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    Israel Struck Air Defenses Around Critical Iranian Energy Sites, Officials Say

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    Israel’s attacks on Iran early Saturday destroyed air-defense systems set up to protect several critical oil and petrochemical refineries, as well as systems guarding a large gas field and a major port in southern Iran, according to three Iranian officials and three senior Israeli defense officials.The sites targeted by Israel, according to the officials, included defenses at the sprawling Bandar Imam Khomeini petrochemical complex, in Khuzestan Province; at the major economic port Bandar Imam Khomeini, adjacent to it; and at the Abadan oil refinery. Air-defense systems were also struck in Ilam Province, at the refinery for the gas field, called Tange Bijar, said the officials, one of them with Iran’s oil ministry.The Iranian and Israeli officials familiar with the attacks spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence.Israel’s destruction of the air-defense systems has raised deep alarm in Iran, the three Iranian officials said, as critical energy and economic hubs are now vulnerable to future attacks if the cycle of retaliation between Iran and Israel continues.“Israel is sending a clear message to us,” said Hamid Hosseini, an expert on Iran’s oil and gas industry and a member of the Iran-Iraq Chamber of Commerce. “This can have very serious economic consequences for Iran, and now that we understand the stakes we need to act wise and not continue the tensions.”Iran’s military announced that four soldiers working with air defenses were killed in Israel’s attacks. The Iranian media said the casualty numbers would probably increase.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Iran Sentences Prominent Rapper to Death, Lawyer Says

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      The rapper, Toomaj Salehi, was initially arrested after releasing music in support of the 2022 protests over the death of a young woman in police custody.A dissident rapper has been sentenced to death in Iran after releasing music in support of antigovernment demonstrations that rocked the country in 2022, according to his lawyer, in a case that has prompted global condemnation.The rapper, Toomaj Salehi, 33, was one of the most prominent voices among those arrested over nationwide protests against Iran’s clerical rulers after the death in police custody of Mahsa Amini, 22. Human rights organizations have been calling for Mr. Salehi’s release, saying that he has been tortured in prison and warning that he could face execution.Amir Raesian, Mr. Salehi’s lawyer, told the Iranian reformist newspaper Shargh in an article published on Wednesday that a court in the central city of Isfahan had sentenced Mr. Salehi to death and that his client planned to appeal.The office of the U.S. Special Envoy for Iran condemned the sentence, calling it another example of “the regime’s brutal abuse of its own citizens, disregard for human rights, and fear of the democratic change the Iranian people seek.”Mr. Salehi was initially arrested in October 2022 for releasing music criticizing the government and backing the demonstrations ignited by the death of Ms. Amini in the custody of Iran’s morality police. He also posted videos on his Instagram account encouraging his followers to protest.The Iranian authorities charged him that November with “spreading corruption on earth,” an offense that can carry the death penalty. U.N. experts said the court proceedings were held behind closed doors without Mr. Salehi’s lawyer present and expressed alarm about reports the artist had been tortured, citing reports of his broken nose and several broken fingers.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Israel Strikes an Iranian Military Base, but Damage Appears Limited

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      The drone attack may have been launched from inside Iran, once again demonstrating Israel’s ability to carry out clandestine operations there.The Israeli military struck Iran early on Friday in retaliation for an aerial attack on Israel last weekend, according to two Israeli and three Iranian officials, but the strike appeared to be limited in scope and the reaction from both Israel and Iran was muted.Iranian officials said that the strike had hit a military air base near the city of Isfahan, in central Iran, and that it had been carried out by small drones. They said the drones might have been launched from inside Iran, whose radar systems had not detected unidentified aircraft entering Iranian airspace.If the drones were launched within the country, it would demonstrate once again Israel’s ability to mount clandestine operations in Iranian territory. Iranian officials said that a separate group of small drones was shot down in the region of Tabriz, roughly 500 miles north of Isfahan.Israeli warplanes also fired missiles during the retaliatory strike, a Western official and two Iranian officials said. It was not immediately clear whether Iran’s defenses intercepted the missiles or where they landed.The Israeli military declined to comment. A senior U.S. official said that Israel had notified the United States through multiple channels shortly before the attack. All the officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.Addressing reporters at a meeting of foreign ministers from the Group of 7 nations in Italy, Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said the United States had “not been involved in any offensive operations” in Iran. But he declined to comment further and would not even confirm the Israeli strike, referring instead to “reported events.” More

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      Israel’s Strike on Iran: A Limited Attack but a Potentially Big Signal

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      Israel hit a strategic city with carefully measured force, but made the point that it could strike at a center of Iran’s nuclear program.For more than a decade, Israel has rehearsed, time and again, bombing and missile campaigns that would take out Iran’s nuclear production capability, much of it based around the city of Isfahan and the Natanz nuclear enrichment complex 75 miles to the north.That is not what Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s war cabinet chose to do in the predawn hours of Friday, and in interviews, analysts and nuclear experts said the decision was telling.So was the silence that followed. Israel said almost nothing about the limited strike, which appeared to do little damage in Iran. U.S. officials noted that the Iranian decision to downplay the explosions in Isfahan — and the suggestions by Iranian officials that Israel may not have been responsible — was a clear effort by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps to avoid another round of escalation.Inside the White House, officials asked the Pentagon, State Department and intelligence agencies to stay quiet about the operation, hoping to ease Iran’s efforts to calm the tensions in the region.But in interviews, officials quickly added they worried that relations between Israel and Iran were now in a very different place than they had been just a week ago. The taboo against direct strikes on each other’s territory was now gone. If there is another round — a conflict over Iran’s nuclear advances, or another strike by Israel on Iranian military officers — both sides might feel more free to launch directly at the other.Mr. Netanyahu was under competing pressures: President Biden was urging him to “take the win” after a largely ineffective aerial barrage launched by Iran last week, while hard-liners in Israel were urging him to strike back hard to re-establish deterrence after the first direct effort to strike Israel from Iranian territory in the 45 years since the Iranian revolution.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Many Iranians Boycott Elections, Despite Pleas and Roses

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      Ordinary Iranians, fed up with a faltering economy and the government’s oppressive rules and violent crackdowns on peaceful protests, heeded calls to stay home.Iran held parliamentary elections on Friday, but despite officials’ last-minute attempts to increase voter turnout with pleas on social media and roses at polling stations, many people stayed away from the ballot in an act of protest against the government, according to witnesses, interviews and news reports.In the capital, Tehran, the turnout was estimated at 11 percent, the hard-line parliamentary candidate Ali Akbar Raefipour said in a post on social media, and across the country, turnout was around 40 percent, according to IRNA, the official Iranian news agency — even with polls extending their opening hours to 10 p.m. from 8 p.m.The current speaker of the Parliament, Gen. Mohammad Ghalibaf, a commander of the Revolutionary Guards Corps who is running for re-election on the conservative ticket, took to the social media platform X on Friday to plead with people to call at least 10 others and urge them to vote.“It’s not just winning the elections that matters, increasing participation is also a priority,” General Ghalibaf said in his post.For many ordinary Iranians fed up with a faltering economy — and with the government’s oppressive rules and violent crackdowns on peaceful protests — their demands for change extend far beyond what is offered by the existing political parties, with their reformist and conservative factions.Ahead of the vote, calls for a widespread boycott of the election had gained steam, with prominent activists and dissidents encouraging Iranians to turn the occasion into a protest against the government. The jailed Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi said in a statement that boycotting the vote was a “moral duty.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More