US bomb designed to hit targets like Iran underground nuclear sites briefly reappears amid tensions

In this photo released by the U.S. Air Force on May 2, 2023, airmen look at a GBU-57, or the Massive Ordnance Penetrator bomb, at Whiteman Air Base in Missouri. That U.S. bomb, designed to destroy underground sites at the height of concerns a decade ago over Iran's nuclear program, has briefly reappeared amid new tensions with the Islamic Republic. (U.S. Air Force via AP)

BY JON GAMBRELL

DUBAI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES (AP) — As tensions with Iran have escalated over its nuclear program, the U.S. military this month posted pictures of a powerful bomb designed to penetrate deep into the earth and destroy underground facilities that could be used to enrich uranium.

The U.S. Air Force on May 2 released rare images of the weapon, the GBU-57, known as the “Massive Ordnance Penetrator.” Then it took the photos down — apparently because the photographs revealed sensitive details about the weapon’s composition and punch.

The publication of the photographs comes as The Associated Press reported that Iran is making steady progress in constructing a nuclear facility that is likely beyond the range of the GBU-57, which is considered the U.S. military last-ditch weapon to take out underground bunkers.
WHAT DO WE KNOW ABOUT AMERICA’S MASSIVE ORDNANCE PENETRATOR?

The U.S. developed the Massive Ordnance Penetrator in the 2000s as concerns grew over Iran hardening its nuclear sites by building them underground.


The Air Force posted images of the bombs on the Facebook page for Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri. The base is home to the fleet of B-2 stealth bombers, the only aircraft that can deploy the bomb.

In a caption, the base said it had received two Massive Ordnance Penetrator bombs so a munitions squadron there could “test their performance.”

It is not the first time the Air Force has published photos and videos of the bomb that coincided with rising acrimony with Tehran over its nuclear program. In 2019, the U.S. military released a video of a B-2 bomber dropping two of the bombs. The Air Force did not respond to requests for comment on why it posted — and removed — the most recent set of photos.
WHAT DID WE LEARN FROM THE PHOTOS?

The latest photos revealed stenciling on the bombs that listed their weight as 12,300 kilograms (27,125 pounds). It also described the bomb as carrying a mix of AFX-757 — a standard explosive — and PBXN-114, a relatively new explosive compound, said Rahul Udoshi, a senior weapons analyst at Janes, an open-source intelligence firm.

The weight of the bomb, judging from the stenciling, shows the majority of it comes from its thick steel frame, which allows it to chew through concrete and soil before exploding. However, it remains unclear what the exact effectiveness of the weapon would be.

The Warzone, an Internet news site, first reported on the publication of the photographs. The AP contacted Whiteman Air Force Base and the Air Force’s Global Strike Command with questions about the images. Within a day, the Facebook post vanished.

Udoshi said the Air Force likely took them down because they revealed too much data about the bombs. “Immediate removal from the internet without comment (or) justification means there is a potential lapse,” Udoshi said.
WHAT ROLE WOULD THIS BOMB PLAY IN POTENTIALLY TARGETING IRAN’S NUCLEAR PROGRAM?

The AP reported on Monday that satellite imagery from Planet Labs PBC reveals Tehran has been digging tunnels in the mountain near the Natanz nuclear site in central Iran. Excavation mounds at the site suggest the facility could be between 80 meters (260 feet) and 100 meters (328 feet) under the ground, according to the experts and AP’s analysis.

Experts say the size of the construction project indicates Iran likely would be able to use the underground facility to enrich uranium as well — not just to build centrifuges. Those tube-shaped centrifuges, arranged in large cascades of dozens of machines, rapidly spin uranium gas to enrich it. Additional machines would allow Iran to quickly enrich uranium under the mountain’s protection.

That could be a problem for the GBU-57: In previously describing the bomb’s capabilities, the Air Force has said it could tear through 60 meters (200 feet) of ground and cement before detonating.
COULD THE UNITED STATES STILL TRY TO DROP THE BOMB?

U.S. officials have discussed using two such bombs in succession to ensure a site is destroyed. But even then, the new depth of the Natanz tunnels likely presents a serious challenge.

Further complicating any possible U.S. military strike is that the B-2 has been grounded since December when one caught fire after an emergency landing. The U.S. still could fly the aircraft “if there’s an operational need,” said Col. Brus E. Vidal, a spokesperson for the Air Force’s Global Strike Command.

Follow Jon Gambrell on Twitter at www.twitter.com/jongambrellAP.

The Associated Press receives support for nuclear security coverage from the Carnegie Corporation of New York and Outrider Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Ukraine Claws Back More Territory Russia Is Trying To Absorb

Ukrainian soldiers remove metal structure pieces as they work on a bridge damaged during fighting with Russian troops in Izium, Ukraine, Monday, Oct. 3, 2022. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)

BY JON GAMBRELL

KYIV, UKRAINE (AP) — Ukrainian forces scored more gains in their counteroffensive across at least two fronts Monday, advancing in the very areas that Russia is trying to absorb and challenging Moscow’s effort to engage fresh troops and its threats to defend incorporated areas by all means.

In their latest breakthrough, Ukrainian forces penetrated Moscow’s defenses in the strategic southern Kherson region, one of the four areas in Ukraine that Russia is in the process of annexing.

Kyiv’s troops also consolidated gains in the east and other major battlefields, re-establishing Ukrainian control just as Russian President Vladimir Putin is trying to overcome problems with manpower, weapons, troop morale and logistics, along with intensifying domestic and international criticism. Putin faces disarray and anger domestically about his partial troop mobilization and confusion about the establishment of new Russian borders.

Ukraine’s advances have become so apparent that even Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov, who usually focuses on his military’s successes and the enemy’s losses, was forced to acknowledge it.

“With numerically superior tank units in the direction of Zolota Balka and Oleksandrivka, the enemy managed to forge deep into our defenses,” Konashenkov said Monday, referring to two towns in the Kherson region. He coupled that with claims that Russian forces inflicted heavy losses on Ukraine’s military.

Ukrainian forces have struggled to retake the Kherson region due to its open terrain, in contrast to their successful breakout offensive in the northeast around the country’s second-largest city of Kharkiv that began last month.

Ukraine has pressed its counteroffensive in the Kherson region since the summer, relentlessly pummeling Russian supply lines and making inroads into Russian-held areas west of the Dnieper River. The Ukrainian military has used U.S.-supplied HIMARS multiple rocket launchers to repeatedly hit the main bridge across the Dnieper and a dam that served as a second crossing. It also has struck pontoon bridges that Russia has used to supply its troops.

As the front lines shifted, the political theater in Moscow continued, with Russia’s lower house of parliament rubber-stamping annexation treaties for Ukraine’s Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk and Luhansk regions to join Russia. The upper house will follow suit Tuesday. This follows annexation “referendums” that the Kremlin orchestrated last week that the U.N. chief and Western nations have said were illegal and fraudulent.

Russia’s moves to incorporate the Ukrainian regions, as well as Putin’s effort to mobilize more troops, have been done so hastily that government officials have struggled to explain and implement them. On Monday, the issue was basic: Exactly what areas of Ukraine is Russia trying to incorporate?

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Donetsk and Luhansk are joining Russia with the same administrative borders that existed before a conflict erupted there in 2014 between pro-Russian separatists and Ukrainian forces. But he added that the borders Zaporizhzhia and Kherson are still undecided.

“We will continue to discuss that with residents of those regions,” Peskov said.

A senior Russian lawmaker offered a different view. Pavel Krasheninnikov said Zaporizhzhia will be absorbed within its “administrative borders,” meaning Moscow plans to incorporate parts of the region still under Kyiv’s control. He said similar logic will apply to Kherson, but that Russia will include two districts of the neighboring Mykolaiv region that are now occupied by Russia.

In addition to the Kherson areas that Russia’s Defense Ministry cited, other sources showed Ukrainian flags, soldiers deployed or other signs that Kyiv’s forces had retaken the villages of Arkhanhelske, Myroliubivka, Khreshchenivka, Mykhalivka and Novovorontsovka. There was no immediate confirmation from Kyiv on the gains.

The situation in the regional capital, also called Kherson, was so precarious that Russian authorities are restricting people from leaving, Ukraine’s presidential office said.

A Russian-installed official in the Kherson region, Kirill Stremousov, acknowledged that the Ukrainian forces “have broken through a little deeper” but insisted that “everything is under control” and that Russia’s “defense system is working.”

Still, Russia claimed some success at pushing back. The Moscow-appointed chief of the Kherson region, Vladimir Saldo, said Ukrainian troops tried to advance toward Dudchany along the Dnieper’s western bank, seeking to reach a key dam at Nova Kakhovka, but that Russian warplanes destroyed two Ukrainian battalions and halted the offensive. Saldo also said Russian forces fended off Ukraine’s attempted inroads into the Kherson region from Mykolaiv and Kryvyi Rih.

Neither Saldo’s nor Stremousov’s claims could be independently verified.

Ukraine reported advances in other areas Russia is annexing. The Ukrainian governor of the Luhansk region, Serhiy Haidai, said Kyiv’s forces retook the village of Torske, 20 kilometers (12 miles) from the city of Kreminna. Ukrainian military analyst Oleh Zhdanov said the area is “key for controlling the entire Luhansk region, because further beyond (the city) the Russians don’t have any more lines of defenses.”

“Retaking this city opens up operational space for Ukrainians to rapidly advance to the very state border with Russia,” Zhdanov told The Associated Press.

He said Russian troops had retreated from the Kharkiv region. Ukraine’s army reportedly liberated most of Borova in the Kharkiv region across the Oskil River, 50 kilometers (31 miles) north of the city of Lyman. Officials posted a video while driving along recaptured streets, waving the Ukrainian flag.

“Finally, you are home. Finally, it’s Ukraine. Glory to Ukraine!” an onlooker yelled.

Elsewhere in the Kharkiv region, a doctor was killed and nurse wounded in a Russian missile attack on a hospital in Kupiansk that caused major damage, Gov. Oleh Syniehubov reported. Last week, at least 24 civilians were killed in an attack on a convoy trying to flee Kupiansk.

Ukraine also has retaken Lyman, a strategic eastern city that the Russians had used as a key logistics and transport hub. Lyman is in the Donetsk region near the border with Luhansk.

Ukraine’s push to recapture territory has embarrassed the Kremlin and prompted rare domestic criticism of Putin’s war. Tens of thousands of Russian men have fled Russia since the Sept. 21 call-up. Many flew to Turkey, one of the few countries maintaining air links with Russia. Others have left in cars, creating long traffic jams at the Russian borders with Georgia, Kazakhstan and Finland.

The International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog, said Monday that director general of the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant — Europe’s largest — had been released from Russian custody. Russian forces had blindfolded and detained Ihor Murashov on Friday for questioning.

Yuras Karmanau contributed from Tallinn, Estonia

Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at

https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

For Russia’s Putin, Military And Diplomatic Pressures Mount

A woman speaks on a mobile phone while standing on the street in Kyiv, Ukraine, Saturday, Sept. 17, 2022. (AP Photo/Jon Gambrell)

BY JON GAMBRELL

KYIV, UKRAINE (AP) — Pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin mounted on the battlefield and in the halls of global power as Ukrainian troops pushed their counteroffensive Saturday to advance farther into Ukraine’s partly recaptured northeast.

At a high-level summit in Uzbekistan, Putin vowed to press his attack on Ukraine despite recent military setbacks but also faced concerns by India and China over the drawn-out conflict.

“I know that today’s era is not of war,” Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi told the Russian leader in televised comments as they met Friday in Uzbekistan. “We discussed this with you on the phone several times, that democracy and dialogue touch the entire world.”

At the same summit a day earlier, Putin acknowledged China’s unspecified “questions and concerns” about the war in Ukraine while thanking Chinese President Xi Jinping for his government’s “balanced position” on the conflict.

The hurried retreat of Russian troops this month from parts of a northeast region they occupied early in the war, together with the rare public reservations expressed by key allies, underscored the challenges that Putin faces on all fronts. Both China and India have maintained strong ties with Russia and had sought to remain neutral on Ukraine.

Xi, in a statement, expressed support for Russia’s “core interests” but also wanted to work together to “inject stability” into world affairs. Modi said he wanted to discuss “how we can move forward on the path of peace,” adding that the biggest concerns facing the world are the problems of food security, fuel security and fertilizers.

“We must find some way out and you too must contribute to that,” Modi stressed in a rare public rebuke.

The comments cast a shadow over a summit that Putin had hoped would burnish his diplomatic status and show he was not so internationally isolated.

On the battlefield, Western defense officials and analysts said Saturday that Russian forces were apparently setting up a new defensive line in Ukraine’s northeast after Kyiv’s troops broke through the previous one.

The British Defense Ministry said the new front line likely is between the Oskil River and Svatove, 150 kilometers (90 miles) southeast of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city.

The new line emerged after the Ukrainian counteroffensive punched a hole through the war’s previous front line, allowing Kyiv’s soldiers to recapture large swaths of land in the northeastern Kharkiv region that borders Russia.

After the Russian troops retreated from the city of Izium, Ukrainian authorities discovered a mass grave site, one of the largest so far discovered. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says more than 440 graves have been found at the site but that the number of victims is not yet known.

Zelenskyy said the graves contained the bodies of hundreds of civilian adults and children, as well as soldiers, and some had been tortured, shot or killed by artillery shelling. He cited evidence of atrocities, such as a body with a rope around its neck and broken arms.

Ukrainian forces, in the meantime, are crossing the Oskil River in the Kharkiv region and have place artillery there, the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War said Saturday. The river, which flows south from Russia into Ukraine, had been a natural break in the newly emerged front lines since Ukraine launched its counteroffensive about a week ago.

“Russian forces are likely too weak to prevent further Ukrainian advances along the entire Oskil River,” the institute said.

Videos circulating online Saturday indicated that Ukrainian forces were continuing to retake land from Russian forces in the country’s embattled east, although their veracity could not be independently verified.

One video showed a Ukrainian soldier walking past a damaged building then pointing at a colleague hanging the blue-and-yellow Ukrainian flag over a mobile phone tower. The soldier identified the seized village as Dibrova, just northeast of the city of Sloviansk in Ukraine’s Donetsk region.

Another video showed two Ukrainian soldiers in what appeared to be a bell tower, with one saying they had retaken the village of Shchurove, just northeast of Sloviansk.

The Ukrainian military and the Russians did not comment on the two villages.

Elsewhere in Ukraine, Russian forces kept pounding cities and villages with deadly missile strikes and shelling.

A Russian missile attack early Saturday started a fire in Kharkiv’s industrial area, said Oleh Syniehubov, the regional governor. Firefighters extinguished the blaze.

Syniehubov said remnants suggested the Russians fired S-300 surface-to-air missiles at the city. The S-300 is designed for striking missiles or aircraft in the sky, not targets on the ground. Analysts say Russia’s use of the missiles suggest they may be running out of some precision munitions.

Shelling of the nearby city of Chuhuiv later Saturday killed an 11-year-old girl, Syniehubov reported.

In the southern Zaporizhzhia region, a large part of which is occupied by the Russians, one person was wounded after the Russian forces shelled the city of Orikhiv, the region’s Ukrainian governor Oleksandr Starukh reported on Telegram. He said Russian troops also shelled two villages in the region, destroying several civilian facilities.

Explosions were also reported Saturday in Russian-occupied parts of Zaporizhzhia. Russian-installed official Vladimir Rogov said on Telegram that at least five blasts were heard in the city of Melitopol. The city’s Ukrainian mayor, Ivan Fedorov, said the explosions took place in a village south of the city, where the Russian troops had relocated some military equipment.

Ukraine’s central Dnipropetrovsk region also came under Russian fire overnight, according to its governor, Valentyn Reznichenko. “The enemy attacked six times and launched more than 90 deadly projectiles on peaceful cities and villages,” he said.

Meanwhile, Ukraine’s atomic energy operator, Energoatom, said a convoy of 25 trucks has brought diesel fuel and other critical supplies to the endangered Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant — Europe’s largest, which was shut down a week ago amid fears that nearby fighting could result in a radiation disaster.

The trucks were allowed through Russian checkpoints on Friday to deliver spare parts for repairs of damaged power lines, chemicals for the operation of the plant and additional fuel for backup diesel generators, Energoatom said.

The six-reactor plant was captured by Russian forces in March but is operated by Ukrainian engineers. Its last reactor was switched off Sunday after repeated power failures due to shelling put crucial safety systems at risk.

The International Atomic Energy Agency reported Saturday that one of the nuclear plant’s four main external power lines had been repaired.

The Russian military on Saturday accused Ukraine of renewed artillery shelling of the power plant. Ukrainian authorities did not immediately address the claim.

In Russia, one person was killed and two others wounded Saturday by shelling, according to Vyacheslav Gladkov, governor of the Russian border region of Belgorod, who blamed the Ukrainians. The claim could not be verified.

Karl Ritter in Kyiv contributed to this report.

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As Gas Prices Soar, Biden Leans Toward Visiting Saudi Arabia

In this photo released by Saudi Royal Palace, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, speaks during the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Summit in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Tuesday, Dec. 14, 2021. Strategic U.S. interests in oil and security are pushing President Joe Biden toward meeting with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman during an overseas trip later this month. (Bandar Aljaloud/Saudi Royal Palace via AP, File)

BY AAMER MADHANI AND ELLEN KNICKMEYER

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden is leaning towards making a visit to Saudi Arabia — a trip that would likely bring him face-to-face with the Saudi crown prince he once shunned as a killer.

The White House is weighing a visit to Saudi Arabia that would also include a meeting of the leaders of the Gulf Cooperation Council countries (Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates) as well as Egypt, Iraq and Jordan, according to a person familiar with White House planning. The person spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the yet-to-be finalized plans.

It comes at a moment when overriding U.S. strategic interests in oil and security have pushed the administration to rethink the arms-length stance that Biden pledged to take with the Saudis as a candidate for the White House.

Any meeting between Biden and de facto Saudi ruler Prince Mohammed bin Salman during a Biden visit to the Middle East could offer hope of some relief for U.S. gasoline consumers, who are wincing as a squeaky-tight global oil supply drives up prices. Biden would be expected to meet with Prince Mohammed, who is often referred to by his initials, MBS — if the Saudi visit happens, according to the person familiar with the deliberations.

Such a meeting could also ease one of the most fraught and uncertain periods in a partnership between Saudi Arabia, the world’s top oil exporter, and the United States, the world’s top economic and military power, that has stood for more than three-quarters of a century.

But it also risks a public humbling for the U.S. leader, who in 2019 pledged to make a “pariah” of the Saudi royal family over the 2018 killing and dismemberment of U.S.-based journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a newspaper critic of many of the brutal ways that Prince Mohammed operates.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre on Wednesday declined to comment on whether Biden will travel to Saudi Arabia. Biden is expected to travel to Europe at the end of June. He could tack on a stop in Saudi Arabia to meet with Prince Mohammed, Saudi King Salman and other leaders. The president would also likely visit Israel should he extend his upcoming travels to include Saudi Arabia.

Last week, the White House confirmed that NSC Middle East coordinator Brett McGurk and Amos Hochstein, a senior adviser for energy security at the State Department, were recently in the region. Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke by phone Monday with his Saudi counterpart.

McGurk and Hochstein, as well as Tim Lenderking, the U.S. special envoy for Yemen, have repeatedly visited Saudi Arabia for talks with Saudi officials about energy supplies, Biden administration efforts to revive the Iran nuclear deal and Saudi’s war in Yemen, recently calmed by a cease-fire.

For Biden, the political dangers of offering his hand to Prince Mohammed include the potential for an embarrassing last-minute public rebuff from a still-offended crown prince known for imperious, harsh actions. Since Prince Mohammed became crown prince in 2017, that has included detaining his own royal uncles and cousins as well as Saudi rights advocates, and, according to the U.S. intelligence community, directing Khashoggi’s killing. Saudi Arabia denies involvement by the crown prince.

Still, Biden stood ready to greet the prince at last October’s G20 summit in Rome, but Prince Mohammed did not attend.

And any Biden climbdown from his passionate human-rights pledge — Saudi rulers would “pay the price” for Khashoggi’s killing, Biden vowed on the debate stage during his campaign — risks more disillusionment for Democratic voters. They have watched Biden struggle to accomplish his domestic agenda in the face of a strong GOP minority in the Senate.

Democrats appear less vocal now in demands that the U.S. take a hard line with Saudi Arabia’s crown prince. Near-record gas prices are endangering their prospects in the November midterm election.

A leading congressional critic of the Saudi government, Rep. Gerald Connolly of Virginia, said in an email the United States “should reassess its unconditional support for Saudi Arabia.” But he and other Democrats are not publicly telling Biden he shouldn’t meet with Prince Mohammed.

Lawmakers point especially to Saudi Arabia’s refusal despite months of Western appeals to veer from an oil production cap brokered largely between the Saudi kingdom and oil-producer Russia. The production cap is adding to oil supply shortfalls stemming from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

At the same time, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and French President Emmanuel Macron have privately urged Biden to work to soothe U.S.-Saudi relations as has Israel, which sees the kingdom as an essential player in countering Iran.

Besides helping to keep gas prices high for consumers globally, the tight supply helps Russia get better prices for the oil and gas it is selling to fund its invasion of Ukraine. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov visited the Saudi kingdom Tuesday, even as talk of a possible Biden-Prince Mohammed meeting grew in Washington.

Frequent, warm visits among Saudi, Russian and Chinese officials during the freeze between Biden and the Saudi crown prince have heightened Western concern that Saudi Arabia is breaking from Western strategic interests.

The United States for decades has ensured U.S. or allied aircraft carriers, troops and trainers and missile batteries remain deployed in defense of Saudi Arabia and its oil fields, and in defense of other Gulf states. The military commitment recognizes that a stable global oil market and a Gulf counterbalance to Iran are in U.S. strategic interests.

From Saudi Arabia, the United States is looking “for real assurances that it is going to be firmly aligned with the United States internationally, and not drift toward or hedge by trying to have comparable relationships with Russia and China. That goes beyond just oil,” said Dan Shapiro, a former U.S. ambassador to Israel. Shapiro is an advocate of bilateral Abraham accords that have helped establish closer ties between some Arab states and Israel.

“The United States needs to have some assurance that it’s going to provide those security guarantees and it has a real partner that’s going to be like a partner,” said Shapiro, now a distinguished fellow at the Atlantic Council.

Officials in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, for their part, often see Biden as the latest of several U.S. presidents to neglect the U.S. military’s longstanding protector role in the Gulf, as Washington tries to extricate itself from Middle East conflicts to focus on China.

Those Gulf security worries may be eased by the U.S. move last year bringing control of its forces in Israel under U.S. Central Command. That effectively increases interaction between Israel’s U.S.-equipped military and Arab forces under the U.S. military umbrella, Shapiro said.

Deputy Saudi Defense Minister Khalid bin Salman visited CENTCOM headquarters in Florida last month. Regional coordination was one of the main topics, including, Shapiro said, the possibility of such steps as coordinating the Middle East’s air defense capabilities.

Blinken and White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan also met last month with the Saudi defense official. Sullivan said he talked energy. CIA Director William Burns visited Prince Mohammed in Saudi Arabia in April.

Biden administration officials bristle at the notion that a stepped-up engagement is simply about getting the Saudis to help ease gas prices. Jean-Pierre said last week after McGurk and Hochstein’s most recent travels to the region that the idea that the White House is asking the Saudis to pump more oil “is simply wrong” and “a misunderstanding of both the complexity of that issue, as well as our multifaceted discussions with the Saudis.”

“The president’s words still stand,” she added Wednesday, of Biden’s pledge that the Saudis would “pay a price.”

Jon Gambrell in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, contributed to this report.

In Iran, False Belief A Poison Fights Virus Kills Hundreds

In this Monday, March 2, 2020 file photo, a man wearing a face mask, to help protect against the new coronavirus, speaks on his cellphone in downtown Tehran, Iran. Local media reported Thursday, March 26, 2020, that nearly 300 people have been killed and more than 1,000 sickened by ingesting toxic methanol across the Islamic Republic out of the false belief it kills the new coronavirus. That's as messages forwarded through social media on people surviving the virus by drinking whiskey and using alcohol-based hand sanitizer somehow saw people seek out bootleg liquor in Iran. (AP Photo Vahid Salemi, File)

BY NASSER KARIMI, JON GAMBRELL

TEHRAN, IRAN (AP) — Standing over the still body of an intubated 5-year-old boy wearing nothing but a plastic diaper, an Iranian health care worker in a hazmat suit and mask begged the public for just one thing: Stop drinking industrial alcohol over fears about the new coronavirus.

The boy, now blind after his parents gave him toxic methanol in the mistaken belief it protects against the virus, is just one of hundreds of victims of an epidemic inside the pandemic now gripping Iran.

Iranian media report nearly 300 people have been killed and more than 1,000 sickened so far by ingesting methanol across the Islamic Republic, where drinking alcohol is banned and where those who do rely on bootleggers. An Iranian doctor helping the country’s Health Ministry told The Associated Press on Friday the problem was even greater, giving a death toll of around 480 with 2,850 people sickened.

The poisonings come as fake remedies spread across social media in Iran, where people remain deeply suspicious of the government after it downplayed the crisis for days before it overwhelmed the country.

“Other countries have only one problem, which is the new coronavirus pandemic. But we are fighting on two fronts here,” said Dr. Hossein Hassanian, an adviser to Iran’s Health Ministry who gave the higher figures to the AP. “We have to both cure the people with alcohol poisoning and also fight the coronavirus.”

For most people, the new coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough that clear up in two to three weeks. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia, or death.

The pandemic has swept across the world, overwhelming hospitals, crippling economies and forcing governments to restrict the movements of billions of people. Particularly hard hit has been Iran, home to 80 million people.

As of now, there is no known cure for COVID-19, the illness caused by the virus. Scientists and doctors continue to study the virus and search for effective medicines and a vaccine.

But in messages forwarded and forwarded again, Iranian social media accounts in Farsi falsely suggested a British school teacher and others cured themselves of the coronavirus with whiskey and honey, based on a tabloid story from early February. Mixed with messages about the use of alcohol-based hand sanitizers, some wrongly believed drinking high-proof alcohol would kill the virus in their bodies.

The Islamic Republic has reported over 29,000 confirmed cases and more than 2,200 deaths from the virus, the highest toll of any country in the Middle East. International experts also fear Iran may be under-reporting its cases, as officials for days played down the virus ahead of a parliamentary election.

That fear of the virus, coupled with poor education and internet rumors, saw dozens sickened by drinking bootleg alcohol containing methanol in Iran’s southwestern Khuzestan province and its southern city of Shiraz. Videos aired by Iranian media showed patients with IVs stuck in their arms, laying on beds otherwise needed for the fight against the coronavirus, including the intubated 5-year-old boy. Iranian media also reported cases in the cities of Karaj and Yazd.

In Iran, the government mandates that manufacturers of toxic methanol add an artificial color to their products so the public can tell it apart from ethanol, the kind of alcohol that can be used in cleaning wounds. Ethanol is also the kind of alcohol found in alcoholic beverages, though its production is illegal in Iran.

Some bootleggers in Iran use methanol, adding a splash of bleach to mask the added color before selling it as drinkable. Sometimes it is mixed with consumable alcohol to stretch supply, other times it comes as methanol, falsely advertised as drinkable, Hovda said. Methanol also can contaminate traditionally fermented alcohol.

Methanol cannot be smelled or tasted in drinks. It causes delayed organ and brain damage. Symptoms include chest pain, nausea, hyperventilation, blindness and even coma.

Hassanian said his figures included reports from coroner’s offices around Iran also counting those who died outside of hospitals from the poisonings.

“Unfortunately in some provinces, including Khuzestan and Fars, deaths from drinking methanol has exceeded the number of deaths from the new coronavirus,” he said.

Dr. Knut Erik Hovda, a clinical toxicologist in Oslo, said to expect more methanol poisoning victims.

“The virus is spreading and people are just dying off, and I think they are even less aware of the fact that there are other dangers around,” Hovda said. “When they keep drinking this, there’s going to be more people poisoned.”

Even before the outbreak, methanol poisoning had taken a toll in Iran. One academic study found methanol poisoning sickened 768 people in Iran between September and October 2018 alone, killing 76.

Other Muslim nations that ban their citizens from drinking also see such methanol poisoning, although Iran appears to be the only one in the pandemic so far to turn toward it as a fake cure. In Buddhist Cambodia, police said they seized 4,200 liters (1,100 gallons) of methanol from a man who unwittingly planned to make toxic hand sanitizer because of the virus outbreak.

Muslim drinkers in Iran can be punished with cash fines and 80 lashes. However, minority Christians, Jews and Zoroastrians can drink alcoholic beverages in private.

While police occasionally announce alcohol busts, the trade in nontoxic alcohol also continues. Locally made Iranian arak from fermented raisins, known as Aragh sagi, sells for $10 for a 1.5-liter bottle. Imported vodka sells for $40 a bottle.
Full Coverage: Virus Outbreak

“Every year during Nowruz, or the Persian New Year holidays that begin March 21, my customers double,” said Rafik, an Iranian-Armenian who makes vodka in the basement of his Tehran home. He spoke on the condition that only his first name be used for fear of arrest. “This year, because of corona, it jumped up by four- or five-fold.”

Farhad, a self-described heavy drinker who lives in central Tehran, said alcohol remains easy to find for those looking for it.

“Even you can find it offered when you are walking down the street, “ he said.

Since 1979, Iran’s 40 alcohol factories have seen their production changed to pharmaceutical needs and sanitizers. Others had been left idle, like the abandoned Shams alcohol factory east of Tehran.

But now, in a time when even some mosques in Iran hand out high-proof alcohol as a sanitizer, officials plan to start work again at Shams to produce 22,000 liters of 99% alcohol a day.

Gambrell reported from Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Associated Press writers Mehdi Fattahi in Tehran and Sopheng Cheang in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, contributed.

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Iran Leader Refuses US Help, Citing Virus Conspiracy Theory

In this picture released by the official website of the office of the Iranian supreme leader, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei addresses the nation on a televised speech, in Tehran, Iran, Sunday, March 22, 2020. Iran's supreme leader Sunday refused U.S. assistance to fight the new coronavirus, citing an unfounded conspiracy theory that the virus could be man-made by America. (Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader via AP)

BY JON GAMBRELL

DUBAI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES (AP) — Iran’s supreme leader refused U.S. assistance Sunday to fight the new coronavirus, citing an unfounded conspiracy theory that the virus could be man-made by America.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s comments come as Iran faces crushing U.S. sanctions blocking the country from selling its crude oil and accessing international financial markets.

But while Iranian civilian officials in recent days have increasingly criticized those sanctions, 80-year-old Khamenei instead chose to traffic in the same conspiracy theory increasingly used by Chinese officials about the new virus to deflect blame for the pandemic.

“I do not know how real this accusation is but when it exists, who in their right mind would trust you to bring them medication?” Khamenei said. “Possibly your medicine is a way to spread the virus more.”

He also alleged without offering any evidence that the virus “is specifically built for Iran using the genetic data of Iranians which they have obtained through different means.”

“You might send people as doctors and therapists, maybe they would want to come here and see the effect of the poison they have produced in person,” he said.

There is no scientific proof offered anywhere in the world to support Khamenei’s comments.

However, his comments come after Chinese government spokesman Lijian Zhao tweeted earlier this month that it “might be US army who brought the epidemic to Wuhan. Be transparent! Make public your data! US owe(s) us an explanation!”

Lijian likewise offered no evidence to support his claim, which saw the U.S. State Department summon China’s ambassador to complain.

Wuhan is the Chinese city where the first cases of the disease were detected in December. In recent days, the Trump administration has increasingly referred to the virus as the “Chinese” or “Wuhan” virus, while the World Health Organization used the term COVID-19 to describe the illness the virus causes. Even a U.S. senator from Arkansas has trafficked in the unfounded conspiracy theory it was a man-made Chinese bioweapon.

For most people, the new coronavirus causes only mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia. The vast majority of people recover from the new virus.

Scientists have not yet determined exactly how the new coronavirus first infected people. Evidence suggests it originated in bats, which infected another animal that spread it to people at a market in Wuhan. The now-shuttered Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market advertised dozens of species such as giant salamanders, baby crocodiles and raccoon dogs that were often referred to as wildlife, even when they were farmed.

An article published last week in the peer-reviewed scientific journal Nature Medicine similarly said it was “improbable” that the virus “emerged through laboratory manipulation of a related SARS-CoV-like coronavirus.”

Khamenei made the comments in a speech in Tehran broadcast live Sunday across Iran marking Nowruz, the Persian New Year. He had called off his usual speech at Imam Reza shrine in Mashhad over the virus outbreak.

His comments come as Iran has over 21,600 confirmed cases of the new coronavirus amid 1,685 reported deaths, according to government figures released Sunday.

Iran is one of the hardest-hit countries in the world by the new virus. Across the Mideast, Iran represents eight of 10 cases of the virus and those leaving the Islamic Republic have carried the virus to other countries.

Iranian officials have criticized U.S. offers of aid during the virus crisis as being disingenuous. They have accused the Trump administration of wanting to capitalize on its “maximum pressure” campaign against Tehran since withdrawing from the nuclear deal in May 2018. However, the U.S. has directly offered the Islamic Republic aid in the past despite decades of enmity, like during the devastating Bam earthquake of 2003.

Reassigning blame could be helpful to Iran’s government, which faced widespread public anger after denying for days it shot down a Ukrainian jetliner, killing 176 people. Widespread economic problems as well has seen mass demonstrations in recent years that saw hundreds reportedly killed.

Iranian hard-liners have supported conspiracy theories in the past when it suited their interests. Following the Sept. 11 attacks, some publicly doubted al-Qaida’s role and state TV promoting the unfounded conspiracy theory that the Americans blew up the building themselves.

Former hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad similarly raised doubt about the Sept. 11 attack, calling it a “big lie,” while also describing the Holocaust as a “myth.”

Meanwhile on Sunday, Iran imposed a two-week closure on major shopping malls and centers across the country to prevent spreading the virus. Pharmacies, supermarkets, groceries and bakeries will remain open.

In Saudi Arabia, the kingdom said its armed forces are now taking part in combating the virus, setting up mobile hospitals in various cities.

And in Kuwait, authorities have instituted a nightly curfew from 5 p.m. to 4 a.m., warning violators face up to three years in prison and fines of $32,000 if arrested and convicted.

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Associated Press writer Aya Batrawy in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, contributed to this report.

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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

AP Analysis: New Questions Rise As Iran Says It Downed Plane

Flowers and candles are placed in front of portraits of the flight crew members of the Ukrainian 737-800 plane that crashed on the outskirts of Tehran, at a memorial inside Borispil international airport outside Kyiv, Ukraine, Saturday, Jan. 11, 2020. Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy says that Iran must take further steps following its admission that one of its missiles shot down Ukrainian civilian airliner. He also expressed hope for the continuation of the crash investigation without delay. A team of Ukrainian investigators is in Iran. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)

BY JON GAMBRELL

DUBAI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES (AP) — Iran’s acknowledgement that it shot down a Ukrainian airliner, killing 176 people, raised new questions Saturday about transparency in the Islamic Republic and what led to the downing of the commercial flight.

While its paramilitary Revolutionary Guard took responsibility, a commander also claimed it warned Tehran to close off its airspace amid fears of U.S. retaliation over Iran launching ballistic missiles at Iraqi bases housing U.S. forces.

The same Guard commander also said he raised the possibility to his superiors that his forces shot down the airplane as early as Wednesday morning. However, Iranian air-crash investigators, government officials and diplomats all denied for days afterward that a missile downed the Boeing 737 operated by Ukrainian International Airlines out of Tehran’s Imam Khomeini International Airport.

“There has been no missile launched in that area at that time,” said Hamid Baeidinejad, Iranian ambassador to the United Kingdom, in an interview Friday with Sky News, calling further questions on the allegation “absolutely unacceptable.”

Then the story changed early Saturday morning, with Iran’s general staff of its armed forces saying the flight had been “targeted unintentionally due to human error.”

Baeidinejad later apologized on Twitter.

“In my statement yesterday to the UK media, I conveyed the official findings of responsible authorities in my country that missile could not be fired and hit the Ukrainian plane at that period of time,” he wrote. “I ... regret for conveying such wrong findings.”

But even in acknowledging the shootdown, an army statement and the Guard later claimed the attack raised the question of who knew of the attack and at what time. Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh of the Guard’s aerospace program said he told his superior on Wednesday that “the simultaneous occurrence of the launch and crash was suspicious.”

Hajizadeh’s immediate superior would be the Guard’s top commander, Gen. Hossein Salami. Ultimately, the Guard answers solely to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who only Saturday acknowledged the missile strike, citing a report by Iran’s conventional armed forces.

Yet even the army statement itself raises questions, as it said the flight moved “very close to a sensitive military spot” belonging to the Guard.

“The altitude and the direction of the flight’s movement were like an enemy target, so the aircraft was targeted unintentionally due to human error,” the statement read.

Yet flight data for every Ukrainian International Airlines flight out of Tehran since early November show Wednesday’s flight followed a similar altitude and flight path, according to flight-tracking website FlightRadar24. Planes leaving Imam Khomeini airport routinely take off going west as the Ukrainian flight did.

Hajizadeh said the troops at the anti-aircraft battery mistook the flight for a cruise missile, though the plane was moving at just over 500 kmh (310 mph). Cruise missiles travel at faster speeds. He also said the missile batter’s crew had “only 10 seconds” to make a decision and their radios were jammed, something he didn’t elaborate on. Iran routinely jams satellite and other signals.

Nine other flights flew out of the airport early Wednesday morning before the Ukrainian airliner as well without encountering trouble. Hajizadeh said the Guard suggested Tehran should close its airspace as its had “prepared ourselves for an all-out conflict” with the U.S., though officials took no action.

Analysts have questioned the decision in the days after the shootdown.

“The first thing a country should do in case of escalation of the military conflict is to close the sky for civilian flights,” said retired Ukrainian Gen. Ihor Romanenko, a military analyst. “But this entails serious financial losses, fines and forfeits, therefore a cynical approach prevailed in Iran.”

Hajizadeh’s comments also suggest the Revolutionary Guard has resumed using a missile-testing base in Bidgeneh, the location of the anti-aircraft battery that fired on the plane. An explosion at the base in 2011 killed 17 people, including one of the top commanders in Iran’s ballistic missile program, Brig. Gen. Hassan Tehrani Moghaddam.

The Guard has wide autonomy in Iran. It prides itself on its aggressive posture, whether having tense encounters with the U.S. Navy in the Persian Gulf or shooting down a U.S. military surveillance drone last summer. Concerns about that aggression saw the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration reissue a warning about flying over Iran just days before the shootdown, warning that “misidentification” remained a risk.

And while the U.S. had struck days earlier, killing Iranian Guard Gen. Qassem Soleimani in a drone strike in Baghdad, it did not retaliate the night of the ballistic missile strikes. However, that did not stop Iranian officials like Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and others who sought to try to blame “U.S. adventurism” for Iran shooting down the airplane.

EDITOR’S NOTE — Jon Gambrell, the news director for the Gulf and Iran for The Associated Press, has reported from each of the Gulf Cooperation Council countries, Iran and other locations across the world since joining the AP in 2006. Follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/jongambrellAP

Associated Press writer Yuras Karmanau in Kyiv, Ukraine, contributed to this report.

Saudis Allow Media To See Oil Facility Damaged By Attacks

In this photo opportunity during a trip organized by Saudi information ministry, workers fix the damage in the Aramco's Khurais oil field, Saudi Arabia, Friday, Sept. 20, 2019, after it was hit during Sept. 14 attack. Saudi officials brought journalists Friday to see the damage done in an attack the U.S. alleges Iran carried out. (AP Photo/Amr Nabil)

BY FAY ABUELGASIM, JON GAMBRELL

BUQAYQ, SAUDI ARABIA (AP) — The heart of Saudi Arabia’s oil industry remained wrapped in scaffolding Friday as workers sought to repair the charred innards and shrapnel-blasted arteries caused by drone-and-cruise-missile attacks that raised tensions between the U.S. and Iran.

Saudi officials brought journalists to the kingdom’s crucial Abqaiq oil processing facility, described by the state-run oil giant Saudi Aramco as “the largest crude oil stabilization plant in the world.” It was the first such trip for outsiders to see the damage done to its facilities that have been targeted in a summer-long campaign of attacks.

Saudi Arabia is seeking to build international consensus ahead of the U.N. General Assembly next week after the Sept. 14 attack that it claims was “unquestionably sponsored by Iran.” The U.S. has gone further, alleging Iran carried out the attack as part of a campaign seeking to roil the region as American sanctions on its oil industry prevent it from selling crude oil abroad as Tehran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers collapses.

Iran has denied involvement in the attack that was initially claimed by Yemen’s Iranian-backed Houthi rebels. Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, now heading to New York for the high-level meetings at U.N. headquarters, has warned that any retaliatory strike on Iran by the U.S. or Saudi Arabia will result in “an all-out war.”

President Donald Trump, who withdrew the U.S. from the nuclear deal more than a year ago, said separately Friday that America “just sanctioned the Iranian national bank.” He did not elaborate.

In Abqaiq, an oil facility in the Arabian Peninsula’s sprawling Empty Quarter desert, journalists saw what previously only had been glimpsed in satellite photos released earlier by the U.S.

The attack punched holes in giant metal onion-shaped structures that help separate gas from crude oil. Separation towers there, which process crude oil, were scorched and damaged, with the top of one looking like a melted candle.

Officials said they put out about 10 large fires at the site less than seven hours after the attack. There were at least 18 direct hits on 11 of the spherical structures, five column stabilizers and two small processing facilities, they said.

Abqaiq processes sour crude oil into sweet crude, and it is transported to transshipment points on the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea or to refineries for local production. Estimates suggest it can process up to 7 million barrels of crude oil a day. By comparison, Saudi Arabia produced 9.65 million barrels of crude oil a day in July.

The plant has been targeted before by militants. Al-Qaida-claimed suicide bombers tried but failed to attack the oil complex in February 2006. However, the Sept. 14 attack reached deep inside a facility that analysts long warned was vulnerable, knocking out half of the kingdom’s oil production and spiking crude prices this week by a percentage unseen since the 1991 Gulf War.

Saudi Arabia also flew journalists to its Khurais oil field to see damage done to the oil field, which is believed to produce over 1 million barrels of crude oil a day. Officials there said 110 contractors evacuated the site after the attack, but there were no injuries. They said the oil field was back online within 24 hours of the attack.

An oil stabilization tower was damaged and other pipes had holes from the attack.

Repair crews swarmed both sites beneath large cranes, working through the heat. Saudi Arabia says it already has restored half of the cut production and hopes to have it fully online by the end of the month, although damage at several structures seen by journalists looked severe.

The trip comes as Saudi Arabia hopes to offer a sliver of Saudi Aramco in an initial public offering, a key component of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s development plans for the kingdom. Opening up the facilities slightly to journalists both bolsters Saudi Arabia’s push for international condemnation of the attack while offering at least a glimpse at the crown jewels ahead of the IPO.

While Yemen’s Houthi rebels claimed responsibility for the assault, analysts say the missiles used wouldn’t have enough range to reach the site from the impoverished nation. The missiles and drones used resembled Iranian-made weapons, although analysts say more study is needed to definitively link them to Iran.

A Saudi-led coalition has battled the Houthis in Yemen since March 2015, a conflict that has killed tens of thousands of people and sparked what the U.N. describes as the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

The International Crisis Group warns that the Saudi attack could push the wider Persian Gulf into war, saying the risk of conflict is “arguably the highest it has been in years.”

“The Aramco strikes were no minor incident: They were perhaps the most significant attacks on Saudi Arabian infrastructure in modern history, and the result of a series of provocations and tit-for-tat exchanges that have been allowed to gather momentum for too long,” the group said. “At this point, a single misstep could set off a chain reaction.”

Underlining that Friday was Iranian Gen. Rahim Safavi, a senior adviser to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

“If the Americans think of a conspiracy, the Iranian nation will respond to them from the Mediterranean Sea, Red Sea and Indian Ocean,” Safavi said, according to the state-run IRNA news agency.

Also on Friday, the tiny, oil-rich country of Kuwait said it would increase security at both its commercial and oil ports. Kuwait’s state-run KUNA news agency reported the decision, quoting Khaled al-Roudhan, the minister of commerce and industry.

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Gambrell reported from Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Associated Press writer Amir Vahdat in Tehran, Iran, contributed.

Attack On Saudi Oil Sites Raises Risks Amid US-Iran Tension

Drone attacks inside Saudi Arabia

BY JON GAMBRELL

DUBAI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES (AP) — A weekend drone attack on Saudi Arabia that cut into global energy supplies and halved the kingdom’s oil production threatened Sunday to fuel a regional crisis, as Iran denied U.S. allegations it launched the assault and tensions remained high over Tehran’s collapsing nuclear deal. Satellite photos examined by The Associated Press suggested damage at the heart of the kingdom’s crucial oil processing facility.

Iran called the U.S. claims “maximum lies,” while a commander in its paramilitary Revolutionary Guard reiterated its forces could strike U.S. military bases across the Mideast with their arsenal of ballistic missiles. A prominent U.S. senator suggested striking Iranian oil refineries in response to the assault, claimed by Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels, on Saudi Arabia’s largest oil processing facility.

“Because of the tension and sensitive situation, our region is like a powder keg,” warned Guard Brig. Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh. “When these contacts come too close, when forces come into contact with one another, it is possible a conflict happens because of a misunderstanding.”

Actions on any side could break into the open a twilight war that’s been raging just below the surface of the wider Persian Gulf in recent months. Already, there have been mysterious attacks on oil tankers that America blames on Tehran, at least one suspected Israeli strike on Shiite forces in Iraq, and Iran shooting down a U.S. military surveillance drone.

The attack Saturday on Saudi Arabia’s Abqaiq plant and its Khurais oil field led to the interruption of an estimated 5.7 million barrels of the kingdom’s crude oil production per day, equivalent to more than 5% of the world’s daily supply. It remains unclear how King Salman and his assertive son, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, will respond to an attack targeting the heart of the Saudi oil industry.

There was no immediate impact on global oil prices from the attacks as markets were closed for the weekend, but analysts anticipate a spike in oil prices when markets reopen Monday. Saudi Arabia has promised to fill in the cut in production with its reserves, but has not said how long it will take to repair the damage.

Images from the European Commission’s Sentinel-2 satellite examined by the AP showed black char marks at the heart of the Abqaiq plant on Sunday, marks not seen over the prior month. The Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies in August identified the area with the char marks as the plant’s stabilization area. The center said the area includes “storage tanks and processing and compressor trains — which greatly increases the likelihood of a strike successfully disrupting or destroying its operations.”

The state-run oil giant Saudi Aramco, which the kingdom hopes to offer a sliver of in a public stock offering, did not respond to a request for comment.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo directly blamed Iran for the Saudi attack on Twitter, without offering evidence to support his claim.

“Amid all the calls for de-escalation, Iran has now launched an unprecedented attack on the world’s energy supply,” Pompeo wrote late Saturday. “There is no evidence the attacks came from Yemen.”

The U.S., Western nations, their Gulf Arab allies and U.N. experts say Iran supplies the Houthis with weapons and drones — a charge that Tehran denies.

U.S. officials previously alleged at least one recent drone attack on Saudi Arabia came from Iraq, where Iran backs Shiite militias. Those militias in recent weeks have been targeted themselves by mysterious airstrikes, with at least one believed to have been carried out by Israel.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi on Sunday dismissed Pompeo’s remarks as “blind and futile comments.”

“The Americans adopted the ‘maximum pressure’ policy against Iran, which, due to its failure, is leaning toward ‘maximum lies,’” Mousavi said in a statement.

Separately, Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi’s office issued a statement on Sunday denying the drone attack came from there. Iraq “abides by its constitution that prevents the use of its lands to launch aggressions against neighboring countries,” the statement said.

Oil-rich Kuwait also said it would increase security around the country’s “vital sites” over the attacks.

Houthi leader Muhammad al-Bukhaiti reiterated his group’s claim of responsibility, telling The Associated Press on Sunday it exploited “vulnerabilities” in Saudi air defenses to strike the targets. He did not elaborate.

Iran, meanwhile, kept up its own threats.

Hajizadeh, the Guard brigadier general who leads the country’s aerospace program, gave an interview published across Iranian media on Sunday that discussed Iran’s downing of a U.S. drone in July. He said Guard forces were ready for a counterattack if America responded, naming the Al-Udeid Air Base in Qatar and Al-Dhafra Air Base near Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates as immediate targets, as well as U.S. Navy ships in the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Sea.

“Wherever they are, it only takes one spark and we hit their vessels, their air bases, their troops,” he said in a video published online with English subtitles.

It wasn’t just Iran making threats. U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican close to President Donald Trump, suggested retaliatory strikes targeting Iran.

“Iran will not stop their misbehavior until the consequences become more real, like attacking their refineries, which will break the regime’s back,” Graham wrote on Twitter.

All this comes before the United Nations General Assembly, which will draw world leaders to New York in a little over a week. There’s been speculation of a potential meeting between Trump and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on the summit’s sidelines, possibly in exchange for the lifting of some economic sanctions the American leader imposed on Tehran after unilaterally withdrawing from the nuclear accord over a year ago.

If Iran had a hand in Saturday’s attack, it could be to bolster their position ahead of any talks, analysts say.

“The main point for Iran, in my opinion, is not necessarily to derail a meeting between Trump and Rouhani but to increase its leverage ahead of it,” said Michael Horowitz, the head of intelligence at the Bahrain-based risk management firm Le Beck International. “By carrying out such a major attack, Iran wants to send the message that the only way to decrease tensions is to comply with its demands regarding sanctions relief.”

However, he warned there could be a danger of Iran “overplaying” its hand.

“There will be no political benefit for Trump in a meeting with Rouhani if this meeting sends the message that the U.S. simply surrendered to Iranian demands,” he said.

Before Saturdays, attack, benchmark Brent crude had been trading at just above $60 a barrel, but analysts anticipated a spike in oil prices when markets reopen Monday.

Associated Press writers Amir Vahdat in Tehran, Iran; Aya Batrawy in Dubai, United Arab Emirates; Bassem Mroue in Beirut and Samy Magdy in Cairo contributed to this report.

Iran Breaches Key Uranium Enrichment Iimit In Nuclear Deal

From left to right, spokesman for Iran's atomic agency Behrouz Kamalvandi, Iran's government spokesman Ali Rabiei and Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, attend a press briefing in Tehran, Iran, Sunday, July 7, 2019. The deputy foreign minister says that his nation considers the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers to be a "valid document" and seeks its continuation. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)

BY JON GAMBRELL

TEHRAN, IRAN (AP) — Iran on Monday began enriching uranium to 4.5%, just breaking the limit set by its nuclear deal with world powers, while it is still seeking a way for Europe to help it bypass U.S. sanctions amid heightened tensions between Tehran and Washington.

The acknowledgement by the spokesman of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran to The Associated Press shows that the Islamic Republic trying to increase pressure on those still in the 2015 nuclear deal. It also comes just days after Iran acknowledged breaking the 300-kilogram (661-pound) limit on its low-enriched uranium stockpile, another term of the accord.

The International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog, confirmed that Iran surpassed the enrichment threshold.

Experts warn that higher enrichment and a growing stockpile could begin to narrow the one-year window Iran would need to have enough material for an atomic weapon, something Iran denies it wants but the deal prevented. While the steps now taken by Iran remain quickly reversible, Europe so far has struggled to respond.

There are fears that a miscalculation in the crisis could explode into open conflict. President Donald Trump, who withdrew the U.S. from the nuclear deal over a year ago and re-imposed crippling economic sanctions on Iran, nearly bombed the country last month after Tehran shot down a U.S. military surveillance drone. Even China, engaged in delicate trade negotiations with the White House, openly criticized America’s policy toward Iran.

“What I want to emphasize is that the maximum pressure the U.S. imposes on Iran is the root cause of the crisis in the Iranian nuclear issue,” said Geng Shuang, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman. “It has been proven that unilateral bullying has become a worsening tumor and is creating more problems and greater crises on a global scale.”

On Sunday, Trump warned that “Iran better be careful.” He didn’t elaborate on what actions the U.S. might consider but told reporters: “Iran’s doing a lot of bad things.”

Under the deal, Iran has been closely monitored by inspectors from the IAEA, which on Monday verified “that Iran is enriching uranium above 3.67%.” The Vienna-based agency did not specify how much beyond the threshold Iran has gone.

Enriched uranium at the 3.67% level is enough for peaceful pursuits but is far below weapons-grade levels of 90%. At the 4.5% level, it is enough to help power Iran’s Bushehr reactor, the country’s only nuclear power plant.

Behrouz Kamalvandi, a spokesman for Iran’s nuclear agency, confirmed the increased enrichment to the AP.

“At the moment our enrichment is at around 4.5%,” Kamalvandi said. He did not elaborate.

Kamalvandi separately hinted in a state TV interview broadcast Monday that Iran might consider going to 20% enrichment or higher as a third step, if the material is needed and the country still hasn’t gotten what it wants from Europe. That would worry nuclear nonproliferation experts because 20% is a short technical step away from reaching weapons-grade levels of 90%. Kamalvandi also suggested using new or more centrifuges, which are limited by the deal.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi said Iran appreciated the efforts of some nations to save the deal, but offered a jaded tone on whether Tehran trusted anyone in the negotiations.

“We have no hope nor trust in anyone, nor any country, but the door of diplomacy is open,” Mousavi said.

He also gave a sharp, yet unelaborated warning to Europe about another 60-day deadline that Iran set Sunday. That deadline is Sept. 5, though Iran’s senior Vice President Eshaq Jahangiri described it as being Sept. 7. The different dates could not be immediately reconciled.

“If the remaining countries in the deal, especially the Europeans, do not fulfill their commitments seriously, and not do anything more than talk, Iran’s third step will be harder, more steadfast and somehow stunning,” he said. The remaining signatories to the deal with Iran are Britain, France, Germany, China and Russia.

The U.S. is open to talks but will keep up pressure on Tehran and will “never allow Iran to obtain a nuclear weapon,” Vice President Mike Pence told a pro-Israel Christian organization in Washington

In his prepared remarks, he said that “America will not back down,” although Pence did not use that phrase when he delivered his speech. He did say that Iran should not “confuse American restraint with a lack of American resolve.”

The U.S. has sent thousands of troops, an aircraft carrier, nuclear-capable B-52 bombers and advanced fighter jets to the Middle East. Mysterious oil tanker attacks near the Strait of Hormuz, attacks by Iranian-backed rebels in Yemen on Saudi Arabia and Iran’s downing of a U.S. military drone have raised fears of a wider conflict engulfing the region.

French President Emmanuel Macron has spoken with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and said they are trying to find a way by July 15 to resume international dialogue with Iran. It remains unclear what Europe can do, because Iran wants it to help Tehran sell its crude oil abroad.

U.S. sanctions have targeted Iran’s oil sales and top officials, including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. It’s also unclear what international company would risk U.S. sanctions to help Europe trade with Iran outside of the exceptions granted for food and medicine.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres believes Iran’s action would neither help preserve the agreement “nor secure tangible economic benefits for the Iranian people,” according to U.N. deputy spokesman Farhan Haq.

Mousavi said he didn’t know where an Iranian supertanker was heading when it was seized off the coast of Gibraltar. Authorities there said they seized the Grace 1 last week and confirmed Monday it was fully loaded with crude oil. Its suspected destination was a refinery in Syria that is under European Union sanctions.

Hard-liners in Iran have demanded a British oil tanker be seized in response. State TV said Britain’s ambassador to Tehran had been summoned Monday for a third time.

A lawmaker also has suggested that Iran charge ships moving through the Strait of Hormuz, something Mousavi dismissed while insisting Iran’s right to patrol the waters off its coast.

“We are responsible for maritime protection of the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz. This is our region. This is our gulf,” he said, reiterating Iran’s longtime stance. “This is our innate duty to secure this region and sustain its security. Countries that claim from thousands of miles from here that they should guarantee the maritime security here are speaking exaggeratedly.”

Iran’s Defense Minister Gen. Amir Hatami also offered his own warning to the British over the tanker’s seizure: “It won’t remain without a response.”

Associated Press producers Mohammad Nasiri and Mehdi Fattahi and writer Nasser Karimi in Tehran and Kiyoko Metzler in Vienna contributed.

Iran To Raise Uranium Enrichment Beyond Nuclear Deal Limits

In this April 9, 2018, file photo, released by an official website of the office of the Iranian Presidency, President Hassan Rouhani listens to explanations on new nuclear achievements at a ceremony to mark "National Nuclear Day," in Tehran, Iran. Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif acknowledged Monday, July 1, 2019, Iran had broken the limit set on its stockpile of low-enriched uranium by the 2015 nuclear deal, marking its first major departure from the unraveling agreement a year after the U.S. unilaterally withdrew from the accord. (Iranian Presidency Office via AP)

BY JON GAMBRELL, NASSER KARIMI

TEHRAN, IRAN (AP) — Iran announced Sunday it will increase its uranium enrichment to an unspecified level beyond the terms of its 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, breaking another limit set under the accord and furthering heightening tensions between Tehran and the U.S.

Setting another unspecified 60-day deadline for the deal, Iran took further steps toward pressuring Europe while urging further diplomacy to save an agreement that President Donald Trump unilaterally pulled the U.S. from a year ago.

Hopes for saving the faltering deal appear increasingly dim, however, as the Europeans have been unable to offer Iran any effective way around U.S. sanctions that block Tehran’s oil sales abroad and target its top officials. But Iran’s recent measures, while of concern to nuclear non-proliferation experts, could be easily reversible if Europeans offer Iran the sanctions relief it seeks.

Tensions began rising in May when the U.S. rushed thousands of additional troops, an aircraft carrier, nuclear-capable B-52 bombers and advanced fighter jets to the Mideast.

Mysterious oil tanker blasts near the Strait of Hormuz, attacks by Iranian-backed rebels in Yemen on Saudi Arabia and Iran shooting down a U.S. military drone have raised fears of a wider conflict engulfing a region crucial to global energy supplies.

In Sunday’s news conference, Iranian officials said the new level of uranium enrichment would be reached later in the day, but did not provide a percentage. Under the nuclear deal, the cap for enrichment was set at 3.67%, a percentage closely monitored by inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog.

“Within hours, the technical tasks will be done and enrichment above 3.67% will begin,” Iran nuclear agency spokesman Behrouz Kamalvandi said. “We predict that the IAEA measurements early tomorrow morning will show that we have gone beyond 3.67%.”

The IAEA said it was aware of Iran’s comments and “inspectors in Iran will report to our headquarters as soon as they verify the announced development.”

Ali Akbar Velayati, an aide to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, made remarks in a video Saturday about Iran’s need for 5% enrichment. Bushehr, Iran’s only nuclear power plant, is now running on imported fuel from Russia that’s enriched around 5%.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif sent a letter to EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini outlining the steps it had taken, said Abbas Araghchi, a deputy foreign minister. Discussions with European powers are continuing and ministerial-level talks are planned later this month, he said.

“We will give another 60-day period, and then we will resume the reduction of our commitments,” Araghchi said, without elaborating.

On Saturday, French President Emmanuel Macron told his Iranian counterpart, Hassan Rouhani, in a phone call that he is trying to find a way by July 15 to resume the dialogue between Iran and Western partners.

Kamalvandi also stressed that Iran will continue to use only slower, first-generation IR-1 centrifuges to increase enrichment, as well as keep the number of centrifuges in use under the 5,060-limit set by the nuclear deal. Iran has the technical ability to build and operate advanced centrifuges that work faster, but is barred from doing so under the deal.

“For the enrichment we are using the same machines with some more pressure and some special technical work,” he said. “So we don’t have an increase in the number of centrifuges for this purpose.”

But Kamalvandi stressed that Iran is able to continue enrichment “at any speed, any amount and any level.”

“For the enrichment we are using the same machines with some more pressure and some special technical work,” he said. “So we don’t have an increase in the number of centrifuges for this purpose.”

Sunday’s announcement about uranium enrichment came a year after President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew from the deal. Iran has repeatedly warned Europe in recent weeks that it would begin walking away from an accord neutered by a maximalist American campaign of sanctions.

The decision to ramp up uranium enrichment came less than a week after Iran acknowledged breaking the deal’s 300-kilogram (661-pound) limit on its low-enriched uranium stockpile.

Experts warn higher enrichment and a growing stockpile narrow the one-year window Iran would need to have enough material for an atomic bomb, something Iran denies it wants but the deal prevented.

Enriched uranium at the 3.67% level is enough for peaceful pursuits but is far below weapons-grade levels of 90%.

Iran denies it seeks nuclear weapons, but the nuclear deal sought to prevent that as a possibility by limiting enrichment and Iran’s stockpile of uranium.

International reaction came swiftly, including from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who long has described Iran and its nuclear program as a threat to his country. He called on world powers to impose “snapback sanctions” on Iran.

“It is a very, very dangerous step,” Netanyahu said. “I’m asking you, not to provoke but out of joint knowledge of history and what happens when aggressive totalitarian regimes can cross the threshold toward things that are very dangerous to us all. Take the steps that you promised. Enact the sanctions.”

Associated Press writers Kiyoko Metzler in Vienna and Aron Heller in Jerusalem contributed to this report.

Global Airlines Reroute Fights After Iran Downs US Drone

This image released Friday, June 21, 2019 by the U.S. military's Central Command shows what it describes as the flight path and the site where Iran shot down a U.S. Navy RQ-4A Global Hawk in the Strait of Hormuz on Thursday, June 20, 2019. Iran says it shot down the drone over Iranian territorial waters. Iran's Revolutionary Guard shot down the drone amid heightened tensions between Tehran and Washington over its collapsing nuclear deal with world powers. (U.S. Central Command via AP)

BY JON GAMBRELL

DUBAI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES (AP) — Major airlines from around the world on Friday began rerouting their flights to avoid areas around the Strait of Hormuz following Iran’s shooting down of a U.S. military surveillance drone there, as America warned commercial airliners could be mistakenly attacked.

The Federal Aviation Administration warned of a “potential for miscalculation or misidentification” in the region after an Iranian surface-to-air missile on Thursday brought down a U.S. Navy RQ-4A Global Hawk, an unmanned aircraft with a wingspan larger than a Boeing 737 jetliner and costing over $100 million. The U.S. said it made plans for limited strikes on Iran in response, but then called them off.

Australia’s Qantas, British Airways, Dutch carrier KLM, Emirates, Germany’s Lufthansa, Malaysia Airlines and Singapore Airlines said soon afterward that they will avoid the region as well.

The FAA previously warned of a risk in the region, but Friday’s warning threw into stark relief a danger that both the agency and analysts say is real after the shooting down of a Malaysian Airlines flight over Ukraine in 2014. That could further imperil the bottom lines of Gulf long-haul carriers, which already have faced challenges under the Trump administration.

“The threat of a civil aircraft shootdown in southern Iran is real,” warned OPSGROUP, a company that provides guidance to global airlines.

The FAA made a similar warning in May to commercial airliners of the possibility of Iranian anti-aircraft gunners mistaking them for military aircraft, something dismissed by Tehran some 30 years after the U.S. Navy shot down an Iranian passenger jet.

Iran had no immediate reaction to the U.S. announcement.

The FAA said its warning would affect the area of the Tehran Flight Information Region, without elaborating. The FAA’s operations center referred questions to its press office, which did not immediately respond to queries from The Associated Press. However, that likely only extends some 12 miles off of the Iranian coast, aviation experts said.

There are “heightened military activities and increased political tensions in the region, which present an inadvertent risk to U.S. civil aviation operations and potential for miscalculation or misidentification,” the FAA said. “The risk to U.S. civil aviation is demonstrated by the Iranian surface-to-air missile shoot-down of a U.S. unmanned aircraft system on 19 June 2019 while it was operating in the vicinity of civil air routes above the Gulf of Oman.”

Qantas said it would reroute its London flights to avoid the Strait of Hormuz and Gulf of Oman. British Airways, KLM, Malaysia Airlines and Singapore Airlines said their flights would avoid the strait. Lufthansa said it would avoid both the Strait of Hormuz and the Gulf of Oman, as well as nearby land. However, it said it would continue its flights to Tehran.

The Persian Gulf is home to some of the world’s top long-haul carriers, who already have been battered by Trump’s travel bans targeting a group of predominantly Muslim countries, as well as an earlier ban on laptops in airplane cabins for Mideast carriers. Etihad, the Abu Dhabi-based long-haul carrier, said it had “contingency plans” in place, without elaborating.

“We will decide what further action is required after carefully evaluating the FAA directive to U.S. carriers,” the carrier told the AP.

Emirates, the long-haul carrier in Dubai near the Strait of Hormuz, said in a statement to AP that it was “rerouting all flights away from areas of possible conflict.” Its sister airline, the low-cost carrier FlyDubai, said it “adjusted some of the existing flight paths in the region as a precautionary measure.”

Qatar Airways did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Iran said the drone “violated” its territorial airspace, while the U.S. called the missile fire “an unprovoked attack” in international airspace over the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf. OPSGROUP said the Iranian weapons system that shot down the drone was comparable to the Russian Buk system used in 2014 Malaysian Airlines shootdown in Ukraine.

“Any error in that system could cause it to find another target nearby - another reason not to be anywhere near this part of the Straits of Hormuz,” OPSGROUP said.

President Donald Trump initially tweeted that “Iran made a very big mistake!” He later appeared to play down the incident, telling reporters in the Oval Office that he had a feeling “a general or somebody” being “loose and stupid” made a mistake in shooting down the drone.

A U.S. official said the military made preparations Thursday night for limited strikes on Iran in retaliation for the downing of a U.S. surveillance drone, but approval was abruptly withdrawn before the attacks were launched.

The official, who was not authorized to discuss the operation publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity, said the targets would have included radars and missile batteries.

The New York Times reported that President Donald Trump had approved the strikes, but then called them off. The newspaper cited anonymous senior administration officials.

The White House on Thursday night declined requests for information about whether Trump changed his mind.

The incident immediately heightened the crisis already gripping the wider region, which is rooted in Trump withdrawing the U.S. a year ago from Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal and imposing crippling new sanctions on Tehran. Recently, Iran quadrupled its production of low-enriched uranium to be on pace to break one of the deal’s terms by next week while threatening to raise enrichment closer to weapons-grade levels on July 7 if Europe doesn’t offer it a new deal.

Citing unspecified Iranian threats, the U.S. has sent an aircraft carrier to the Middle East and deployed additional troops alongside the tens of thousands already there. All this has raised fears that a miscalculation or further rise in tensions could push the U.S. and Iran into an open conflict, 40 years after Tehran’s Islamic Revolution.

“We do not have any intention for war with any country, but we are fully ready for war,” Revolutionary Guard commander Gen. Hossein Salami said in a televised address Thursday.

Associated Press writers Lolita C. Baldor and Deb Riechmann in Washington, David Rising in Berlin and Mike Corder in The Hague, Netherlands, contributed to this report.

Trump Says No More 'Death To America' In Iran

In this May 31, 2019 file photo, a demonstrator holds an anti-U.S. placard during the annual Quds, or Jerusalem Day rally in Tehran, Iran. The top line on the placard in Farsi translates to, Death to America, and the bottom line on the placard in Arabic translates to, Death to America. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)

BY CALVIN WOODWARD, JON GAMBRELL

WASHINGTON (AP) — They still cry “death to America” in Iran.

President Donald Trump claimed otherwise in a Fox News interview as he took credit for a taming of Iran that is not apparent in its actions or rhetoric.

TRUMP, speaking about Iranians “screaming death to America” when Barack Obama was U.S. president: “They haven’t screamed ‘death to America’ lately.” — Fox News interview Friday.

THE FACTS: Not true. The death-to-America chant is heard routinely.

The chant, “marg bar Amreeka” in Farsi, dates back even before Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution. Once used by communists, it was popularized by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the revolution’s figurehead and Iran’s first supreme leader after the U.S. Embassy takeover by militants.

It remains a staple of hard-line demonstrations, meetings with current Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, official ceremonies, parliamentary sessions and main Friday prayer services in Tehran and across the country.

Some masters of ceremonies ask audiences to tone it down. But it was heard, for example, from the crowd this month when Khamenei exhorted thousands to stand up against U.S. “bullying.”

In one variation, a demonstrator at a Quds rally in Tehran last month held a sign with three versions of the slogan: “Death to America” in Farsi, “Death to America” in Arabic,” ″Down with U.S.A.” in English.

Gambrell reported from Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

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Iran Revokes New York Times Correspondent's Accreditation

In this April 28, 2009, The New York Times' correspondent based in Tehran Thomas Erdbrink walks on a sidewalk in Tehran, Iran. Iran has revoked the press accreditation for The New York Times' correspondent based in Tehran, the newspaper reported Tuesday. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)

BY JON GAMBRELL

DUBAI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES (AP) — Iran has revoked the press accreditation for The New York Times’ correspondent based in Tehran without explanation, the newspaper reported Tuesday.

While the newspaper said it remained hopeful Thomas Erdbrink soon would be allowed to work again, the revocation comes amid heightened tensions between the U.S. and Iran stemming from President Donald Trump’s withdrawal from Tehran’s nuclear deal with world powers a year ago.

Iran pulled Erdbrink’s government-required authorization to work as a journalist four months ago, the Times said. He’s been unable to work since February and the Times said it decided to go public with his situation “after recent speculation and comments on social media.”

“Officials of Iran’s Foreign Ministry have repeatedly assured the Times that Mr. Erdbrink’s credential would soon be restored but have offered no explanation for the delays or for why it was revoked,” the Times reported , quoting international editor Michael Slackman. “He added that there are some indications this will be resolved soon.”

Dutch public broadcaster NOS, which also employs Erdbrink as a correspondent, quoted him as saying that “important steps” had been taken to resolve the issue, without elaborating.

Iran’s mission to the United Nations did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

When asked about Erdbrink during a press conference on Tuesday, Iran’s judiciary spokesman Gholamhossein Esmaili said that Iran allowed many journalists into the country to work. “Regarding this person, I have no information on what has happened,” Esmaili said.

Erdbrink, a Dutch national, previously worked as a correspondent for The Washington Post, as well as with other Dutch media. He’s married to Iranian photographer Newsha Tavakolian, who is represented by the Magnum photo agency.

Tavakolian also has been barred from working, the Times reported. Magnum did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Both he and Tavakolian were the focus of “Our Man in Tehran,” a 2018 documentary about his work and life as a Western journalist in Iran. Erdbrink also has appeared in bit parts in Farsi movies as well.

Journalists in Iran can face harassment from security services, while others have been imprisoned for their work. While local journalists face the brunt of that, foreign journalists in Tehran, especially those with Western ties, have been imprisoned as well.

“Working here is like walking a tight rope,” Erdbrink said at one point in “Our Man in Tehran.”

The last major case involved Iranian-American reporter Jason Rezaian of the Washington Post, who was convicted in an internationally criticized, closed-door espionage trial in 2015. A 2016 prisoner swap negotiated between Iran and the U.S. amid the start of the nuclear deal freed Rezaian and three other Iranian-Americans in exchange for pardons or charges being dropped against seven Iranians. That deal also saw the U.S. make a $400 million cash delivery to Iran.

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Associated Press writer Mike Corder in The Hague, Netherlands, contributed to this report.

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Follow Jon Gambrell on Twitter at www.twitter.com/jongambrellAP .