"Seeing these people chanting what I was hearing from those who were beating me on the streets of Tehran is  traumatizing."

"The real people of Iran [are not among them because they know] government is manipulating their ideologies and their beliefs and their unity." 

Ghazal Shokri, Iranian Canadian 

 

"[These events in Canada are] essentially an IRGC rally to spread its violent ideology. [Canada can no longer] tolerate any further escalation of radicalization or risks to our national security." 

"Canadian leaders should denounce Al Quds Day as a terrorist threat."

"We urge law enforcement and governments to make use of every tool available to uphold public safety and take decisive measures to confront this growing danger: arrest and prosecute extremists inciting violence, remove Iranian regime-linked individuals from the country and prevent further infiltration and criminalize the wilful promotion of terrorism." 

Noah Shack, CEO, president, Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs

The Al Quds Day protest outside the courthouse at 361 University Avenue in downtown Toronto in March 2019. This year's event is set for Saturday, March 14. Photo by Jack Boland /Toronto Sun/Postmedia

 

A horrified world was witness in January to Iranian citizens gathering by the tens of thousands in cities all across Iran to condemn and demand the end of the Islamic Republic which has, since 1979, dominated and persecuted its own population, while forming, training, arming and commanding proxy terrorist groups throughout the Middle East with a focus on Shiite domination in a Sunni-Muslim majority region. Its often-stated designs to obliterate Israel 'from the map of the Middle East' and its fear-mongering threats of nuclear designs and ballistic missiles have led to escalating international attacks.

 

The regime's response was swift and deadly, tasking its Basij police linked to the Islamic Republican Guard Corps to use all means and methods to strike down the protesters. Tens of thousands of Iranian civilians were wounded, more were imprisoned and subjected to torture, while an estimated 30,000 Iranian protesters were killed, before the protests were put to a halt. This mass atrocity was addressed by the United Nations Human Rights Council which urged "full respect for the sovereignty, independence, unity and territorial integrity of the Islamic Republic of Iran".  

"This is promotion of terrorism in our streets."

"We are  calling on all of those who are speaking out today and beyond, to actually make sure that sort of thing and Al Quds Day specifically, is shut down, and is not allowed to take place in Toronto, or anywhere in this country, because hateful words, hateful demonstrations turn into this kind of violent attack, and we need to end it now."

Sara Lefton, CJA Federation of Greater Toronto  

CJA

 

And while the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) is recognized for what it is, a listed terrorist group banned in Canada, an event established by the Iranian regime that takes place annually at the end of the Islamic holiday of Ramadan, Al-Quds Day (Arabic name for Jerusalem opposing Israel's 'occupation' of its own hereditary city of ancient Judean origins) is celebrated on the streets of Toronto and elsewhere in Canada, as it is wherever Muslim extremists are, led by the infiltration of the Muslim Brotherhood and the IRGC in Western countries.

 

These are events taking place globally which call for the destruction of Israel and the death of Israelis in support of the Iranian regime and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps agenda. The U.K. government this week approved the London Metropolitan Police request to ban the event, citing a risk of "severe public disorder". In place of the march, organizers will now resort to a static protest in Britain. A change of tactics, while the message and the threats that accompany the event remain. 

 

Earlier in the week a statement was issued for the city's legal department "to seek an injunction to stop this hate gathering" scheduled to take place in front of the U.S. consulate on Saturday, on the part of Toronto Coun. James Pasternak who urged governments and law enforcement agencies to act on infractions of the Canadian Criminal Code, Toronto's own hate rallies policy and bylaws: "I know hate when I see it and the Al Quds day march is NOT Charter protected", wrote Mr. Pasternak. 

"[The annual event is not "a neutral protest", but a "foreign interference in Canadian affairs."

"I think I, and a lot of other Iranian Canadians, view it as a show of force by the Islamic regime in Canada."

"And I think it's intended to send a message to the Canadian community as a whole, but particularly Iranian Canadians, about the power that Iran's regime can exercise even outside the country."

"I think, as you can see on your television, as you have seen in the past couple of months, Iranians, both in that country and outside of it, want democracy, they want human rights, they want equality and they denounce violence of every kind."

Iranian Canadian Kaveh Shahrooz, lawyer, human rights activist, fellow, McDonald Laurier Institute 

"We will be a moderate country."

"I have a genuine fear of prosecution from the Qatari government. And I've faced a lot of issues being outside Qatar. [There is a] high cost [for a security detail]. If they have the chance to get me, they will get me."

"I support peace with Israel and I definitely have opened the diplomatic channels with Israel."

"[Under my leadership Qatar would] absolutely never [bankroll designated terror groups]."

"That's one of the main things that a lot of Qatari people actually want. Because Hamas should not be existing in Qatar, al-Qaida should not be in Doha. Taliban should not be in Qatar."

"We should not pay the salaries of Hamas leaders. We should not pay the salaries of all these terror groups."

Sheikh Khalid Al-Hail, exiled Qatari political leader

Sheikh Khalid Al-Hail, the president of the Qatari National Democratic Party, and self-proclaimed opposition leader. Photo by Handout /Postmedia

 

President of the Qatari National Democratic Party, founder and opposition leader to the current Qatari government, Sheikh Al-Hail lives in exile in London, building a government-in-waiting, for a Doha far different from the current reality. As a wealthy businessman, Sheikh Al-Hail had once served as chairman of the board of over 30 Qatari companies with large-scale ventures country-wide. He left for London in 2013 as chairman and chief executive of Qatar Investment and Development Co.

 

In the space of a year, political differences of vast dimension between himself and newly-installed Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani saw his status changed from a highly respected Qatari businessman to a political opponent no longer welcome in his country of birth. A country while ostensibly an ally of the United States, the ruling elite of Qatar shelters and bankrolls Islamist Hamas, Taliban, al-Qaida affiliates and networks of the Muslim Brotherhood as one of the world's key state jihadi terrorism enablers.

 

Al Jazeera, the state's media arm, while barred in ten Arab countries, acts as a spokespiece for the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas positions in the interests of shaping opinion through media propaganda across the West and throughout the Arab world. Formerly an associate of a previous Qatar prime minister Hamad bin Jassim, Sheik Al-Hail was once welcome within the inner circle of the ruling elite before his break with the regime. The party he now leads began in 2010 as the Qatari Youth Rescue Movement, its goal to "reform the system in Qatar".  

"[I envision a Qatar governed by a constitutional monarchy, with a] normal parliament, house of commons, house of lords -- democracy is key. We believe in freedom of speech and freedom of faith."

"[The sitting rulers, a coterie of family members, are] a gang and a mafia, that control our country and our wealth, and that's not acceptable."

"What you face in Qatar is actually the policy makers, most of them Muslim Brotherhood, and pro-Hamas. Qatari people have nothing to do with Muslim Brotherhood."

Sheikh Khalid Al-Hail 

Prager U

He first began to loom in the critical notice of the regime when he spoke publicly of "a corrupt financial system", propped up by political favouritism and patronage from the emir of Qatar. In 2014, the Sheik returned to Qatar after the assurances of Al Thani that he would be welcomed back. On his arrival back in Qatar he was taken to a "national security detention" centre, under accusations of planning a regime change. "I was surprised and shocked". In the 22 days that followed, he was tortured and bound through 20 hours of daily interrogation. 

 

He managed to escape with outside intervention, ("my people managed to smuggle me outside") -- fled to Egypt with over 9,000 documents revealing the extent of corruption by Qatari officials which included a scheme to overthrow the ruling family of Saudi Arabia. Qatar, he said "turned on Israel" in stages; cutting formal ties under regional pressure at the time of the Second Intifada; followed by  patronizing the terrorist group Hamas and its leaders. As a first act on becoming leader of Qatar, the Sheikh spoke of putting the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas on a plane to be "sent to Israel to face justice".  

 

Qatar's influence and the Muslim Brotherhood networks reach deep into Canada and other western democracies, stated the Sheikh. The largest foreign investor in US. higher education routing $6.6 billion into major universities, as a design to buy influence. Billions of Qatari dollars were infused into U.S. governmental institutions and policy-shaping systems, according to the Foundation for Defense of Democracies as well as a report by the Wall Street Journal.

 

Prager U

As for Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney's recent trip to Qatar and announcement of increased ties with the country -- in defence, trade and high tech -- this would have the effect of further ensnaring Canada into the same trap laid out for the United States, of a benign, trustworthy Middle East country -- despite all indications to the contrary -- with the allure of profitable bilateral trade, blinding Ottawa to the threats inherent in the presence of Qatari-aligned groups in Canada; Hezbollah and Hamas along with the Muslim Brotherhood among them. 

"The Canadian government has given tens and tens of millions of dollars to Muslim-Brotherhood-aligned groups, for Islamophobia file projects."

"For you to be Liberal is not an issue; but for you to be stupid, that's the problem."

Sheikh Khalid Al-Hail 

"[Needless, avoidable deaths are recurring] with unsettling regularity, not randomly, not rarely [in Canada's hospitals; a function of choked and overwhelmed emergency departments]."

"[The dark reality is a] hidden pandemic [of excess deaths, higher than] citizens of a highly developed country have a right to expect."

"A patient waits for hours in a Canadian emergency department, deteriorates quietly, sometimes visibly, then dies before being assessed, [most often from a heart attack, stroke or sepsis]."

Report published in the Canadian Journal of Emergency Medicine  

"People are despondent. They're scared that there are going to be bad outcomes and they're going to feel responsible. But they don't see any respite."

"[Emergency departments are now in a] chronic disaster state; [the capacity required to care for patients] patently inadequate."

"It's got completely out of control and meets the formal definition of disaster -- a serious disruption of functioning, that exceed the ability of available resources and results in excess harm -- on a daily basis."

"When there is crowding all over the hospital, it leads to chaos in the ED and bad things predictably happen in that setting."

"Eventually our system will just be seen by the public as unsustainable. I've got many friends who once believed that our health system was a defining feature of being Canadian, who are losing faith in the system."

"Until we are able to translate the real lives lost in this hidden pandemic into terms that will resonate emotionally with the public -- that will make them say this is untenable -- we won't get anywhere."

"We are failing to deliver on a defining national priority. The feds have to do something."

Dr. Alecs Chochinov, professor of medicine, University of Manitoba 

Across Canada, emergency rooms are routinely operating beyond 100 per cent capacity. Photo by John Mahoney/Postmedia/File

 

In actual fact, the feds have 'done something'. They have helped to destroy that 'defining national priority' which they fail to recognize as one of their most vital responsibilities. The federal government -- the Liberal government, in all its successions -- views immigration as a far more important national priority than national security, much less the social benefits in health and welfare that any responsible government, particularly that of a recognized 'first-world' economy must see as its primary function. 

 

The Liberal government is obsessed with trade and prosperity for the nation, to be sure, alarmed at the falling birth rate, determined not to exploit the country's natural resources, and eager for a workforce that will continue to labour mightily to feature its special green and social welfare programs that appear to exclude the well-being of its population in its focus on promoting Critical Race Theory, DEI and wokeism. Where transgender rights and economic migrant intake reign supreme.

 

Under Canada's Liberal governments immigration, refugee intake and migrant acceptance have ballooned to the point where the government departments responsible for administering the programs along with verifying the status of applicants with background checks for undesirable affiliations and actions have gone by the board. Where due to indifference and lax attitudes toward security, Canada is a great place to launder financing of terrorism abroad.

 

Where on the streets of Canada operatives of the very terrorist groups that have made their deserved presence on the federal government's own proscribed terrorist lists walk about freely to harass and threaten Canadians. Where an estimated 600 agents of the Islamic Republic of Iran's government, its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Basij police have a presence, enjoying Canada's comfortable way of life. Where members of Hezbollah and Hamas have integrated themselves, along with the Muslim Brotherhood through infiltration of the country. 

 

Where they engage in the illicit drug trade, human smuggling, money laundering and the presence of illegal cryptocurrency shops that illegally send money abroad, funding terrorist groups as well as Iran's IRGC itself. Refugees brought in from Syria and the Palestinian territories to Canada so overwhelm the system of verification and application approval that scant attention is given to background checks resulting in Canada hosting as permanent residents and citizens, individuals highly connected with terrorism.

 

The fallout of the immense numbers of immigrants, refugees, migrants and foreign students on study visas that added millions to the Canadian population in just the last few years has had the added effect of straining the country's social welfare system, its public schools, housing, and hospital-medical facilities. There is a dire shortage of medical personnel; doctors, nurses, specialists, technicians and hospital beds. Schools are burdened with children learning English, and bringing with them the cultural attitudes of their home countries. 

 

"A review is launched, a statement is issued. Regret is expressed, perhaps a policy adjusted."

"Then the system resumes its normal operation."

"When patients stop moving, they accumulate. And the place where they accumulate is the only part of the system that cannot refuse entry [the Emergency Room]."

Report published in the Canadian Journal of Emergency Medicine  

 

Professor Alecs Chochinow and his colleagues produced a commentary on the state of Canada's health care system, stressing the stories behind media reports of people dying after waiting long hours for care in hospital emergency rooms. Their report was published in the Canadian Journal of Emergency Medicine. In it, they produce startling figures and statistics as well as individual examples of the hapless failure of the country's universal medicare system.

 

As a result of emergency department crowding, they point out, an estimated 8,000 to 15,000 Canadians die each year. Deaths take place in the ED, on the wards or following a patient's release from  hospital prematurely to the patient's actual need for continued hospitalization. A 55-year-old woman died of cardiac arrest after waiting 11 hours in an emergency department in Winnipeg, awaiting admission to a hospital room. Another 44-year-old man died after spending 8 hours with chest pains in an Edmonton emergency room.  

"[It's not uncommon to have people in] 10-out-of-10 abdominal pain with no pain medication, no comfort and nowhere to sit for 12 hours in our emergency department because we can't them them in."

Alberta physician Dr. Paul Parks 

 A list of at least six potentially preventable deaths occurring over a two-week period was compiled in Alberta, including a 50-year-old man who perished from a bacterial blood infection causing multiple-organ failure. Emergency rooms across Canada routinely operate beyond 100 percent capacity; 30 to 40 stretchers and cubicles occupied by people assessed and 'admitted' to hospital are placed there awaiting an empty bed on a ward; beds filled with patients no longer requiring care, but nowhere to go to; in long-term care, or home care, or rehab.

Staff burnout, delayed diagnoses, errors and excess deaths result from this kind of crowding, with crowded emergency departments seen as proxies for crowded and dysfunctional hospitals. The federal government shrugs; health is a provincial matter. Yet the Canada Health Act points to timely access to care as a priority.

The emergency department of the Rockyview General Hospital is pictured in Calgary. (Jeff McIntosh/The Canadian Press)

 

Protesters in New York City chanted “death to America, death to Israel” in Farsi at a vigil honoring late Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in New York City on Friday night, shortly after clashes erupted with counter-protesters, resulting in multiple arrests.

The 86-year-old Iranian supreme leader was killed in Tehran on Saturday in the initial joint US-Israeli airstrikes that started the war, with his death confirmed by the Iranian government the following day.

Protesters set up images of Khamenei on two tables alongside flowers and candles, with signs reading, “Solidarity with Iran.” Other pictures included US civil rights leader Malcolm X and George Floyd, and the display table also carried copies of zines with titles such as “Zionism and Racist Landlords” and “ICE & Friends.

The event, held in Washington Square Park, was billed as both a memorial for Khamenei — whose death was dubbed by those present as an “assassination by US government forces” — and for “all martyrs of Amerikan [sic] imperialism.”

“We must live like the ayatollah did, with his heart for his people, and we must die like he did,” a speaker told the crowd.

The protesters chanted, “Death to the IDF,” and, “Al Qassam you make us proud, kill another soldier now,” a reference to Hamas’s Al Qassam Brigades. One man waved a Hezbollah flag. Both Hamas and Hezbollah are US-designated terrorist groups.

The protest was endorsed by at least 18 smaller activist groups, such as the Bronx Anti-War Coalition, the far-left Workers World Party and Crown Heights Bites Back, according to a statement from organizers. The larger anti-Zionist activist groups in the city did not sign on.

Some of the organizers have had contact with the Iranian mission to the United Nations.

The Times of Israel

Demonstrators chant during a vigil honoring Iran's late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in New York, March 6, 2026. (Luke Tress/Times of Israel)

A think tank has identified at least 27 UK universities where student societies and affiliated groups have mourned the death of Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Evidence compiled by The Henry Jackson Society shows student groups - primarily Ahlul-Bayt or similarly aligned Islamic societies - have shared messages referring to Khamenei as a “martyr”, organised memorial events, or circulated content praising the Iranian regime.

Universities where such activity has been recorded include University College London, Cambridge, Manchester, Edinburgh, Bristol, Southampton, Surrey, Cardiff, Glasgow, Brunel, Kingston, Westminster, King's College London and Imperial College London, among others.

Some societies organised commemorative events on campus, while others posted condolence graphics, shared vigil material or cancelled events “in honour of our beloved Shuhada”.

GB News

Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was killed in the first weekend of the conflict | GETTY

"I am an individual with many faults and shortcomings" he said in his inaugural address, and "truly a minor seminarian". It was, at the time, an accurate self-assessment for a mid-ranking cleric in the hierarchical world of Shiite Islam." 

"Over the next four decades, this seemingly unqualified cleric who rose to the top almost by chance would become one of the world's longest-serving autocrats, confounding every American president since George H.W. Bush. He would at one point become the most powerful man in the Middle East, dominating five failing lands -- Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen and Gaza."

"This ambition and hubris also led to his downfall. He came to govern with the hypervigilance and brutality of a man driven by the idea that much of his own society and the world's greatest superpower sought to unseat him -- which, in the end, it did."

Karim Sadjadepour, senior fellow, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace  

Born in Mashhad, second of eight children of a cleric in 1939, Ali Khamenei was enrolled in religious education by age five where his formative years were spent in the Mashhad seminary. He failed to attain senior religious credentials. A family formula repeated by his second-oldest son Mojtaba, now elevated to the position his father vacated on his death. Reputed to be even more averse to human rights than his father Ali, Mojtaba, a pedestrian cleric, but an enthusiastic dabbler in pricey real estate, has achieved a fortune, just like his father; real estate investments in world capitals took precedence over religious matters.

 

In his early 20s, Ali Ayatollah became acquainted with the politics of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeni, who was considered an Islamist cleric of the first order. He was also a harsh critic of the more secularist Shah of Iran who exiled him in 1964. One of Ayatollah Khomeini's passionate admirers for his defiance of royal authority, in Khomeini's exiled absence, Ali Khamenei spouted his mentor's positions on Islamic government for Iran. He gained distinction in this passion for negating authority, by six arrests and solitary confinement. 

 

When Shah Pahlavi was deposed with the 1979 Islamic Revolution that overtook 2,500 years of Persian monarchy, Ayatollah Khomeini returned from exile to rule over a new Islamic Republic, raising Khamenei from obscurity to the position of president of the Islamic Republic. Following a decade of rule, Ayatollah Khomeini died just as its brutal eight-year conflict with Iraq came to an end. With no clear successor to his rule, Ali Khamenei was named, and took on the title of Ayatollah, to become Iran's Supreme Leader as Grand Ayatollah.

 

Khamenei, while presenting himself as a religious leader with no pretensions to personal wealth in fact accumulated vast wealth accessed through Iranian private property seized by the theocratic state. While Khamenei's decrees and authority ensured that the population of the Islamic Republic had no access to international finance, nothing deterred him from building immense financial wealth. He took state funds to spend billions from energy extraction in funding his "axis of resistance" in the Middle East, while Iranians suffered the economic impact of sanctions and inflation.

 

The Hamas-led invasion of southern Israel with an orgy of sadistic savagery in the commission of mass rapes, large-scale slaughter and atrocities on a Medieval scale of torture and mutilations of children, entire families immolated in their homes, abductions and destruction committed by thousands of Palestinian terrorists represented a triumph of 'resistance' to 'occupation' of Zionists in the Middle East to Khamenei who celebrated the shattering event. 

 

Israel's response against Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and Houthis in Yemen, all terror proxies of Iran, began to destroy the Islamic Republic's 'ring of fire' around the Jewish state, that was meant for its destruction. The axis of resistance was wholly diminished by the Israel's assassination of Hamas's Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran and Yahya Sinwar in Gaza, along with the Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. 

 

When Israel and the United States struck Iran in June of 2025 in a 12-day war against military installations, assassinating elite Revolutionary Guards commanders and regime authorities, while the U.S. dropped bunker-busting bombs on nuclear sites, Ayatollah Khamenei was mysteriously absent, hidden away for safety before finally emerging with the raids completed, to declare victory for Iran. 

 

Iran celebrated that victory months later when cities across the country were engulfed in huge anti-regime demonstrations, with Iranian citizens demanding the end of theocratic rule. Ayatollah Khamenei ordered the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and their Basij police offshoots to spare no efforts in cracking down on the dissenters using all means necessary to halt any further demonstrations against the government. The deadly crackdown led to an estimated 30,000 citizens being killed, tens of thousands of Iranian citizens injured and arrested. 

 

Now in its death throes, the Islamic Republic has devoted itself to instituting a dynastic follow-up to the death of the Supreme Leader, replacing him with a man cloned in his image in every conceivable way. The IRGC will not go easily. Its command structure swiftly replaces those that are extinguished. Their reason for existence is to continue the strategy mapped out for them first by Khomeini, then by Khamenei, to ensure that Shia Islam dominates the numerically superior Sunni form of Islam by conquest. And to destroy any vestiges of the West and democracy in the Middle East, beginning with Israel. 

 

Members of the Iranian community in Sydney celebrate after US-Israeli air strikes killed Ali Khamenei, March 1. David Gray/AFP via Getty Images

 

"It is absolutely unacceptable that those leaders who are incapable of fulfilling that duty [to make peoples' lives better] use the smoke of war to hide their failures and, in the process, line the pockets of a few -- the only ones who win when the world stops building hospitals to start making missiles."

"You can’t respond to one illegality with another because that’s how humanity’s great disasters begin."

"You can’t play Russian roulette with the destiny of millions … Nobody knows for sure what will happen now. Even the objectives of those who launched the first attack are unclear. But we must be prepared, as the proponents say, for the possibility that this will be a long war, with numerous casualties and, therefore, with serious economic consequences on a global scale."

"We are not going to be complicit in something that is bad for the world and is also contrary to our values and interests, just out of fear of reprisals from someone."

"MAGA-style leaders may say that our country can’t handle taking in so many migrants — that this is a suicidal move, the desperate act of a collapsing country. But don’t let them fool you. Spain is booming." 

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez 

President Donald Trump greets Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez during a summit to support ending the more than two-year Israel-Hamas war in Gaza after a breakthrough ceasefire deal, Monday, October 13, 2025, in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, Pool)

"Iran represents a miscalculation for Spain."

"The U.S. will find other ports or bases from which to launch its operations. Spain gains nothing from this equation and risks reinforcing its position as a political opponent at a particularly sensitive moment."

"Energy prices could ultimately derail the current government."

Joan Luis Manfredi, senior lecturer in foreign policy, University of Castilla-La Mancha 

 

"Sanchez has been the European leader who most consistently and publicly has pushed back against the things Trump has done that he doesn't like."

His public criticism is even more noticeable given the studied silence of most other European leaders."

Amanda Sloat, professor, IE University, Spain  

This would be the very same Spanish Prime Minister who has accused Israel of  'genocide' against the Palestinians in Gaza and succeeded in imposing an arms embargo on Israel. He also pronounced Spain's official recognition of a Palestinian state, along with France, the United Kingdom and Canada. That Hamas, the terrorist group governing Gaza precipitated the conflict in Gaza when it sent 6,000 of its operatives into southern Israel to embark on a orgy of rape, torture and slaughter is immaterial to this man who feels one 'illegality' does not justify another.

 

Politicians, he waxed sanctimonious, should be engaged in making lives bettee for people; the attack by the United States and Israel on Iran, in his opinion, was 'illegal' and unjustifiable. As the most senior socialist leader in the European Union, more radically left than even Britain's Keir Starmer, Sanchez stands alone in his outright denunciation of the President of the United States, eschewing diplomacy for the more direct route of full frontal accusation.

 

As a self-declared pacifist, it seems nothing -- no provocation, no empathy for a people suffering under the yoke of Islamofascism exercised by a theocratic government, nor outrage over the Islamic Republic's threats to annihilate a neighbouring country, much less sponsor a coterie of diehard Jew-hating jihadists to do its bidding through a Shi'ite 'ring of fire' surrounding Israel threatening its existence through violent 'resistance' to its presence on ancient Judean land -- could persuade him that pre-emptive existential action is ever warranted.

 

The malign international presence of a theocracy that worships a god that demands total submission in every facet of life, including dedication to jihad in the interests of global Islamic domination, and awaits the return of the 'hidden Mahdi' whose appearance will presage Armageddon and the ascent of all faithfully loyal Muslims to heaven, while the world is destroyed, believes that the return can be hastened by a man-made catastrophe of immense dimensions -- which the possession of nuclear devices could certainly assist in, fazes Sanchez not at all.

 

Spain has minimal direct trade exposure to the U.S. within the euro zone; below average for exporters in the euro zone, but its dependence on gas imports from the United States represents a trade Achilles heel, at a time when President Trump threatens to cut off trade with Spain. "We don't want anything to do with Spain", said the U.S. president, leaving the possibility of an halt to commerce through a blanket 'embargo'.  Spain is a liquefied natural gas hub for Europe with the US. accounting for 31 percent of its recent supply, rising to 44 percent in January.

 

Pedro Sánchez addressed the nation the morning after President Trump said he did not want 'anything to do' with Spain. La Moncloa Handout

"I believe our position is not naive at all."

"We will not be complicit in something that is bad for the world, and is contrary to our values and interests simply out of fear of reprisals from somebody."

"Spain’s position is the same as in Ukraine or Gaza. No to the breakdown of international law that protects us all. No to resolving conflicts with bombs. No to war."

"The world has been here before. Twenty-three years ago, another U.S. administration led us into an unjust war. The Iraq War led to a dramatic increase in terrorism and a serious migration and economic crisis. That was the gift of the ‘Azores Three’ (George W. Bush, Tony Blair and former Spanish prime minister José María Aznar) : a more insecure world and a worse life."

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez 

Yes, the world HAS been here before; in 1938 to be precise, when Britain's Prime Minister 

Neville Chamberlain following the Munich Agreement, arrived back home to triumphantly proclaim: "Peace for our time".  

 

"The war in Iran has been well underway for a week. Iran’s former Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and much of the regime’s leadership are dead, more than two thousand targets have been struck across the country, and per U.S. Central Command, the U.S. military has “struck or sunk” more than thirty Iranian ships. Iran has retaliated in full force, unlike its token attack against U.S. forces in Qatar after Operation Midnight Hammer, striking military, civilian, and infrastructure targets in eleven countries so far."

"With the exception of China, Russia, and maybe North Korea, very few countries are going to cry tears for the loss of Khamenei, whatever their public posture on the U.S. and Israeli attacks at the moment. His regime wreaked havoc across the region, sponsored terrorism, and had challenged U.S. interests and the interests of Western and Gulf countries for some time. Nevertheless, there is still clearly some discomfort with the operation, from Capitol Hill to our European allies and throughout the Middle East. At the risk of stating the obvious, my sense is that this operation will ultimately be judged on its long-term outcome. If we end up with a more stable and peaceful region and a less hostile Iranian regime, it will be heralded as a resounding success. If, on the other hand, we find ourselves in a quagmire with ongoing chaos and conflict, there will be a lot of second-guessing."

Michael Froman, president, Council on Foreign Relations

Men watch from a hillside as a plume of smoke rises after an explosion on March 2, 2026 in Tehran, Iran. Majid Saeedi/Getty Images

 

"It could be six, it could be eight, it could be three [weeks before operations are concluded]."

"[The U.S. has an] unlimited supply of weapons."

"Iran is hoping we cannot sustain this."

"Our capabilities are overwhelming and gathering still, as are those of our Israeli partners."

"Our munitions are full up."

U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth  

If he isn't assassinated before being chosen, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei's second-oldest son, himself a hard-line cleric, without being the Islamic Shi'ite elite scholar -- the 'pope' of Islam's Shia minority's faithful -- his father was, may yet be named as his successor, as the next leader of Iran. Mojtaba Khamenei, in that role is without doubt, a marked man. One whom President Trump considers a 'lightweight' with whom the regime's policies would remain sacrosanct. 

 

Some Middle East and Iran experts hypothesize that Iran's Islamic Republican Guard Corps who answered to no authority but that of the Supreme Leader, and now continue to follow through on his final instructions, are counting on the U.S. and Israel running out of munitions. For while the IRGC sets off inexpensive drones, its challengers are making use of expensive missiles to intercept them. Reckoning that if they can hold out against the U.S. and Israel long enough, victory will be theirs.

 

In the meanwhile, they continue to lob missiles and drones at their near neighbours, friends and foes alike. That part of their wartime schematic posits that if the IRGC places their Gulf neighbours under enough strain and stress, they will demand a cessation of hostilities; for the U.S. and Israel to pull back and leave off hammering the Islamic Republic. It was revealed that Russia not only has given Iran intelligence on U.S. installations in the Gulf, but is also supplying them with drones; a reversal of Iran supplying Shahed drones to Russia for its conflict with Ukraine. 

 

"Action to reduce pressure on oil is imminent", Mr. Trump said Thursday even as pump prices advanced to their highest level since 2024 in the U.S. ahead of November midterm elections. Shipping through the Strait of Hormuz is at a near total halt, leaving exporters to scramble for routes away from the region. A protracted war could "bring down the economies of the world", warned Qatar. Gulf energy exporters could shut production within weeks, it was predicted. 

 

A barrage of missiles and drones targeting Gulf countries overnight and into Friday sent powerful blasts into Kuwait and Bahrain. Dubai sent out missile alerts for the second day, on Friday. While maintaining airstrikes on the Islamic Republic, Israel "significantly expanded" its presence on the ground in Lebanon where Tehran-linked Hezbollah sent missiles into Israel and for their trouble saw a wave of airstrikes by Israel hit the southern suburbs of Beirut, the Shia Hezbollah's stronghold. 

 

Smoke rises after an Israeli strike on Beirut's southern suburbs on Friday, following an escalation between Hezbollah and Israel in Lebanon amid the U.S.-Israeli conflict with Iran. As the conflict in the Middle East widens, Iran may find many of its traditional allies are reluctant to get directly involved. (Khalil Ashawi/Reuters)

 

The Islamic Republic, stated Iran's sidelined (by the IRGC) president Masoud Pezeshkian, is "committed to lasting peace", and to that end will continue to defend itself. For his part, Mr. Trump vowed to "totally demolish" Iranian forces, planning to "clean out" the Iranian leadership structure. So far in the joint U.S.-Israeli strikes, 1,332 people are estimated to have been killed, dozens others elsewhere in the region by Iran's retaliatory strikes, among them six U.S. troops. 

 

Overnight into Friday Arab states intercepted Iranian projectiles, with Bahrain revealing that the region's oldest refinery, a unit at its Sitra site, had caught fire, struck by a missile. An attack targeting the U.S. military facility at Al Udeid Air Base  was thwarted by Qatar, while multiple missiles and drones were intercepted overnight by Saudi Arabia where strikes were directed at a U.S. facility at Al Kharj near Riyadh, and the Aramco headquarters in the east.

 

Iran has launched 500 ballistic and cruise missiles plus 2,000 drones since the war's start; 60 percent at American targets located in Gulf states. South Korea is in talks with the U.S. in potential redeployment of weapons, Patriot air-defence systems among them, while France authorized U.S. military support aircraft to use Istres Air Base as long as they are not used in Iran operations. 

 

"UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER!" wrote Trump Friday on Truth Social, demanding that Iran surrender, on the seventh day of the conflict. There will be no negotiations for the conflict's end. 

 

Strikes continue to hit Iran’s capital, Tehran, late Saturday night. CNN

 

"I believe God saved me. God saved my life. Nothing happened to me. Nothing happened to my house. Everything is going good."

"I just called the cops. I know who this person is."

"This person belongs to Khalistan."

"I feel scared. He tried to give me a warning. 'Shut your mouth. Don't raise your voice about this topic."

"I'm a Canadian citizen, but I don't feel safe in this country right now." 

Nancy Grewal, 46, deceased, Windsor, Ontario

"I don't feel safe here," Nancy Grewal said at her Windsor home in late February. (CBC)

"Investigators are confident this was not a random act of violence. Ms. Grewal's murder is being investigated as an intentional act against her."

"All information is being considered. While we recognize the significant public interest in this case, we will not share information that will compromise the investigation, including leads, tips, and investigative avenues."

LaSalle Police Chief Michael Pearce 

 

"It is very sad to hear about the loss of Nancy Grewal's life."

"We are not in the position to make any comment. Thank you."

India Canada Association Windsor and Essex County 

Nancy Grewal was stabbed to death at a home in LaSalle, Ontario Tuesday, where she was engaged as a personal support worker. She was also a social media influencer. She had a very large following on Instagram and YouTube where her postings were mostly in Punjabi with only a scant few in English. One of her English posts detailed an incident where a man poured gasoline on her front door to set her house on fire. She wanted all 'white Canadians' to know what was happening to her, as a fierce opponent of Sikh-Canadians known as 'Khalistanis'. A group agitating for a homeland carved out of India that they call 'Khalistan'.

 

As a Sikh herself, and one who opposed the violent separatist movement, she had been warned and threatened in relation to her involvement in the anti-Khalistan group. Ms. Grewal had reported the attempt to burn down her house to police, along with other complaints she had against the man she was able to identify to Windsor police. Police did not immediately reveal whether they had a suspect in custody over her murder, only that they were involved in a homicide probe.

 

Paramedics alongside LaSalle police had responded to a stabbing report on Tuesday evening where they found Nancy Grewal with stab wounds and rushed her to hospital. At the  hospital she "succumbed to her injuries". The news of her death quickly spread to India and elsewhere internationally. That her activism was the reason for her death seems indisputable. She is by no means the only Sikh-Canadian who had spoken out publicly and vehemently against the Khalistanis whom India considers a national security threat for their violent outbreaks.

 

The worst terrorist plot ever devised on Canadian soil was carried out by Sikh-Canadian Khalistanis in the bombing of Air India Flight 182, causing the deaths of 329 people in 1985. In 1998 Tara Singh Hayer, the editor of North America’'s largest Punjabi-language newspaper, was murdered. Ujjal Dosanjh, a former Sikh-Canadian premier of British Columbia was outspoken in his condemnation of the Khalistani movement in Canada for their violence, and himself became a victim of a dreadful beating. A visiting Indian parliamentarian was the victim of an unsuccessful plot to assassinate him on Canadian soil.

 

New Delhi has been exasperated that Canada refuses to deport Sikh Khalistanis wanted in India to stand on trial for violent crimes committed in India. While Khalistanis from time to time mount large, vocal public demonstrations against India and celebrate murderous Khalistanis who lost their lives in the commission of vile crimes, iconizing their photographs as 'national' weapons-carrying heroes, they also carried large posters of former Indian president Indira Gandhi, who was assassinated by her Sikh bodyguards, in jubilation of her murder.

 

Hardeep Singh Nijjar was a gurdwara leader who advocated for an independent Sikh state, known as Khalistan, in parts of present-day India. He was killed at the Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara in Surrey in 2023, in a high-profile case that strained relations between Canada and India. Four Indian nationals have since been charged with first-degree murder in relation to the death. Still from video, CBC

 

Recent tensions between Canada and India over accusations that India had an involvement with the assassination of a prominent Vancouver-based Sikh Khalistani-agitator outside his gurdwara, saw the former allies at odds with one another. Nancy Grewal spoke out against that situation as well. She criticized former prime minister Justin Trudeau's crude diplomacy in accusing India of being responsible for the murder of the man, standing in Parliament to deliver his condemnation. Indian officials for their part, accuse Canada of failing to address "Sikh extremism".

 

Images  inside Gurdwara Khalsa Parkash in Windsor include images of martyrs with guns. (CBC)

 

The Sikh gurdwara in Windsor came under criticism from Nancy Grewal, for its prominent display of posters of revered dead Khalistanis known for their courage in fighting for that Khalistan 'homeland' by murdering opponents of separatism. "When we [are] going in the gurdwara, we need a peace and prayer. But everywhere you look at the gurdwara … all pictures with the AK-47s, guns", she said of the images of martyrs and their weapons in what should have been a peaceful space for prayers only. She spoke of her concern over the gurdwara's children's exposure to those posters' sentiments.  

 

Nancy Grewal, shown here with her dog, said she had received 40 death threats. (CBC)

 

"The radicals objected to her content and had an enmity with her."

"Two months ago unidentified miscreants set her house on fire [and she] reported to the police."

"I am grateful, she had so many people who loved her all over the world. She was so blessed to have so many people who loved her and the best thing was she never lied." 

Shinderpal Kaur, 70, Nancy Gerewal's mother, India