Israel's long-awaited strikes on Iran have targeted military and industrial installations in Tehran, Khuzestan and Ilam, with air-strikes also reported in the Syrian cities of Damascus and Homs.  It is now Iran's turn to retaliate in the escalatory tit-for-tat game, as the brink of regional and even world war looms ever closer. In Episode 249 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg advocates a neither/nor position that rejects the militaristic and reactionary regimes of both Zionism and political Islam, and looks to a secular order in the Middle East.

Iran's Supreme Court ordered a retrial of labor rights activist Sharifeh Mohammadi, who had been sentenced to death for treason, local media reported Oct. 12. The order lifts her death sentence while she awaits a retrial. In the conviction handed down by the Islamic Revolutionary Court in Rasht, Mohammadi's alleged membership in the National Labor Unions Assistance Coordination Committee (LUACC) was included as evidence—despite the fact that LUACC is a legally established independent labor organization in Iran. Mohammadi claimed that she had not been a member of LUACC for 10 years.

Over 26 rights organizations, including the Kurdistan Human Rights Network and Center for Human Rights in Iran, issued a joint statement Sept. 9 calling for the immediate revocation of the death sentence imposed on Kurdish women's rights activist Pakhshan Azizi. This sentence, handed down by the Iranian judiciary, has sparked international outrage, with the organizations calling it "a blatant violation of human rights principles and standards as well as international conventions and treaties."

The insurgent Sunni Baluch group Jaish al-Adl on April 3 carried out simultaneous attacks on bases of the security forces in Iran's southeastern Sistan & Baluchestan province, leaving five troops dead. The attacks targeted a Border Guard post in Chabahar, and a Revolutionary Guards base in Rask. Troops gave pursuit, and skirmishes in the areas continue, with several more reported dead on both sides. Jaish al-Adl, or the Army of Justice, is largely made up of followers of the banned militant organization Jundullah (Soldiers of God), and claims that it "defends the rights of the Sunni Baluch people." (Iran International, TRT World, EFE)

In Episode 211 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg takes stock of the potential for escalation to world war as Joe Biden retaliates for a deadly drone strike on US forces by an Iran-backed militia with air raids on 85 targets in Iraq and Syria. The same militias that have been attacking US forces in Iraq and Syria have also brutally repressed protesters in Iraq, and fought for the genocidal Bashar Assad regime in Syria. Tehran's paramilitary network has also carried out deadly repression of protests within Iran itself. The Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen, now also coming under US bombardment, are responsible for war crimes against the Yemeni people and repression of their popular movements. It is necessary to oppose Biden's widening of air-strikes against Iran's paramilitaries, but also to oppose the Islamic Republic, equally a force of regional reaction.

Iran Jan. 17 carried out missile and drone strikes against targets of the Jaish al-Adl militant group in Pakistan's Balochistan province. Pakistan called the assault, which resulted in the death of two children, an "unprovoked violation" of its airspace. The unprecedented strikes, attributed to the Revolutionary Guards, are seen as a response to the recent deadly suicide bombing by the Islamic State in Iran. (Times of India) Pakistan retaliated the next day with strikes on villages in Iran's Sistan & Baluchistan province, reportedly killing seven, including four children. (WION, CNN) 

More than 50 were killed and dozens injured in a suicide attack in Pakistan's Balochistan province Sept. 29 as people gathered to celebrate the festival marking the birth of the Prophet Muhammad, Mawlid an-Nabi. Those targeted in the blast at the town of Mastung were overwhelmingly members of the Baluch ethnicity. The attack is believed to have been carried out by the local ISIS franchise, Islamic State-Khorasan. That same day, at least five were killed in a separate blast at a mosque in Hangu, outside Peshawar in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. (BBC News, Al Jazeera, AP, NWorld, UAE)

With the protest movement in Iran now in abeyance, Tehran's national Police Command announced July 16 that the feared "morality police" will resume patrols enforcing the mandatory wearing of the hijab by the country's women. Formally known as the Guidance Patrols (Gasht-e Ershad), the force created in 2006 was that which arrested Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish woman, last September. Her death in custody three days later sparked the uprising that has now lasted for 10 months. The patrols were suspended for review as the protests mounted last December. Article 638 of Iran's Islamic Penal Code states that: "Women who appear in public without prescribed Islamic dress (hejab-e-shar'i), shall be sentenced to either imprisonment of between 10 days and two months, or a fine of between 50,000 and 500,000 rials." (Jurist, BBC News, MEE)