Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Saturday Iran's Basij militia forces have sacrificed their lives in what he called riots, the wave of protests sparked by the death in custody of a young Iranian Kurdish woman in September.

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The protests that began after the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini while in the custody of Iran's morality police on Sept. 16 have turned into one of the boldest challenges to the clerical leadership since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Challenging the Islamic Republic's legitimacy, protesters from all walks of life have burned pictures of Khamenei and called for the downfall of the Islamic Republic.

The Basij forces, affiliated with the country's elite Revolutionary Guards, have been at the forefront of the state crackdown on the unrest in the past weeks.

"They have sacrificed their lives to protect people from rioters ... the presence of Basij shows that the Islamic Revolution is alive," Khamenei said in a televised speech.

Iran's clerical establishment has blamed the country's foreign enemies, particularly the United States, and their agents for the unrest.

On Saturday, videos posted on social media showed renewed protests at several universities in the capital Tehran and the central city of Isfahan. Reuters could not verify the footage.

Meanwhile, a group of 140 Iranian eye doctors issued a statement warning that birdshot and paintball bullets used by security forces were blinding many protesters in one or both eyes, according to the reformist news website Sobhema and social media postings.

Amnesty International has said Iran's security forces have been using unlawful force, including live ammunition and birdshot, killing dozens of people. Iranian authorities have blamed some shootings on unidentified dissidents.

The activist news agency HRANA said that as of Friday 448 protesters have been killed, including 63 children. It said 57 members of the security forces have also been killed, and an estimated 18,170 people arrested.

Authorities have not provided a death toll for protesters, but a senior official on Thursday said 50 police had been killed in the unrest.

Iran's hardline judiciary has sentenced at least six protesters to death and thousands have been indicted for their role in the unrest, according to officials.

After many Iranian fans on social media accused the national soccer team of siding with the violent state crackdown on the unrest, Khamenei applauded the squad for their win in their World Cup match against Wales on Friday.

"Yesterday, Team Melli (the National Team) made our people happy. May God make them happy," said Khamenei.

The soccer team sang along to the Islamic Republic's national anthem before Friday's match, unlike in their first match against England in the opening game earlier this week when they chose not to sing, in apparent support for protesters at home.

Akram Khodabandehlou, captain of the national Iranian women's taekwondo team, said in an Instagram post on Saturday that she was leaving the team after a 12-year run in the team. She said she was doing so for "respect for my people's sad hearts in these difficult days".

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The tomb, which is located in Hamadan city in Iran's Hamadan Province, is believed to be the resting place of the heroes of the Jewish Purim story.

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Muslims and seekers of freedom in the world, said the student group in a statement, would not sit idly by in light of the "satanic operation" of the deal, which it called "the greatest betrayal in contemporary history."

Ali Malmir, chairman of the Organization for the Heritage of Hamadan Province, dismissed the threat on Monday, telling Iran's ISNA news agency: "There is no connection between the Tomb of Esther and Mordechai, which is a historical site, and a Palestinian [diplomatic] mission, which is a political matter."

In response to Malmir's statements, Tayyeb Faryad-Ras, head of the Basij at the Hamadan Province universities, told ISNA on Tuesday that "the organization for the heritage of Hamedan Province must explain whether there is a connection between Jerusalem and Israelization. Why isn't this organization reacting to the fact that Jerusalem is the cultural heritage of the Islamic world and the Middle East?"

Iran's Basij is a paramilitary volunteer militia established in 1979 on the order of Ayatollah Khomenei.

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

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Mohammad Haj Abolghasemi, 71, was hospitalized in Tehran a few days ago and died on Tuesday, state media reported.

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Abolghasemi was an intelligence officer and battalion commander in the Basij – the volunteer paramilitary wing of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps used for internal security and other tasks, such as violent suppression of civilian protests.

Relatives of Abolghasemi told news outlets outside of Iran that he was apparently infected with the virus while on duty, after local authorities failed to issue proper warnings about avoiding large gatherings or physical contact.

As stated, Abolghasemi, was a senior commander in the Basij and served as an Iranian intelligence officer after the Iran-Iraq War.

Websites affiliated with Iran's exiled opposition celebrated Abolghasemi's death, calling him a "butcher" and a "hangman" due to the role of the Basij in brutally suppressing popular countrywide protests over the past year, in which hundreds of Iranian civilians were killed.

Meanwhile, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on Wednesday issued a rare confession that "the coronavirus has spread to nearly all parts of the country."

Even as government officials sit yards away from each other at meetings now in an effort to stop its spread, the virus is ravaging both the country's civilian leadership and its Shiite theocracy. A top emergency official and at least 23 members of parliament reportedly contracted the virus and now suffer from the COVID-19 illness it causes.

There are now over 2,540 cases of the new virus across the Mideast, with 2,336 in Iran alone. Of those outside Iran in the region, most link back to the Islamic republic.

Experts worry Iran's percentage of deaths to infections, now around 3.3%, is much higher than other countries, suggesting the number of infections in Iran may be far greater than current figures show. Meanwhile, a gloved Khamenei sought to minimize the virus while praising the doctors and nurses combating the outbreak. He urged the nation to pray.

"This disaster, in our opinion, is not such a big disaster, there have been and there are bigger disasters than this," Khamenei said. "Of course I don't want to downplay the issue, but let's not exaggerate it much either. Something has happened, it will exist in the country for a time, which hopefully will be short, and then it will go away."

As cases rise exponentially daily, it appears like the virus won't be going away soon.

Iran stands alone in how the virus has affected its government, even compared to hard-hit China, the epicenter of the outbreak. Worldwide, the virus has infected 90,000 people and caused 3,100 deaths.

The death of Expediency Council member Mohammad Mirmohammadi on Monday makes him the highest-ranking official within Iran's leadership to be killed by the virus. State media referred to him as a confidant of Khamenei.

The virus earlier killed Hadi Khosroshahi, Iran's former ambassador to the Vatican, as well as a recently elected member of parliament. Ahmad Tuyserkani, an adviser to Iran's judiciary chief, died Monday night from the virus, semiofficial media reported.

Those sick include Vice President Masoumeh Ebtekar, better known as "Sister Mary," the English-speaking spokeswoman for the students who seized the US Embassy in Tehran in 1979 and sparked the 444-day hostage crisis, state media reported. Also sick is Iraj Harirchi, the head of an Iranian government task force on the coronavirus who tried to downplay the virus before falling ill.

On Tuesday, lawmaker Abdolreza Mesri told Iranian state television's Young Journalists Club program that 23 members of parliament had the coronavirus. He urged all lawmakers to avoid the public.

Iran's state-run IRNA news agency also reported that Pirhossein Koulivand, head of the country's emergency services, had come down with the new virus. It said he was undergoing treatment.

In the last week, Iran offered temporary furloughs to over 54,000 prisoners, nearly a third of all prisoners held in the country, the judiciary's Mizan news agency reported. That's as activists have raised concerns over the possible spread of the new virus in Iran's prisons.

Officials previously said they had plans for 300,000 soldiers and members of the Basij to sanitize public areas, direct traffic and trace contacts that sick people had with others. The IRGC also has been spraying down streets in major Iranian cities.

"Whatever helps public health and prevents the spread of the disease is good and what helps to spread it is sin," Khamenei said at an annual tree-planting ceremony. He had never worn gloves at the ceremony in recent years.

Also on Tuesday, the advocacy group NetBlocks said Wikipedia's Farsi-language website appeared to be disrupted in Iran for around 24 hours. NetBlocks described the disruption as being nationwide, saying its technical testing suggests the online encyclopedia is being blocked by the same mechanism used to block Twitter and Facebook. Those social media websites have been banned since Iran's disputed 2009 presidential election and Green Movement protests.

The disruption ended Tuesday afternoon, without authorities acknowledging it.

The disruption raises fears of Iran potentially shutting off the internet entirely again, as it did for a week during economic protests in November. Iran separately has created its own so-called "halal" net of government-approved websites.

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The slain commander, Abdolhossein Mojaddami, was gunned down in front of his home in the town of Darkhoein.

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The Basij is a volunteer paramilitary wing of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps used for internal security and other tasks, such as violent suppression of civilian protests.

Mojaddami, who headed the local Basij force in Darkhoein, was said to be an associate of the recently slain general, Qassem Soleimani.

According to Islamic Republic News Agency, the official news agency of Iran, two gunmen on a motorcycle, armed with an assault rifle and a hunting rifle, ambushed Mojaddami. Other Iranian media outlets said the gunmen's faces were covered with masks and that four shots were fired.

No one has yet claimed responsibility for the assassination nor has a motive been established, Iranian media reports said, but Basij units had been involved in violent clashes with demonstrators in the area in November in which many protesters were wounded and killed.

Mojaddami's killing is seen as another blow to the IRGC, following the death of Soleimani earlier this month in a US drone strike in Iraq.

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The blacklisted targets were announced by the Terrorist Financing Targeting Center nations – which also include Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

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US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin made the announcement as part of a trip to visit several of these Middle East allies to bolster their support for increasing pressure on Iran.

All 25 targets were previously under financial sanctions imposed by the United States.

"The president couldn't be more clear that we are executing a maximum pressure campaign on Iran," Mnuchin told Reuters in an interview in Riyadh. "This is about stopping a bad actor."

In Jerusalem on Monday, Mnuchin said the United States would increase economic pressure on Iran over its nuclear program.

Sanctions reimposed on Tehran by US President Donald Trump after he withdrew the United States from world powers' 2015 nuclear pact with Tehran have dried up Iranian oil revenue and cut Iranian banks' ties to the financial world.

Mnuchin said the sanctions aimed at halting Iranian oil shipments were not hurting the global economy, adding that oil markets were well-supplied with additional production from Saudi Arabia, the United States and other countries.

Tensions between the United States, its Gulf allies and Iran spiked in recent months after attacks on oil tankers and a September airstrike on Saudi oil facilities, which the United States blamed on Iran, but that Tehran has denied.

Twenty-one of the targets announced on Wednesday comprised a vast network of businesses providing financial support to the Basij Resistance Force, a paramilitary group that the US Treasury says works for Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

A senior Treasury official said the group attacks demonstrators and students, recruits child soldiers and engages in torture.

The Treasury said shell companies and other measures were used to mask Basij ownership and control over multibillion-dollar business interests in Iran's automotive, mining, metals, and banking industries, many of which operate across the Middle East and Europe.

Four individuals targeted were Hezbollah-affiliated and help coordinate the group's operations in Iraq, it said.

Earlier this month, the Financial Action Task Force – the international body that sets standards on combating terrorist financing – said it had given Iran a final deadline of February 2020 to comply with international norms, after which it would urge members to apply counter-measures.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Wednesday welcomed the move by Paris-based FATF, saying in a statement that the IRGC "continues to engage in large-scale, illicit, financing schemes to fund its malign activities."

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