Iran’s Revolutionary Guard has sent a senior commander back to Yemen to address what Yemeni opposition media describe as a leadership crisis within the Houthi movement, according to a report by the opposition site Defense Line.
“The Houthis are currently facing a crisis of options and priorities, pressing internal challenges, and a complex regional landscape that does not allow them much, especially after indications of a shift in some of Tehran’s approaches towards the countries of the region,” the outlet wrote on Thursday.
Quds Force commander Abdolreza Shahlaei returned to Sanaa after previously being recalled to Iran, the report said.
“The Revolutionary Guards and experts who are present as jihadist assistants to the Houthis do not fill this strategic void. They are essentially an extension and reflection of the confusion that exists in Tehran… The Iranians were forced to return the prominent leader, Abdolreza Shahlaei, to Sana’a after October 7.”
Shahlaei is one of the Revolutionary Guard’s most enigmatic commanders, and Iran International reported in March that the Islamic Republic had neither confirmed nor denied his existence.
The United States has imposed sanctions on Shahlaei and set a $15 million reward for information on his network and activities. US officials say he survived a drone strike the same night former Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani was killed in Baghdad and remains central to Iran’s Yemen operations.
A separate report on Friday in the Saudi newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat quoted senior Yemeni political sources as saying that Iran is increasing military and security support to compensate for what they called its setbacks elsewhere.
Recent Israeli strikes exposed major security failures within the Houthis, damaging the group’s standing, according to source speaking to Asharq Al-Awsat.
Both paths remain open, Abbas Araghchi told a conference in Tehran on Sunday. “Those who want to engage with Iran must decide which experience they want to base their approach on. We are ready for both,” he said.
Araghchi described the June fighting with Israel as a success for the Islamic Republic, saying the other party failed to reach its objectives.
Tehran, he said, rebuilt its defenses rapidly. “On the first day of the war Iran prepared itself for defense within hours,” he added.
Israeli media in June reported that Israeli forces struck 1,480 military targets inside Iran over the 12 days and flew 1,500 sorties in Iranian airspace. Israel, the reports said, dropped about 3,500 munitions nationwide, with Tehran the main focus of the attacks. Thirty senior Revolutionary Guards commanders were killed, Iranian outlets said.
Iran’s military capability, Araghchi maintained, has since been restored and added that the country’s nuclear program survived the strikes.
US President Donald Trump has insisted repeatedly that American airstrikes wiped out Iran’s nuclear capacity.
Requests to reopen talks with Tehran, according to Araghchi, have resumed because military pressure failed to halt Iran’s nuclear work. “They did not achieve what they wanted through military action,” he said.
He also said last week that from Tehran’s perspective there is currently no possibility of talks with Washington, blaming what he called the absence of constructive intent from the United States.
‘Armed negotiations’
In separate remarks on the sidelines of the event on Sunday, Deputy Foreign Minister Saeed Khatibzadeh said that any direct engagement with Washington would be conducted under armed conditions because Iran does not trust the United States.
“It would certainly be an armed negotiation because we are ready to confront any deception,” Khatibzadeh added.
“The Islamic Republic has always been ready – and has expressed its readiness – to act under those circumstances within the framework set by the Supreme Leader’s directives.”
Washington has been sending mixed messages through third countries about reviving nuclear negotiations, Khatibzadeh said on Tuesday.
However, Ali Larijani, the secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, said Tehran has not sent any new message to the United States.
Before the June war, Tehran and Washington held five rounds of nuclear talks.
Trump said on Friday that Iran now wants to negotiate a deal after the US strikes on its nuclear sites in June, arguing that renewed US military strength had changed Tehran’s stance.
“Iran is a different place” after the June strikes, Trump said aboard his plane en route to Florida. “Iran wants to negotiate a deal, too. Everybody wants to negotiate with us now.” This shift, he said, would not have happened “if we didn’t have military strength, if we didn’t rebuild our military in my first term.”
The US president earlier told Central Asian leaders that Iran had asked the White House whether sanctions could be lifted.
Iran has rejected the US demand for a full halt to uranium enrichment.
Prosecutors said the suspect, Shimon Azarzar, a resident of Kiryat Yam, sent photos and coordinates of strategic sites to Iranian operatives over the course of a year.
According to investigators, he also used his girlfriend – a reservist serving on an Israeli Air Force base – to obtain additional details on facilities and operations.
The indictment, filed at the Haifa District Court, includes espionage-related offenses such as unauthorized contact with a foreign agent and offering classified material. Authorities said Azarzar received digital payments for his activity.
In a joint statement, the Shin Bet and police warned Israelis against responding to online solicitations from foreign entities. “Security bodies will continue to identify and thwart terror and espionage activity in Israel, and will work to bring all those involved to justice,” they said.
Investigators said Azarzar had offered to pass information from inside military bases and attempted to leverage knowledge obtained through his girlfriend, who has not been charged.
The case follows the recent arrest of another Israeli man on similar suspicions. During a search of his home, authorities allegedly found digital files and 18 SIM cards used to communicate with a foreign agent.
According to the Shin Bet, that individual had been tasked by an Iranian handler with photographing several public locations in the Tel Aviv area – including the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Ganei Avraham Park in Bavli, and the site of a missile strike in Ramat Gan. He allegedly received thousands of shekels in cryptocurrency.
The indictments come amid what Israeli officials describe as an increase in Tehran-linked espionage efforts, often conducted through social media recruitment.
Last week, prosecutors charged a hotel worker from Tiberias with spying for Iran, in a separate case reported by local media.
Israel and Iran, longtime regional adversaries, have stepped up counter-intelligence measures following the 12-day war in June, when both sides exchanged direct strikes.
Pollution levels in 14 cities across Khuzestan had reached the red category, meaning the air is unsafe for all groups, Iran’s national air-quality monitoring system reported on Saturday. Four other cities were listed as orange, posing risks to vulnerable populations.
Concentrations of airborne particles smaller than 2.5 microns, according to the report, had exceeded permissible limits at many monitoring stations, pushing much of the province into hazardous territory.
Rising hospital visits and wider spread
Khuzestan has faced repeated episodes of severe pollution in recent days. Farhad Soltani, acting deputy for treatment at Ahvaz Jundishapur University of Medical Sciences, said hospital visits had risen sharply.
“The number of patients coming to hospitals increased 15 to 20 percent in October compared with the same period last year, and 20 to 25 percent in November,” he said, warning that pollution in Ahvaz and Khuzestan had reached a point where “the entire population is affected.”
Air quality has also deteriorated in other major cities. Iranian media reported that the air in the religious city of Mashhad was classified as unhealthy for sensitive groups for an eighth consecutive day on Saturday. The situation was driven by continued use of fossil fuels in industry, power plants and vehicles, combined with stagnant atmospheric conditions, Tasnim news agency wrote.
Isfahan choked for eleventh straight day
In central Iran, air quality in Isfahan remained in the red category for the eleventh consecutive day on Saturday, according to local monitoring data.
Pollution levels in the metropolis and some of its neighboring cities have risen to the point that the air is now deemed unsafe for the general population. Experts warned that conditions could deteriorate further in the coming days, citing the persistence of stagnant weather patterns and rising pollutant concentrations.
58,975 people in Iran had died from causes attributed to air pollution in the past Iranian year, equivalent to 161 deaths a day and around seven every hour, said Deputy Health Minister Alireza Raisi last week. Pollution-linked mortality, he added, had imposed an estimated $17.2 billion in economic losses over the same period.
