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Hindustan Times
5 days ago
- Politics
- Hindustan Times
Beware Iran's New Ruling Elite
All wars have consequences, particularly for the vanquished. For the Islamic Republic of Iran, the 12-Day War—its recent conflict with Israel and the U.S.—hasn't been a soul-scorching, society-rending fight in the way of the Iran-Iraq War. From 1980-88, hundreds of thousands perished and battlefield trauma nearly cracked the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the theocracy's indispensable pillar. But that conflict did offer an opportunity for Iran: The struggle led the regime to build institutions that guaranteed the revolution's survival. The 12-Day War, by contrast, has weakened the heads of those institutions substantially and looks likely to launch a new generation of leaders. That's bad news for Israel and America. Today, the regime is defined ideologically by its fight against Israel and the U.S. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and his minions have tried to claim victory over the Jewish state in the 12-Day War. But whatever they say in public, the overwhelming sentiment among them is surely not pride but shame. The loss has greatly diminished the supreme leader's stature. And the consequences of defeat will catapult little-known, hard-core believers—the Revolutionary Guard officers who proved themselves against the Syrian rebellion a decade ago—into the weakened ruling elite. The headline for Israel and America: These men won't compromise on the regime's nuclear-weapon ambitions. And that's about all we know of them. During the Islamic Revolution in 1978-79, neither Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini nor many of his senior adjutants were enigmas to those who had studied Iran. They told us their goals and motivations. As those revolutionaries aged, they compiled their speeches, wrote books or allowed others to chronicle their intellectual evolution. The new crew on the cusp of power today is comparatively illiterate. These men have a thin paper trail because they see little reason to explain themselves to their countrymen or to the outside world. They are drawn from militant groups such as the Paydari Front and the second tier of the Revolutionary Guards. They look to guidance from the likes of the religiously obsessional Saeed Jalili, a former nuclear negotiator who abjures compromise. They are found in the security organs, occupy seats in parliament and run their own education centers. They have created their own underground shadow government and ideological ecosystem. The supreme leader's weakened position has left these men an opening. If Mr. Khamenei had crossed the nuclear threshold and tested a weapon—as voices within the Revolutionary Guards advised him to do months ago—Iran would probably have foreclosed the possibility of foreign attacks. Now the 86-year-old cleric has to worry about dangerous discontent among battle-hardened soldiers. No matter how much the regime tries to play on Iranian nationalism, it's unlikely to recapture the citizenry, who no longer see theocrats and their enforcers as estimable expressions of their national identity or faith. To crush the countrywide Women, Life, Freedom movement in 2023—the most recent of many undermining protests—the regime beat, tortured, poisoned and killed young women and girls. Such brutality permanently severs the bonds between society and state. Even Israeli and American bombing runs won't restore them. Indeed, the rising generation of the Revolutionary Guards have defined themselves by their willingness to brutalize their countrymen repeatedly. And these guardsmen have had two other core commitments: the A-bomb program and the proxy war strategy devised by their fallen hero, Qassem Soleimani, the Revolutionary Guard dark lord whom an American missile felled in Baghdad in 2020. Israel's onslaught against these proxies since Oct. 7, 2023, has badly battered, perhaps permanently crippled, Soleimani's proxy-based 'axis of resistance' against the Jewish state and the U.S. But the nuclear-weapon ambitions remain viable. Moving forward, the Islamic Republic is unlikely to construct large enrichment plants such as Natanz or rely on mountains to protect its atomic assets. U.S. and Israeli satellite and aerial reconnaissance is too good, and construction times for new underground facilities are too long. Numerous, easily concealed surface facilities are now a better bet—so long as the regime can neutralize foreign spies in Iran. The mullahs have already launched a nationwide dragnet to cleanse their government of spies. These vicious counterintelligence measures will paralyze nuclear construction for a time, but eventually could enable a clandestine nuclear program that neither Jerusalem nor Washington can stop. The Iranians and Israelis are in a deadly intelligence duel. During the Cold War, Western and Soviet intelligence services continuously went at each other, but destiny seldom hung in the balance. The doctrine of mutually assured destruction provided some comfort and maneuvering room. Israelis are less certain that the threat of mutual annihilation works with the Islamic Republic's zealots. Are there enough Iranians in the right places who will risk their lives and the lives of their loved ones to stop the mullahs and the Revolutionary Guards from obtaining the ultimate weapon? Even if Israel has developed a technical capacity to penetrate Iranian official communications, it's still the most pressing question before the Mossad. A second question also looms: Can Jerusalem learn enough about the new, fiercely anti-Zionist members of the Iranian elite to frustrate or compromise them? Learning where they live, though obviously important, will be the easy part. Mr. Gerecht, a former Iranian-targets officer in the Central Intelligence Agency, is a resident scholar at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Mr. Takeyh is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.
Free Malaysia Today
15-07-2025
- Politics
- Free Malaysia Today
Alive but weakened, Iran's Khamenei faces new challenges
Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei allegedly spent the war in a bunker for fear of being tracked and assassinated. (EPA Images pic) PARIS : Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has re-emerged after the war with Israel but faces a struggle to maintain the authority he has wielded over the Islamic republic in over three-and-a-half decades of rule, analysts say. After days of silence, Khamenei appeared on Thursday in a video address to proclaim 'victory' and prove he is still alive following the 12-day conflict with Israel which ended with a truce earlier this week. But Khamenei, appointed Iran's number one and spiritual leader for life in 1989, spoke softly and hoarsely in the address, without the charismatic oratory for which he is known. Whereas his regular interventions before the war usually took place in public in front of an audience, this message was filmed against a plain backdrop of curtains and a picture of revolutionary founder Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. This may indicate he could still be in hiding after Israel refused to rule out seeking to assassinate him. On Thursday, Israel's defence minister Israel Katz told media that the military would have killed Khamenei during the war if the opportunity had presented itself. 'If he had been in our sights, we would have taken him out,' Katz told Israel's public radio station Kan, adding that the military had 'searched a lot'. But in the end, the conflict did not trigger the removal of the system that has ruled Iran since the 1979 revolution. Still, it enabled Israel to demonstrate military superiority and deep intelligence penetration of Iran by killing key members of Khamenei's inner circle in targeted strikes. The war was also the latest in a series of setbacks over the last year for Khamenei. These include the downgrading of pro-Tehran militant groups Hamas and Hezbollah in conflicts with Israel and the fall of Iran's ally in Syria Bashar al-Assad, against the background of economic crisis and energy shortages at home. 'At this time, the regime does not seem to be on the verge of falling but it is certainly more vulnerable than it has been since the early years after the revolution,' said Thomas Juneau, professor at the University of Ottawa. 'The authority of the supreme leader has therefore certainly been undermined,' Juneau told AFP. 'Even though his position remains secure, in that there is unlikely to be a direct challenge to his rule for now, he has lost credibility and bears direct responsibility for the Islamic republic's major losses.' Khamenei is 86 and suffers the effects of a 1981 assassination attempt in Tehran which paralysed his right arm, a disability he has never made any attempt to hide. But discussion of succession has remained taboo in Iran, even if Western analysts have long eyed his son Mojtaba as a possible – but far from inevitable – contender. Arash Azizi, visiting fellow at Boston University, said Khamenei looked 'frail and weak' in his televised message in 'a far cry from the grand orator we know'. 'It's clear that he is a diminished figure, no longer authoritative and a shadow of his former self,' he said. 'Power in Tehran is already passing to different institutions and factions and the battle for his succession will only intensify in the coming period.' Khamenei has come through crises before, using the state's levers of repression, most recently during the 2022-2023 protests sparked by the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, an Iranian Kurd detained for allegedly breaching Iran's strict dress code for women. Rights activists say hundreds of people have been arrested in a new crackdown in the wake of the conflict. The New York Times and Iran International, a Persian-language television channel based outside Iran that is critical of the authorities, have said Khamenei spent the war in a bunker avoiding use of digital communication for fear of being tracked and assassinated. Iran International reported that Khamenei was not even involved in the discussions that led to the truce which were handled by the national security council and president Masoud Pezeshkian. There has been no confirmation of this claim. Jason Brodsky, policy director at the US-based United Against Nuclear Iran, said Khamenei appeared 'frail and hoarse' and also 'detached from reality' in insisting that Iran's nuclear programme did not suffer significant damage. 'Nevertheless, I remain sceptical of the theories that Khamenei has been sidelined,' he told AFP. 'I have no doubt the war will prompt a debate within the Islamic Republic's political elite as to how best to rebuild the system's capabilities, but in the end, the buck has always stopped with Khamenei,' he said.
Morocco World
11-07-2025
- Politics
- Morocco World
US Congress Publishes Full Bill Detailing Case to Designate Polisario as Terrorist Group
Rabat – The US Congress has officially published the full text introduced by Republican Congressman Joe Wilson, presenting a detailed case for designating the Polisario Front as a foreign terrorist organization. The bill covers multiple arguments to convince the US Congress to designate the Polisario Front as a terrorist group, highlighting its collusion with Iranian proxy Hezbollah as well as its involvement in violent attacks against Moroccan forces, as well as its role in destabilizing the Maghreb and Sahel regions. It is named the 'Polisario Front Terrorist Designation Act,' stressing the separatist group's documented history and operational ties with Iran. Documented history of operational ties with Iran 'The Polisario Front has a documented history of ideological and operational ties with Iran, a state sponsor of terrorism, dating back at least to 1980, when Polisario fighters publicly posted with portraits of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in a bid to attract revolutionary credibility and Iranian patronage,' reads the congressional bill. It cites reports highlighting Hezbollah's collusion with Polisario, a reality whose uncovering prompted the severance of ties between Iran and Morocco in 2018. Morocco announced that year its decision to freeze diplomatic relations after it received evidence about the collusion, accusing Tehran of providing Polisario military and logistical support. While both Iran and Algeria denied the collusion, Morocco's Minister of Foreign Affairs, Nasser Bourita, and UN Permanent Representative Omar Hilale emphasized that Morocco had received indications and satellite proof of training and equipment provision links between Tehran and the separatist group. Hilale said in 2022 that Iran had 'gone from training to equipping the Polisario with drones.' The bill highlights this collusion, suggesting that Iran's support for the separatist group has reportedly advanced from training to the provision of lethal hardware. Images disseminated via Polisario-controlled social media channels attest to the separatist group's access to Iranian-type munitions, it adds. The congressional bill also pointed to the Washington Post's recent report, shedding light on Iranian support for the Polisario Front. 'The Washington Post reported in April 2025 that Iran has trained Polisario Front fighters and provided them with unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), deepening concerns about the group's growing capabilities and external sponsorship,' says the bill. In its report, the Washington Post quoted sources who confirmed that Hezbollah was training the separatist group to advance its interests in the Sahel. 'Over the years, Iran has fostered a wide array of proxy groups to advance its interests,' the report said, noting that a regional official and a third European official had indicated that Iran had been training fighters from the Algeria-based separatist group that are now detained by Syria's new security forces. International appeal Like Wilson, many international officials have joined the growing chorus of voices urging their countries to label the separatist group as a terrorist group, given its involvement in destabilizing the region's security, particularly the Sahel. In June, Spanish news outlet La Provincia published an opinion piece recalling the separatist group's attacks against workers from Fos Bucraa, fishermen from the Canary Islands, and civilians from the Basque Country. The author of the piece, Igacio Ortiz, emphasized that the call to designate Polisario as a terrorist group should not be a mere political theater: 'On the contrary, it should be a moral imperative.' In addition, former UK Secretary of State for Defense, Liam Fox, made the same appeal. 'Like Hamas and Hezbollah, the Polisario Front is an Iranian proxy organization,' Fox said. 'For the sake of our Moroccan allies, Western governments must move quickly to designate this group as a terrorist organisation.' Tags: Algeria and polisarioalgeria and the polisario front
Atlantic
10-07-2025
- Politics
- Atlantic
The Precarious Position of Iranian Jews
Last month, as she took her usual morning walk on Santa Monica Beach, near her home in Los Angeles, Nazila received an unusual text message. It was ominously brief: 'We're okay. Don't call! Don't text!' Since June 12, when Israel started bombing Iran, Nazila—an Iranian Jewish expatriate who asked me to withhold her last name for fear of regime retaliation against her relatives in Iran—had been anxious about the welfare of her family members. The text came from Nazila's sister, who, along with her husband and children, is among the roughly 9,000 Jews who still live in Iran. After the escalation of hostilities with Israel, and the wave of arrests that Iran has conducted throughout the country, several dozen Jews were detained, according to human-rights agency sources. Authorities have interrogated them, scoured their social-media and messaging-app activity, and warned them to avoid contact with any Israeli citizen or relatives abroad. Some of these Jewish Iranians have reportedly now been released—but some, also reportedly, remain in custody. My emphasis on reportedly is because a climate of fear inside the country makes full information difficult to obtain. Publicity is the last thing Iran's Jews need: Their entire survival strategy has been to lead the most inconspicuous lives possible—and news of detentions is more attention than the community wants. This persistent sense of threat has been a grinding reality for Iran's Jewry since 1979, when a revolution led to the establishment of an authoritarian Islamic Republic under Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. That new regime's anti-Western stance put it on a path to conflict with the United States and Israel, and created their long-standing suspicion that Iran's nuclear program was not purely civilian, as Tehran claimed, but also involved clandestine efforts to develop weapons. That 46-year conflict came to a head this past June. The fact that Israel and, subsequently, the U.S. have taken military action inside Iran, including—in Israel's case—the targeted assassinations of regime scientists and military leaders, has raised the stakes in ways that make the position of Iranian Jews much more precarious than before the start of the war. The arrests of Jewish Iranians following the bombing raids seem to be part of the embattled rulers' paranoia about spies and enemies within, given clear evidence of foreign-intelligence penetration at the highest levels. The regime's more rational elements may eventually prevail and reduce tensions. Right now, the rhetoric is menacing: The new revolutionary anthem, which originated from devotees of Iran's supreme leader and was prominently featured on state television last week, calls for 'uprooting' not Zionists or Israelis, but Jews. Under Iran's last monarch, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the country's Jewish community numbered as many as 100,000, with roots in Iran that predate the advent of Islam by more than a millennium. When popular protests swept the country in 1979, leading to the shah's overthrow, some Jews fled before the mullahs consolidated power. The departures increased after a revolutionary tribunal ordered the execution of a prominent Jewish industrialist and philanthropist, Habib Elghanian, on charges that included espionage for Israel. By introducing the manufacture of plastic goods, Elghanian had transformed the country's industrial capacity and paved the way for its economic modernization. That the Islamic Republic would kill such a man sent shockwaves through the Jewish community. Although no law or official policy banned Jews from leaving Iran, the government was disinclined to issue them passports. Many Jews, my father included, were denied passports without explanation. So to escape, they resorted to hiring smugglers to help them cross on foot into Turkey or Pakistan. The uncertainty that permeated the Jewish community in the months after Elghanian's execution held a sense of terror. No one knew whether he was an exception or his fate would be widely shared. They feared that the regime's anti-Zionist posture was not reserved for solely the Jewish state and could mutate into a hostility toward Jews in general. That anxiety was allayed by the informal accord between Khomeini and Iran's Jewish leaders after a 1979 meeting in Qom, the religious city where he had resided before moving to Tehran. After much circumlocution, the ayatollah ended the meeting by saying, 'We separate the affairs of our own Jews from those of the godless Zionists in Israel.' Within days of his statement, it had become a talisman painted on the walls of Jewish schools and synagogues. Khomeini's distinction has guided Tehran's position on the country's Jewish community ever since—until now. Furthermore, Iran's new constitution recognized Jews as a 'people of the book' and allowed them to practice their religion, which meant they could have synagogues, Hebrew schools, and social institutions. This ostensible status of protected minority did give the community a measure of safety in postrevolutionary Iran. This accounts for the fact that—unlike other Jewish communities in the Middle East and in North Africa, which were virtually eradicated after the establishment of Israel in 1948—several thousand Jews still call Iran home. But the quasi freedom of these protections did not mean that Jews could thrive socially and economically; they lead much diminished lives today than previous generations did in the heyday of prerevolutionary Iran, during the 1960s and '70s. The Islamic Penal Code does not treat non-Muslims—or women, for that matter—as equal citizens before the law. And because the country's official forms require applicants to state their religious affiliation, Jews and non-Shiite minorities, including Sunni Muslims, have been effectively excluded from careers in academia, the government, or the military. In other words, Iran has never had laws that discriminated specifically against Jews, but it does have laws that discriminate in favor of Shiite Iranians, especially regime supporters. Jews have remained in Iran partly because the mullahs wanted them to. As the regime matured and grew more confident in its power, it recognized the political value of retaining a Jewish community. By the 2000s, with the rise of a new cadre of clerics into the ranks of leadership, the existence of Jewish Iranians inside the country became an important symbol, especially in contrast with the absence of Jewish life in other Muslim countries in the region. In 2003, the reform-minded Mohammad Khatami became the republic's first president to visit a synagogue. This new revolutionary generation boasted of the Jewish presence in Iran as evidence of its Islamic tolerance. It liked to showcase Iran's Jewry to Western governments, which is why the sole Jewish representative from the Iranian Parliament, the Majles, has on several occasions been included in Iran's delegation to the annual United Nations General Assembly. Iran's Jews became the regime's principal defense against accusations of anti-Semitism—even as some leadersnotoriously questioned the veracity of the Holocaust. After all, how could the republic be anti-Jewish if Jews felt safe enough to live there? Jewish survival within the world's most overtly anti-Zionist nation-state reveals how keenly aware Tehran is of what sways global public opinion. But it also says a great deal about how indiscriminate brutality toward dissidents and minorities creates a common bond among all those who are not regime supporters. If Jews suffer at the hands of unjust, authoritarian rulers, they also know that their experience is shared by many, many non-Jewish Iranians. This nuance is lost on most Western observers. Like with other paradoxes of post-1979 Iran—such as the existence of perhaps the world's most dynamic feminist movement, in a country where gender inequality is ruthlessly policed state policy—Iran's Jews are indeed second-class citizens, but of a regime that makes second-class citizenship the norm for all except its loyalists. The suffering that Jews experience is common to so many others that its universality has created a measure of equality in the face of misery. Listen: What does Khamenei do now? This status quo was shaken by the deadly October 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel, which led to the war in Gaza and a wider confrontation between Israel and Iran's regional ally in Lebanon, Hezbollah. Tehran's customary anti-Zionist theatrics were swapped for actual drones and missiles fired at Israel the following April, in response to Israel's attack on Iran's consulate in Damascus; in turn, Israel retaliated by taking down Iran's air-defense systems. Amid these heightened tensions, the grinding reality that had defined Jewish life in Iran for more than four decades took on a new, more menacing urgency. In an attempt to extend the old order by invoking Khomeini's original formulation of Jewish–Iranian relations, Iran's chief rabbi, Yehuda Gerami, issued a statement condemning Israel's attack as 'cruel, aggressive, and inhumane' and lamenting 'the martyrdom of a number of our dear countrymen at the hands of the Zionist regime' (my own translation). He tried to dispel suspicions of Jewish disloyalty and proclaimed solidarity with fellow Iranians: 'Iranian Jews, as a part of the great nation of Iran, condemn these attacks and stand by their countrymen.' The events of the past month have cast a perilous shadow over Iran's Jewry, reawakening the fear that had followed Habib Elghanian's execution and an urgency about the need to leave Iran. The chances of doing so, however, have greatly diminished since January of this year, when President Donald Trump ended nearly all refugee admissions into the United States by executive order. Some 14,000 members of persecuted minorities in Iran— among them more than 700 Jews —had registered with HIAS, originally known as the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, a major refugee-resettlement organization that has facilitated the passage of thousands of Jews and other minorities into the United States; none of these applicants for refugee status have been able to leave Iran. Mark Hetfield, HIAS's president, hopes that the Trump administration might yet make an exception. 'Given their increasing vulnerability, and President Trump's expressed commitment to religious freedom,' he told me in a recent interview, 'we pray that he would expand their escape route.' The signs in Iran are ominous—and the pleas from Iranian Jewish elders may now go unheard. The community's old talisman may no longer hold its charm. An overlooked victim of the 12-day military operation against Iran is Iranian civil society, especially its minorities, particularly Jewish Iranians, who were already at risk. Since the war, their conditions have infinitely worsened—a fact that should lead the Trump administration to reconsider its refugee ban. The United States took on a moral responsibility for Iran's persecuted citizens when it became a combatant against their oppressive regime.
The Wire
04-07-2025
- Politics
- The Wire
J&K Police Crack Down on Pro-Palestine, Pro-Hezbollah Support in Muharram Rallies
Tension broke out on the sixth day of Muharram on June 2 when a J&K police team removed a poster of Hezbollah co-founder Hassan Nasrallah and former Iran supreme leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini that was put up near a bridge over Nigeen Lake in Ashai Bagh locality of Srinagar. New Delhi: Earlier this week, a police team removed a poster of Hezbollah co-founder Hassan Nasrallah and former Iran supreme leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini from a Muharram rally in Jammu and Kashmir's capital city of Srinagar, in a move that is still inviting outrage. Prominent Shia leader and member of Lok Sabha from Srinagar, Aga Ruhullah, alleged that Shia mourners had been stopped from raising banners in favour of Palestine. Ruhullah urged the J&K police 'not to follow the BJP and RSS policy'. The RSS or the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh is the ideological fountainhead of the ruling Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) which has been facing accusations of turning India's traditional foreign policy on the issue of Palestine on its head. 'Our police don't work for Israel and they should behave themselves,' Ruhullah said. 'Supporting Palestinian people and the establishment of a state of Palestine is embedded in our foreign policy. Police should stop acting like extended hands and agents of Zionist regime and instead serve our national policy?' he said. 'Increasingly intolerant' towards Palestine support For the third year in a row, the Shia mourners in Kashmir were allowed to observe the traditional religious rituals during the first 10 days of Muharram to commemorate the Battle of Karbala in 680 AD in which Prophet Mohammad's grandson Hussain Ibn Ali was killed along with his dozens of family members and followers. Muharram processions had been banned in Srinagar and elsewhere in Kashmir in the aftermath of the eruption of armed insurgency in the early nineties but authorities lifted the ban in 2023. Two major processions are carried out by the Shias on 8th and 10th day of Muharram in Srinagar. Abid Hussain, a resident of Srinagar, told The Wire over phone that authorities have 'turned increasingly intolerant' in recent years towards the show of support by people of Kashmir for the cause of the Palestinian people. Shia mourners in Srinagar carrying a Palestinian flag with a poster of Iran's founder Ali Khomeini and Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in the background. Photo: By arrangement. On June 24, the J&K Police removed graffiti resembling the flag of Israel on a road in Srinagar. It was allegedly done by three local minors, whose parents were summoned to the local police station. The suspects were 'counselled' in their presence before being let off. 'It was a routine to extend solidarity with the besieged people of Palestine during the Muharram processions. But in recent years we are not even allowed to unfurl the Palestinian flags. This policy goes against the spirit of Muharram that commemorates the victory of the oppressor over the oppressed,' Hussain said. Protests Tension broke out on the sixth day of Muharram on Wednesday (June 2) when a J&K police team removed a poster of Khomeini and Nasrallah that was put up near a bridge over Nigeen Lake in Ashai Bagh locality of Srinagar. A video of the incident shows three to four police officials in black uniforms atop a public, bus removing the poster of the duo from a banner stretched across the bridge bearing the words 'Death with dignity is better than a life of humiliation'. The police action angered the local residents of Ashai Bagh, a predominantly Shia locality, who later staged a protest. A day later on Thursday (June 3), police tried to remove more posters of Nasrallah from another Muharram rally in Magam area of central Kashmir's Budgam district, leading to a massive protest during which the sub-divisional police officer Mohammad Ashrif Lissery and the station house officer (SHO) of Magam were allegedly roughed up. After the police action, the Muharram procession, which was attended by several hundreds of Shia mourners, boiled down to a massive pro-Palestine and pro-Nasrallah demonstration. Witnesses said that during the melee, the sub-divisional police officer and the SHO were manhandled and it was only after the intervention of some local elders that the two officials were able to make their way out of the mob. A group of Shia mourners carrying a Palestinian flag in Srinagar. Photo: Special arrangement. It was not immediately known whether a police case has been filed in connection with the incident. The Wire tried contacting senior superintendent of police (Budgam) Nikhil Borkar for more details but he did not respond to texts and phone calls. This story would be updated if and when a response is received. To prevent a flareup of the situation amid the ongoing Muharram commemorations, the Srinagar police on Thursday warned netizens to 'immediately delete … and refrain from sharing or uploading… malicious content related to the removal of a particular flag', claiming that it has 'potential to disturb public order and harmony'. 'All social media account holders are hereby strictly advised to immediately delete such content and refrain from sharing or uploading any similar material in the future. Failure to comply will attract strict legal action under applicable laws. We urge everyone to act responsibly and uphold peace in the community,' the advisory noted. Muharram, also known as the 'month of mourning' among the Shias, is being observed in Kashmir against the backdrop of the recent military conflict between Iran and Israel, and the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Meanwhile, a major Muharram procession was taken out today (July 4, the eighth day of Muharram) in Srinagar city in which thousands of mourners wearing black overalls were seen weeping and beating their chest to commemorate the martyrs of Karbala. Special director general of police S.J.M. Gillani and divisional commissioner Kashmir Vijay Kumar Bidhuri among other senior officers were seen serving water and juice to the mourners. The Wire is now on WhatsApp. Follow our channel for sharp analysis and opinions on the latest developments.
