehran and has continued during the team’s camp ahead of the 2026 Asian Championship.
Mohammad Rahman Salari, a member of the Iranian Football Federation’s board, played a central role in enforcing the restrictions and repeatedly collected and inspected the phones of players and staff after the team’s first match.
Fatemeh Bodaghi, who is traveling with the delegation as manager of Iran’s women’s national team, was described by sources as acting on behalf of the federation’s security apparatus under the leadership of federation president Mehdi Taj, monitoring players’ social media accounts and reporting their activities to authorities in Tehran.
Sources also said Zeinab Hosseinzadeh, the team’s physiotherapist, was among those involved in exerting pressure on players.
Farideh Shojaei, the women’s vice president of the football federation, is also accompanying the team. She previously said options for the team’s return to Iran amid US-Israeli airstrikes were being examined, including a possible land route through Turkey, after attempts to return via the United Arab Emirates did not succeed.
Players face pressure after anthem protest
The crisis surrounding the Iranian women’s national football team began on March 2, when the squad refused to sing the Iranian national anthem before their opening match against South Korea at the AFC Women's Asian Cup in Australia.
This silent protest, occurring shortly after the start of the Iran war and the killing of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, was immediately labeled an act of "wartime treason" by the state media. As the team progressed through the group stage, they were reportedly kept under strict surveillance by delegation minders, with international human rights groups and political figures warning that the athletes faced severe punishment, including the possibility of the death penalty, if they were forced to return to Tehran.
Six members of the delegation accepted humanitarian visas and remained in Australia to seek asylum, while the rest of the team boarded their flight to Malaysia.
The figures suggest Tehran’s oil lifeline has not been cut despite a widening maritime crisis that has already disrupted shipping and shaken energy markets since the war began on February 28.
Instead, the conflict is evolving into a prolonged contest over energy flows: Iran continues exporting oil – largely to China – while simultaneously applying military pressure on one of the world’s most important oil chokepoints.
The Strait of Hormuz, the narrow passage off Iran’s southern coast connecting the Persian Gulf to global markets, normally carries about a fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas shipments.
But the waterway has effectively become a war zone.
Since the start of hostilities, at least 16 commercial vessels have been struck or attacked in and around the strait and the wider Persian Gulf, according to a Reuters tally.
The incidents have included attacks on tankers, bulk carriers and container ships, forcing evacuations, halting port operations in parts of Iraq and driving insurers and ship operators to reconsider voyages through the area.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards have warned that ships passing through the strait could be targeted, reinforcing fears that the waterway is now being used as a pressure point in the wider conflict.
Release of strategic reserves
The growing disruption has pushed the International Energy Agency and major consuming nations to take the extraordinary step of releasing 400 million barrels from strategic reserves, the largest such intervention in the agency’s history.
IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol said the decision had already had a “strong impact” on markets and was aimed at stabilizing supply after the war triggered one of the biggest oil disruptions on record.
The agency estimates global supply could fall by 8 million barrels per day in March as production across the Middle East is curtailed and shipping through Hormuz slows to a fraction of normal levels.
But the reserve release has done little to calm markets.
Oil prices briefly surged above $100 a barrel this week and remain volatile as traders weigh the risk that shipping through the Persian Gulf could remain constrained for weeks or months.
Analysts say the problem is not simply the availability of oil but the difficulty of moving it safely through a militarized sea lane.
Joel Hancock, an energy analyst at Natixis CIB, said markets were questioning how quickly emergency reserves could reach buyers, warning that a market balanced through stock releases would be “far less logistically efficient.”
Shockwaves beyond oil
The war has also begun to ripple through global energy markets beyond crude.
In Europe, gas prices rose sharply as fears grew that tanker attacks in the Persian Gulf could disrupt shipments of liquefied natural gas, around 20% of which normally transits the Strait of Hormuz.
Qatar, one of the world’s largest LNG exporters, has declared force majeure on some shipments, tightening global supplies and raising concerns about Europe’s ability to refill depleted gas storage before next winter.
Financial markets have reacted nervously as well. Rising oil prices have revived fears of inflation and pushed investors to scale back expectations of interest rate cuts by major central banks.
The war’s central energy paradox is that Iran cannot fully shut global oil flows without hurting itself, yet it has shown it can make the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz dangerous enough to rattle markets and force governments to act, even while keeping a substantial share of its own exports – mainly to China – moving.