Bombs on Al-Quds Day

Explosions struck near an official Al-Quds Day rally in Tehran today, while security chief Ali Larijani, President Masoud Pezeshkian and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi were in attendance. At least one person was killed. Israel and Iran exchanged fresh strikes during the event. The IRGC pledged to deliver an "unforgettable lesson" to the US and Israel, and warned that any protests would face a harsher crackdown than in January.

The timing is significant. Al-Quds Day, instituted by Khomeini in 1979, is the annual date on which the regime mobilises the faithful in solidarity with Palestine and against Israel. That Israel bombed Tehran during the most important rally on the revolutionary calendar, with the entire surviving leadership metres from the impacts, is a message that needs no translation. It is not merely a military strike: it is a calculated humiliation.

The regime, for its part, used the event to show it still functions. Trump said today the war is going "very well" and that he would hit Iran "very hard" over the next week. Yahya Rahim Safavi, adviser to the new supreme leader, called Trump "the most corrupt and stupid American president" and "Satan himself" on state television. Rhetoric is escalating on both sides. But there is a difference: one side has bombs falling on its capital and the other is the one dropping them.