Morad Tahbaz ‘left behind’ in Iran by UK: Daughter

Roxanne Tahbaz told the BBC that the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office promised that her father would be freed alongside Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe. (FILE/AFP)
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Updated 29 March 2022
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Morad Tahbaz ‘left behind’ in Iran by UK: Daughter

  • Dual national has been in Tehran’s Evin prison for over 4 years
  • Wildlife conservationist a ‘pawn’ in a ‘political chess game’

LONDON: Morad Tahbaz, the British-Iranian dual national jailed in Tehran’s Evin prison for over four years, has been “left behind” by the UK government, his daughter claims.

Roxanne Tahbaz told the BBC that the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office promised that her father would be freed alongside Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Anoosheh Ashoori, who returned to the UK earlier this month.

But Roxanne said her father, a wildlife conservationist, is a “pawn” in a “political chess game,” and the UK government told the family not to talk to the media.

“We feel no one is really protecting him now as his country has left him behind,” she told the BBC’s “Today” radio program. “Despite the foreign office’s advice to stay quiet and out of the press and the media, (we) are shedding light and trying to garner some support and ask some questions because he never should have been left behind.

“We’ve been told they’re working on it, that it’s complicated, as the Iranians see him as an American.”


Syria says detained senior Daesh jihadist in Damascus

Updated 25 December 2025
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Syria says detained senior Daesh jihadist in Damascus

  • The arrest came less than two weeks after a December 13 attack killed two US soldiers

DAMASCUS: Syrian authorities have arrested a senior Daesh group official in the Damascus region in a joint operation with a US-led international coalition, a security official said on Wednesday.
Taha Al-Zoubi, also known as Abu Omar Tabiya, an Daesh leader in Damascus, was detained with several of his men, General Ahmad Al-Dalati was reported as saying by state news agency SANA.
The arrest came less than two weeks after a December 13 attack killed two US soldiers and a US civilian that Washington said was carried out by a lone Daesh gunman in central Syria’s Palmyra.
“Our specialized units, in cooperation with the General Intelligence Directorate and and International Coalition forces, carried out a precise security operation targeting” an Daesh hideout, Dalati said.
On December 20, a Syria monitor said that five Daesh members were killed in US strikes in retaliation for the December 13 attack.
It was the first such incident since the overthrow of longtime ruler Bashar Assad in December last year, and Syrian authorities said the perpetrator was a security forces member who was due to be fired for his “extremist Islamist ideas.”