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For the first time, Iran’s has developed a hypersonic robot, according to unconfirmed information from the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.
In the country, the protests and strikes of recent weeks continue.
“This robot will be able to penetrate all anti-missile defense systems,” General Amir Ali Hajizadeh, commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Air Force, told the pro-regime Fars news agency on Thursday.
Hypersonic robots move at very high speeds and can maneuver in the air, making them more difficult to track and stop than other robots.
Protests continue
However, no photographic evidence supporting General Hajizadeh’s claim has been presented, nor is it known whether a hypersonic robot is part of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard’s missile program.
The statement comes as workers in several Iranian cities have gone on strike to mark the 40th anniversary of what has come to be known as “Zahedan’s Bloody Friday”. Then security forces opened fire on protesters in Zahedan in southeastern Iran, killing at least 80 people – but the death toll could be higher.
In footage leaked from the country, despite the Iranian regime’s attempts to restrict access to the internet, protesters can be seen chanting slogans in the capital Tehran as well as in other cities. It is not yet known whether any people were injured during the recent protests.
Iran warns Saudi Arabia
On Wednesday, Iranian Intelligence Minister Esmaeil Khatib also warned the country’s neighboring countries, including Saudi Arabia, that any attempt to destabilize Iran will have consequences.
“For Iran, any instability in the countries of the region is contagious – just as instability in Iran can infect the countries of the region,” Khatib said, as quoted on Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s website.
Iran has previously accused the United States and Saudi Arabia, among others, of being behind the wave of protests that has raged in the country since Masha Amini’s death in September.
Facts
The protests in Iran
The biggest wave of protests to shake Iran in years started with the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Zhina Amini.
Amini, a Kurdish woman from northwest Iran, was arrested by morality police in Tehran on September 13 for allegedly not wearing her headscarf properly.
Amini was taken to hospital after collapsing and suffering what police say was a heart attack – something disputed by the 22-year-old’s family, who claim she suffered blunt force trauma to the head. On September 16, Amini died in hospital after being in a coma.
At Amini’s funeral in her hometown, spontaneous protests erupted, which then developed into a demonstration where women took off their headscarves and chanted slogans. The protests quickly spread across the country, to most of Iran’s 31 provinces. On many occasions, the demonstrations have been put down with brutal violence from the regime’s security forces.
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