The Latest Breaking News from Ayatollah Ali Khamenei

A cleric at a Shi'ite Muslim mosque in the restive, mostly Sunni Muslim Iranian city of Zahedan has been shot dead, the official news agency IRNA said, threatening a spike in sectarian tensions complicating government efforts to contain widespread unrest.

Videos on social media showing Iranian security forces severely beating protesters have gone viral as anger grows at a widening crackdown with arrests of prominent figures from rappers to economists and lawyers aimed at ending seven weeks of unrest.

Iran’s supreme leader and its president have tried to link the nationwide protests roiling the country to an Islamic State-claimed gun attack on a famous mosque that killed 15 people

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called on Iranians on Thursday to unite after an attack claimed by Islamic State on a shrine that killed 15 people, saying those behind it "will surely be punished", state television reported.

A prominent Sunni cleric who directed unprecedented criticism at Iran's supreme leader over a bloody crackdown in his hometown appeared unbowed this week by warnings from security forces, pressing his demands for more rights for his minority and voicing support for other groups in country-wide unrest.

The militant group Islamic State said it carried out an attack on a Shi'ite Muslim shrine in Iran on Wednesday which killed 15 people, escalating tensions in a country reeling from a wave of protests and prompting warnings of a response from Tehran.

By tightening curbs on women's rights, President Ebrahim Raisi has boosted his hardline credentials and possibly his prospects of becoming Iran's Supreme Leader, even at the cost of provoking mass protests and driving a wedge between many Iranians and the ruling elite, three analysts and a pro-reform official said.

'Death to [fill in the blank]!" has been the slogan of choice chanted by Iranian protesters since the glory days of the Islamic Revolution in 1979. ("Death to the Shah!", "Death to America!", etc) It's now forty-three years later, however, and the content has become a bit more nuanced.

Tens of thousands of people marched in Berlin on Saturday in a show of support for protesters in Iran where unrest ignited by Mahsa Amini's death in police custody entered a sixth week despite a deadly state crackdown.