Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi said the fatal shooting of four civilians, including a three-year-old girl, by Iranian forces at a checkpoint in central Iran, represents a recurring pattern of deadly state repression in Iran.
“This cycle, this repeating pattern – whose first victims are always children – will only end with the fall of the Islamic Republic,” Ebadi wrote on social media on Sunday, calling the incident “a continuation of state crimes.”
The victims, including Raha Sheikhi, were killed on July 16 when armed forces opened fire on a family vehicle. Authorities have yet to provide public evidence or detailed explanation.
Accusing the government of weaponizing security to suppress its own people after military setbacks abroad, Ebadi likened the killings to the death ofnine-year-old Kian Pirfalak, who was killed during the 2022 anti-government protests when forces opened fire on his family’s car in Izeh, Khuzestan province.
“The regime fears transparency, avoids accountability, and answers with bullets,” she wrote, warning that Iran is being turned into a military zone under the guise of national security.
Public anger is rising in Iran after security forces opened fire on two cars near a military base in Khomein, killing four members of a family — including three-year-old Raha Sheikhi.
Local officials confirmed the deaths of Mohammad-Hossein Sheikhi, his wife Mahboubeh, their daughter Raha, and Farzaneh Heidari, a relative. Authorities say the vehicles were deemed "suspicious," and a judicial probe is underway.
The shooters' affiliation has not been officially disclosed, but social media accounts linked to the family allege that Basij forces were responsible.
"Some of our air defenses were damaged, this is not something we can hide, but our colleagues have used domestic resources and replaced them with pre-arranged systems that were stored in suitable locations in order to keep the airspace secure," Mousavi added.
During the June conflict, Israel's air force took control of Iranian airspace, delivering a significant blow to the country's air defenses, while Iran's armed forces responded with successive waves of missile and drone attacks on Israeli territory.
“We were able to cover the skies using existing and new systems, securing the airspace of our dear Iran,” he said. “The enemy, despite its desperate efforts, failed to achieve its goals.”
Major General Abdolrahim Mousavi, Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces, also echoed that message. “Air defense proved on the front lines of protecting Iran’s skies that it will resist any level of threat,” he said. “Downing so many enemy aircraft shows the courage and will of our defenders.”
Iran says it has downed several Israeli fighter jets but has not provided any footage or additional details.
Israeli forces struck targets across Iran freely during the 12-day war, including in and around the capital.
Israeli military officials say that 120 air defense systems were destroyed or disabled since the first wave of attacks—around a third of Iran’s pre-war total. Long-range systems, including Russian-supplied S-300s and Iran’s Bavar-373 batteries, were among those targeted.
“Iran relied on a fragmented mix of Russian S-300s, Chinese batteries, and local Bavar-373 systems – none of which were adequately integrated… The air defense radar was Russian and Chinese made, which have known issues of target discrimination, without any integration among bases and military units,” wrote the Global Defense Corp.
Mossad operations and precision strikes
In late June, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz directed the military to prepare an enforcement plan against Iran, which includes maintaining air superiority, blocking missile development, and deterring Iran's regional activities.
The plan, according to Katz’s, aimed to ensure Israel can respond kinetically to future threats.
A security source speaking to N12 also said Mossad operatives inside Iran played a central role in shaping the battlespace, deploying loitering munitions and attack drones, and establishing a covert launch site in the heart of Iran to suppress air defenses.
The War Zone website, a resource for the defense industry, released more details of Iran’s defense being destroyed.
“Among the targets reportedly prosecuted by Israeli operatives within Iran was an air defense site near Tehran. Shortly before the operation began, Israeli drones launched from within Iran struck surface-to-air missile launchers there, clearing the way for the larger strike, which also involved Israeli Air Force (IAF) fighter jets."
"This would also explain the apparent inactivity by Iranian air defense sites during the Israeli bombardment. At the same time, the IAF has also been flying suppression and destruction of enemy air defenses (SEAD/DEAD) operations that the service says have destroyed “dozens of radars and surface-to-air missile launchers,” wrote the website.
Airspace remains exposed
Iran’s geographic scale -- roughly 1.6 million square kilometers -- poses a constant challenge for integrated air defense. The Islamic Republic lacks a modern fighter fleet to complement its missile systems and has relied on Cold War-era aircraft. Several of these have been destroyed on the ground in recent strikes, according to Israeli military imagery.
After limited Israeli strikes targeted Iranian missile factories last October, Iran later showcased Russian-made air defenses and its Bavar-373 system to project defensive strength, but Israeli aircraft, including F-35 stealth fighters, encountered little documented resistance during the 12-day conflict.
Authorities said the shootings occurred when forces guarding a military facility in the city of Khomein opened fire on two suspicious vehicles. A local governor later confirmed the deaths of four civilians in the incident.
The victims were named as Mohammad-Hossein Sheikhi, Mahboubeh Sheikhi, their three-year-old daughter Raha, and a woman identified as Farzaneh Heidari, believed to be the family’s sister-in-law.
"The perpetrators of this incident are currently under arrest," said Ebrahim Gamizi, the public prosecutor in Khomein, who announced the opening of a judicial investigation.
The government did not specify which body the shooters belonged to. However, a number of social media accounts, including one saying to represent the Sheikhi family, said the assailants were members of the Basij paramilitary force and that the shooting occurred at a checkpoint.
Several posts said that Heidari’s child is also in a coma due to gunshot wounds.
'Another Kian'
Images of Raha Sheikhi circulated widely online, with social media users comparing her death to that of nine-year-old Kian Pirfalak, who was killed during the 2022 anti-government protests when forces opened fire on his family’s car in Izeh, Khuzestan province.
Dozens of users described Raha’s killing as a repetition of Kian’s, accusing authorities of targeting unarmed civilians under the guise of enforcing tightened security following the war with Israel.
Exiled prince Reza Pahlavi wrote on X: “The bloodstained hands of Khamenei’s IRGC and Basij have once again taken the lives of innocent children of Iran. In the city of Khomein, they slaughtered the Sheikhi family including a baby girl, Raha.”
“It shows the true nature of a desperate and criminal regime—one that can no longer even protect its own leaders and resorts instead to taking revenge for its humiliation by murdering children.”
Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi said in a statement that the Sheikhi family was killed with military weapons and “the child’s voice was silenced by the sound of gunfire as her chest was torn apart in her parents’ arms.”
Mohammadi linked the killings to broader patterns of lethal force at checkpoints, citing the deaths of women in a village near Khash and several young men in Hamedan. “There are no bombs or rockets—but bullets rain down. There is no war—but fire rains down."
Checkpoints become flashpoints
The Khomein shootings follow a string of recent incidents at checkpoints operated by the Revolutionary Guards and its Basij paramilitary forces since Iran’s 12-day conflict with Israel in June. Officials have expanded internal security measures in the wake of the conflict, increasing the number of stop-and-search stations on highways and in cities.
On July 2, the IRGC-linked Fars News Agency confirmed that security forces fatally shot two young men—Mehdi Abaei and Alireza Karbasi—near Hamedan, west of Iran. They had been on a hiking trip. Their funeral drew chants of “I will kill whoever killed my brother.”
Authorities have routinely pledged to investigate such killings, but there has been no public reporting on disciplinary action or legal proceedings against the shooters. Instead, survivors and bereaved families have often faced pressure to remain silent and abandon legal claims.
In one of the most recent cases, 32-year-old Arezou Badri was left with severe spinal injuries after being shot by police in July last year, for allegedly violating mandatory hijab rules inside her car.
A pattern unbroken
Despite official pledges of transparency and justice, authorities have provided no updates in similar past cases. In the Pirfalak case, officials initially accused a dissident named Mojahed Kourkour, later executing him in June on charges of “enmity against God,” despite denials of his involvement by Kian’s mother, Mahmonir Molaeirad.
In posts featuring images with Kourkour’s mother, Molaeirad repeatedly insisted that security forces were responsible for her son's death and that the Islamic Republic was “trying to bury the truth.”
The repeated killings at checkpoints, and what critics see as impunity for the perpetrators, continue to fuel public mistrust.
