DUBAI: Iran’s supreme leader said Monday he’d “welcome” the restoration of full diplomatic ties between Egypt and the Islamic Republic, raising the prospect of Cairo and Tehran normalizing relations after decades of strain.
The comments by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei came as a series of websites linked to Iran’s presidency bore the images of two leaders of an exiled opposition group Monday, with others showing the pictures of Khamenei and President Ebrahim Raisi crossed out.
Iranian state television quoted Khamenei’s comments as coming from a meeting he held with the visiting sultan of Oman, Haitham bin Tariq. Sultan Haitham’s trip to Tehran, his first since assuming power in 2020, comes as Muscat long has served as an interlocutor between Tehran and the West.
There have been growing signs of Egypt and Iran potentially restoring ties, particularly as Saudi Arabia and Iran reached a détente in March with Chinese mediation after years of tensions. Cairo relies on Saudi Arabia and other oil-rich Gulf Arab states for economic support.
“We welcome this issue and have no problem in this regard,” Khamenei reportedly said.
There was no immediate reaction from Egypt to Khamenei’s comments. Officials in Cairo did not respond to a request for comment.
Egypt under Anwar Sadat cut ties to Iran after the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Sadat had been a close friend to the deposed Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, welcomed him to Egypt just before his death and hosted his state funeral in 1980. The shah’s remains are entombed at Cairo’s Al-Rifai Mosque. Egypt’s peace deal with Israel also angered Iran’s theocratic government, which views Israel as its top regional enemy.
Meanwhile Monday, an Internet account describing itself as a group of hackers claimed responsibility for defacing websites associated with Iran’s presidency. The account GhyamSarnegouni, whose name in Farsi means “Rise to Overthrow,” previously claimed hacking websites associated with Iran’s Foreign Ministry earlier this month.
Iranian state media and officials did not immediately acknowledge the apparent hack. However, Associated Press journalists accessing the sites found them defaced with images of Massoud Rajavi, the long-missing leader of the Iranian exile group Mujahedeen-e-Khalq, and his wife Maryam, who is now the public face of the group.
One site bore the slogan: “Death to Khamenei Raisi- Hail to Rajavi.” Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and Iran’s president Ebrahim Raisi both were targeted similarly in the previously claimed hacked in May.
Iran has been targeted by a series of embarrassing hacks amid the rising tensions over its rapidly advancing nuclear program. That’s included the signal of Iranian state television being targeted, gasoline pumps that provide subsidized fuel being targeted in a cyberattack and government surveillance camera imagery being released, including from a notorious prison.
The Mujahedeen-e-Khalq, known by the acronym MEK, called the hack “very extensive” when reached, but did not claim credit for it. The MEK had angrily condemned a prisoner swap Belgium conducted with Iran on Friday to free an aid worker that saw an Iranian diplomat convicted of being behind a bomb plot targeting the group released.
The MEK began as a Marxist group opposing the shah’s rule. It claimed and was suspected in a series of attacks against US officials in Iran in the 1970s, something the group now denies.
It supported the 1979 Islamic Revolution, but soon had a falling out with Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and turned against the cleric. It carried out a series of assassinations and bombings targeting the young Islamic Republic.
The MEK later fled into Iraq and backed dictator Saddam Hussein during his bloody eight-year war against Iran in the 1980s. That saw many oppose the group in Iran. Although largely based in Albania, the group claims to operate a network inside Iran.
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Iran’s Khamenei welcomes better ties with Egypt
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Iran’s Khamenei welcomes better ties with Egypt
- Relations between Egypt and Iran have often been fraught in recent decades
- Group of hackers claimed responsibility for defacing websites associated with Iran’s presidency
Death toll in Iran protests rises to more than 500, rights group says
DUBAI/JERUSALEM: Unrest in Iran has killed more than 500 people, a rights group said on Sunday, as Tehran threatened to target US military bases if President Donald Trump carries out threats to intervene on behalf of protesters.
With the Islamic Republic’s clerical establishment facing the biggest demonstrations since 2022, Trump has repeatedly threatened to intervene if force is used on protesters.
According to its latest spreadsheet — based on activists inside and outside Iran, US-based rights group HRANA said it had verified the deaths of 490 protesters and 48 security personnel, with more than 10,600 people arrested.
Reuters was unable to independently verify the tolls.
Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, speaking in parliament on Sunday, warned the United States against “a miscalculation.”
“Let us be clear: in the case of an attack on Iran, the occupied territories (Israel) as well as all US bases and ships will be our legitimate target,” said Qalibaf, a former commander in Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards.
Authorities intensify crackdown
The protests began on December 28 in response to soaring prices, before turning against the clerical rulers who have governed since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Authorities accuse the US and Israel of fomenting unrest. Iran’s police chief Ahmad-Reza Radan said security forces had stepped up efforts to confront “rioters.”
The flow of information from Iran has been hampered by an Internet blackout since Thursday.
Footage posted on social media on Saturday from Tehran showed large crowds marching along a street at night, clapping and chanting. The crowd “has no end nor beginning,” a man is heard saying.
In footage from the northeastern city of Mashhad, smoke can be seen billowing into the night sky from fires in the street, masked protesters, and a road strewn with debris, another video posted on Saturday showed. Explosions could be heard.
Reuters verified the locations.
State TV aired footage of dozens of body bags on the ground at the Tehran coroner’s office on Sunday, saying the dead were victims of events caused by “armed terrorists.”
Three Israeli sources, who were present for Israeli security consultations over the weekend, said Israel was on a high-alert footing for the possibility of any US intervention.
An Israeli military official said the protests were an internal Iranian matter, but Israel’s military was monitoring developments and was ready to respond “with power if need be.” An Israeli government spokesperson declined to comment.
Israel and Iran fought a 12-day war in June last year, which the United States briefly joined by attacking key nuclear installations. Iran retaliated by firing missiles at Israel and an American air base in Qatar.
US ready to help, says Trump
Trump, posting on social media on Saturday, said: “Iran is looking at FREEDOM, perhaps like never before. The USA stands ready to help!!!“
In a phone call on Saturday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio discussed the possibility of US intervention in Iran, according to an Israeli source present for the conversation.
Reza Pahlavi, the exiled son of Iran’s last shah and a prominent voice in the fragmented opposition, said Trump had observed Iranians’ “indescribable bravery.” “Do not abandon the streets,” Pahlavi, who is based in the US, wrote on X.
Maryam Rajavi, president-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, a Paris-based Iranian opposition group, wrote on X that people in Iran had “asserted control of public spaces and reshaped Iran’s political landscape.”
Her group, also known as Mujahideen-e-Khalq (MEK), joined the 1979 revolution but later broke from the ruling clerics and fought them during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s.
Netanyahu, speaking during a cabinet meeting, said Israel was closely monitoring developments. “We all hope that the Persian nation will soon be freed from the yoke of tyranny,” he said.
With the Islamic Republic’s clerical establishment facing the biggest demonstrations since 2022, Trump has repeatedly threatened to intervene if force is used on protesters.
According to its latest spreadsheet — based on activists inside and outside Iran, US-based rights group HRANA said it had verified the deaths of 490 protesters and 48 security personnel, with more than 10,600 people arrested.
Reuters was unable to independently verify the tolls.
Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, speaking in parliament on Sunday, warned the United States against “a miscalculation.”
“Let us be clear: in the case of an attack on Iran, the occupied territories (Israel) as well as all US bases and ships will be our legitimate target,” said Qalibaf, a former commander in Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards.
Authorities intensify crackdown
The protests began on December 28 in response to soaring prices, before turning against the clerical rulers who have governed since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Authorities accuse the US and Israel of fomenting unrest. Iran’s police chief Ahmad-Reza Radan said security forces had stepped up efforts to confront “rioters.”
The flow of information from Iran has been hampered by an Internet blackout since Thursday.
Footage posted on social media on Saturday from Tehran showed large crowds marching along a street at night, clapping and chanting. The crowd “has no end nor beginning,” a man is heard saying.
In footage from the northeastern city of Mashhad, smoke can be seen billowing into the night sky from fires in the street, masked protesters, and a road strewn with debris, another video posted on Saturday showed. Explosions could be heard.
Reuters verified the locations.
State TV aired footage of dozens of body bags on the ground at the Tehran coroner’s office on Sunday, saying the dead were victims of events caused by “armed terrorists.”
Three Israeli sources, who were present for Israeli security consultations over the weekend, said Israel was on a high-alert footing for the possibility of any US intervention.
An Israeli military official said the protests were an internal Iranian matter, but Israel’s military was monitoring developments and was ready to respond “with power if need be.” An Israeli government spokesperson declined to comment.
Israel and Iran fought a 12-day war in June last year, which the United States briefly joined by attacking key nuclear installations. Iran retaliated by firing missiles at Israel and an American air base in Qatar.
US ready to help, says Trump
Trump, posting on social media on Saturday, said: “Iran is looking at FREEDOM, perhaps like never before. The USA stands ready to help!!!“
In a phone call on Saturday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio discussed the possibility of US intervention in Iran, according to an Israeli source present for the conversation.
Reza Pahlavi, the exiled son of Iran’s last shah and a prominent voice in the fragmented opposition, said Trump had observed Iranians’ “indescribable bravery.” “Do not abandon the streets,” Pahlavi, who is based in the US, wrote on X.
Maryam Rajavi, president-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, a Paris-based Iranian opposition group, wrote on X that people in Iran had “asserted control of public spaces and reshaped Iran’s political landscape.”
Her group, also known as Mujahideen-e-Khalq (MEK), joined the 1979 revolution but later broke from the ruling clerics and fought them during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s.
Netanyahu, speaking during a cabinet meeting, said Israel was closely monitoring developments. “We all hope that the Persian nation will soon be freed from the yoke of tyranny,” he said.
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