live Iran Says It Rejects 'Unrealistic' US Peace Plan

The Baha'i International Community says that Peyvan Naimi, a young Baha'i believer imprisoned in Kerman, a city in southern Iran, is facing "death threats" after enduring "two mock executions."

According to the group, which represents members of the worldwide Baha'i faith, the man has been subjected to "torture" and "interrogation" for a "long period of time," and the Iranian authorities are "trying to force him to confess to a crime he did not commit."

Naimi was arrested on January 8 on charges of "inciting" the protests that spread throughout the country -- a charge that the Baha'i International Community has called "false."

According to the group, after being arrested, Naimi was transferred to a "detention center under the supervision of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps" in Kerman, which is "notorious for torture and mistreatment of prisoners."

Naimi was transferred to a prison in Kerman after the broadcast of his "forced confession" on Iranian state TV, the group said, and, "to this day, no trial has been held for him, no verdict has been issued, and no evidence has been presented to justify the false accusations against him."

The Iranian authorities have persecuted the Baha'i community-- the country’s largest non-Muslim religious minority -- for decades through arbitrary arrests, long prison sentences, bans from higher education and public-sector jobs, property confiscations, and other forms of discrimination.

Naimi has reportedly been accused of participating in the "death" of three paramilitary Basij officers during the January protests, "even though he was in detention at the time of the alleged attack." He was also "falsely accused of celebrating the death of Ali Khamenei, the former leader of the Islamic Republic, news of which he was unaware as a prisoner without access to communications."

According to the Baha'i International Community, Naimi's family says the young man was “subjected to constant and severe torture and interrogation and deprived of food and water for 10 days last week. His hands and feet were tied for 48 hours, tied to a wall, and repeatedly beaten."

Human rights groups have repeatedly documented Iran's use of torture, interrogation, and mock executions to extract false confessions.

Iran's national police command says 466 people have been arrested in recent days on charges of "online activities aimed at undermining national security."

A police report published on March 24 claimed that the arrested individuals were in contact with "enemy" networks and intended to create internal instability. Iranian state media have reported the arrests of more than 1,000 people on similar charges over the past month.

Meanwhile, in a statement, the Intelligence Ministry said it had identified and arrested 30 people in the provinces of Hamedan, Lorestan, and Kerman, claiming that these individuals were active in networks affiliated with the United States and Israel. The ministry said that some of the detainees "played a role in collecting and sending information from military and security centers."

Due to the Internet shutdown and the widespread disruption of communication channels, the only source of such news for the vast majority of Iranians is state-run media.

Iran has named a former commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) and senior figure in ‌the hard-line political faction to replace the head of the Supreme National Security Council, Ali Larijani, who was killed in US-Israeli air strikes last week.

Mohammad Baqer Zolqadr was appointed as Larijani's successor, according to Mehdi Tabatabaei, deputy of communications for the Iranian president's office.

Zolqadr is a former senior commander of the IRGC and is considered one of the original members of the group.

The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) claimed that Israel had crossed "red lines in genocide" of Lebanese and Palestinian civilians and said if this trend continues it will target the "gathering places" of Israeli forces in the north of the country and the Gaza Strip with missile and drone attacks.

This threat was issued by the IRGC after the Israeli Army announced on March 23 that two missiles fired from Iran toward Israel had landed in southern Lebanon.

The IRGC did not provide further details about the reason for the warning in its statement.

Since the start of the current war with Iran and the subsequent attacks on Israel by Hezbollah, which is deemed a terrorist organization by the United States, Israel has launched a large-scale simultaneous operation against the group in southern Lebanon.

In the latest developments, Lebanese officials said two people were killed and five others were wounded in an Israeli air strike on an area outside Beirut. The attack came after several overnight attacks on Beirut's southern suburbs.

The official Lebanese news agency reported continued Israeli attacks on various areas in the south and northeast of the country, as well as the entry of Israeli forces into a border town and clashes with residents.

Hezbollah has also announced attacks on Israeli forces in southern Lebanon and targets in northern Israel. The fighting, now in its fourth week, has killed more than 1,000 and caused widespread displacement in Lebanon.

Internet giant Amazon announced a disruption at one of its cloud services data centers in Bahrain, saying it was caused by a drone attack.

A company spokesperson confirmed the disruption to Reuters on March 24 but did not provide further details about the extent of the potential damage or how long the disruption would last.

Amazon says it is helping relocate customers to alternative locations.

Amazon's cloud services are crucial to the operation of many websites and government online services. Bahrain has been trying to become an IT hub in the Gulf by investing heavily in Amazon data centers and creating a "cloud zone."

This is the second time since the start of the US-Israeli war with Iran that Bahraini data centers have been targeted by drones. Earlier in the war, it was reported that Bahraini and UAE data centers were affected by power outages and were working to recover.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) said on March 24 that Iranian forces “appear to have deliberately targeted at least two civilian commercial ships in and around the Strait of Hormuz…which would amount to war crimes.”

The organization reported that it investigated recent incidents involving civilian vessels in the region and concluded that the ships were commercial in nature and carried civilian crews.

HRW said the attacks on merchant shipping were documented as part of its broader monitoring of maritime incidents in the Strait of Hormuz. It cited evidence such as maritime tracking data and publicly available information related to damaged vessels.

Citing international humanitarian law, HRW emphasized that deliberate attacks on civilian objects are prohibited and may constitute war crimes.

HRW also warned that such attacks and threats to commercial shipping could have wider global consequences, stating that they “may also contribute to significant global cost increases in energy, food, and other critical sectors,” harming people’s rights.

Kuwait said on March 24 that its air-defense systems were responding to "missile and drone attacks" and that reported sounds of explosions were caused by intercepting these threats. The military urged citizens to follow the authorities' instructions.

The country's Electricity Ministry also announced that seven power transmission lines had been knocked out of service following the fall of the interceptors.

Elsewhere, Saudi Arabia said on March 24 that its air-defense systems had intercepted and destroyed a total of 19 drones targeting the country's Eastern Province in separate attacks over a two-hour period.

Britain has announced that it will deploy short-range air-defense systems to the region to counter the wave of Iranian attacks on Persian Gulf countries.

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer said the equipment would be sent to Bahrain, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia. The Rapid Sentry anti-drone system will also be transferred to Kuwait, and a British warship has been deployed to the eastern Mediterranean.

According to AFP, British officials say the country's military presence in the region has reached its highest level in 15 years and operational flights have increased in support of several countries in the region.

A source in the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), an umbrella organization of mostly pro-Iranian militias that has nominally been a part of the Iraqi Army since 2016, announced on March 24 that seven of the group's forces were killed and 13 others were wounded following an air strike in western Iraq.

The source said the attack targeted a PMF base in Anbar Province and attributed it to the United States, according to AFP.

The PMF confirmed in a statement that Saad Dawai Al-Baiji, the group's operations commander in Iraq's Anbar Province, was killed "along with a group of his comrades as a result of a US air strike."

Targeting a Syrian Base

Meanwhile the Syrian Army said on March 23 that one of its bases in the northeast of the country had been targeted by a missile attack from Iraqi territory, while an Iraqi official said a local armed group was behind the attack.

"An Iraqi group fired seven Arash-4 rockets, an improved version of the Grad rocket, at a base in the Hasakah region," the Iraqi official, who asked not to be named, told AFP.

The Iranian Foreign Ministry has denied firing a missile toward the joint US-British military base on the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia, calling it "the latest lie by the Israelis."

Eyal Zamir, the Israeli Army chief of staff, has said that Iran used "a two-stage intercontinental ballistic missile with a range of 4,000 kilometers" to target the base.

NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte later said the alliance "cannot confirm" that Israel's claim that the missiles fired at Diego Garcia were Iranian intercontinental ballistic missiles.

Ministry spokesman Ismail Baqai wrote in a message on the X social network on March 24, reposting Mark Rutte's words, that Israel's claims are "false flag storytelling."

On March 21, there were reports of Iran firing two intermediate-range ballistic missiles at the Diego Garcia base, although the missiles were said to have missed their target.

The island of Diego Garcia is about 3,800 kilometers from Iran and has a joint air base between the United Kingdom and the United States, capable of hosting long-range American bombers.

A loud explosion was heard in the sky over Jerusalem on the morning of March 24 after the Israeli Army announced it had detected another missile launch from Iran.

AFP reporters in the city reported that a loud explosion was heard minutes after the army announced it had detected missiles fired from Iran and was "trying to intercept the threat."

The Israeli Army announced that Iran had once again fired missiles toward the country and that defense systems were intercepting them.

According to AFP, the Israeli military said the missile attack targeted northern areas.

The Magen David Adom relief organization announced that it has not received any reports of casualties so far but rescue workers have been dispatched to the area where the impact was reported.

About 20 minutes after the attack was announced, the Israeli Home Front Command allowed citizens to leave the shelters.