Abolfazl Shekarchi, a brigadier general and senior spokesman for Iran’s armed forces, said on Wednesday journalists working for Persian-language media abroad could be placed on a list of military targets.
“Media outlets such as Iran International, BBC Persian and Radio Farda are directly connected to Mossad, the US Central Intelligence Agency and other foreign intelligence services and receive support from them,” he said.
He called the employees of the Persian-language outlets “soldiers of Israel and the United States,” adding: “They can be included in the bank of military targets because, from our perspective, these are not media outlets.”
He provided no evidence for the accusations.
The remarks extend years of military and ideological rhetoric from Shekarchi against people and organizations Iranian authorities consider hostile, from protesters and opponents of compulsory hijab to foreign officials and media organizations.
PS752 reports called ‘absolute lies’
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards shot down Ukraine International Airlines Flight PS752 shortly after takeoff on January 8, 2020, killing all 176 people aboard.
Reports that an Iranian surface-to-air missile had brought down the Boeing 737 were “absolute lies” and “ridiculous,” Shekarchi said as evidence pointing to a missile strike emerged.
Abolfazl Shekarchi, spokesman for Iran’s armed forces, speaks on a program about the 12-day war, with centrifuge replicas forming the backdrop, September 24, 2026.
Shekarchi portrayed the reports as psychological warfare against Iran, while Iranian authorities initially attributed the crash to a technical problem.
Iran’s armed forces acknowledged three days after the disaster that its air defenses had shot down the passenger plane, saying it had been mistakenly identified as a hostile target during a period of heightened confrontation with the United States.
The admission triggered protests in Iran and abroad and accusations that authorities had sought to conceal responsibility for the disaster.
Shekarchi’s categorical denial became one of the most prominent official responses to early reporting on PS752 before the armed forces acknowledged that an Iranian missile had brought down the aircraft.
His latest accusations against foreign-based Persian-language media employ a similar framework, casting journalism and information as components of an enemy operation.
Protesters and hijab opponents
Shekarchi has also directed security and military rhetoric at domestic dissent.
During nationwide protests in 2022, Shekarchi described demonstrators as deceived and accused the United States of seeking to manufacture deaths to sustain the unrest.
The protests spread across Iran following the death in morality-police custody of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman detained over compulsory hijab rules.
His rhetoric had already extended to opponents of compulsory hijab.
Participants in a campaign encouraging women to appear in public without mandatory head coverings, along with artists supporting them, were “forces of Satan,” Shekarchi said.
Thousands detained over coronavirus information
Shekarchi also played a public role in the authorities’ response to information circulating during the coronavirus pandemic.
Around 3,600 people had been detained by police and the Basij over what authorities characterized as rumors or false information about the outbreak, with more than 1,100 judicial cases opened, Shekarchi said in April 2020.
The figures showed the scale of the authorities’ effort to police information about the pandemic as questions mounted over infection and death figures.
Shekarchi also drew criticism after minimizing coronavirus deaths among military personnel and healthcare workers.
The deaths of four doctors, nurses and paramedics were “not a number” of significance, Shekarchi said during the early months of the pandemic.
The coronavirus outbreak became another period in which Iranian authorities treated the dissemination of information as a security matter, with people detained or prosecuted over online material about the disease.
Threats beyond Iran
Shekarchi’s rhetoric has also targeted Israeli and US officials and personnel abroad.
Israel’s destruction was Iran’s “greatest aspiration,” Shekarchi said in 2021, presenting it as an objective from which the Islamic Republic would not retreat.
Even tourist and recreational locations around the world would not necessarily provide safety for American and Israeli officials targeted by Iran, Shekarchi warned in March.
“From now on, based on the information we have on you, tourist destinations, resorts, and recreational and leisure venues around the world will no longer be safe for you.”
Abolfazl Shekarchi, spokesman for Iran’s armed forces, visits a news agency in Tehran.
Earlier, responding to threats by US President Donald Trump against Iran’s leadership, Shekarchi said an attack on Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei would prompt Iran to “set their world on fire” and leave its adversaries without a safe haven.
“Trump knows that if a hand is raised against our leader, not only will we decisively and courageously cut off that hand, but we will set their world on fire, give them no respite and leave them no safe haven.”
His latest remarks extend such language explicitly to journalists working outside Iran.