Barry Rosen, the press attaché at the United States Embassy in Tehran, was held hostage for 444 days in the early years after the revolution by forces known as the “Students Following the Line of the Imam,” a group that carried out the 1979 U.S. Embassy takeover.

In a note he published on the social media platform X, he points to the direct role of Masoumeh Ebtekar, the spokesperson for the hostage-takers and a former senior official of the Iranian regime.

Rosen writes that during interrogations, Ebtekar angrily and threateningly warned the hostages that they would face trial and immediate execution.

I was the press attaché at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran when I was taken hostage for 444 days by the zealous followers of Ayatollah Khomeini. During that time, the spokesperson for the hostage‑takers, Massoumeh Ebtekar—whom we called “Mary”—interrogated us with venom and publicly…

— Barry Rosen (@brosen1501) January 25, 2026

The children of officials of Ali Khamenei’s government, however, live today in a completely different situation.

Rosen notes in his writing that Issa Hashemi, the son of Masoumeh Ebtekar, now lives in Los Angeles and works as an academic.

This image stands in complete contrast to the anti-American slogans and violent behavior of the ruling generation.

Expulsion of Ali Larijani’s daughter, one of the figures implicated in crimes of Khamenei’s government, from a university

As part of these revelations, another example is also raised.

Fatemeh Larijani Ardeshir, the daughter of Ali Larijani, the former secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council and a senior figure of the Iranian regime, has recently been expelled from the Winship Cancer Institute of Emory University.

This occurred after the U.S. Treasury Department imposed sanctions on Ali Larijani and other key figures involved in repression.

Emory University has not yet confirmed a direct link between the expulsion and the sanctions.

Contrary to Predictions, Protests in Iran Expanded After the 12-Day War

For many Iranians living abroad, the issue of the children of Khamenei’s government officials is not merely an individual news item. It has become a symbol of deep injustice.

While inside Iran, regime forces have killed thousands of protesters, pressured families, and even demanded money to hand over the bodies of victims, the children of those same officials live in complete safety.

The affluent lives of Khamenei government officials’ children in the land of the “enemy”

These reports show that the children of Iranian regime officials benefit from freedoms, education, and opportunities in the very countries their parents label as “enemies.”

This contradiction reflects accumulated anger formed over decades of repression.

The exposure of these examples has contributed to the growth of a movement aimed at revealing the ruling system’s structural hypocrisy.

Each new disclosure lays this contradiction barer and raises more serious questions about accountability and justice.

Ali Ansari, an Iranian tycoon accused of financing the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), owns a golf club in Mallorca and hotels in Frankfurt through offshore companies.

According to corporate registration documents reviewed by the Financial Times, a British newspaper, Ali Ansari—whose family founded the now-bankrupt “Ayandeh” Bank in Iran—controls a collection of luxury properties, ranging from a golf resort on the Spanish island of Mallorca to a ski hotel in Austria.

Britain, following the collapse of Ayandeh Bank in October, sanctioned Ansari for financing “hostile activities” by the IRGC, labeled him an “Iranian corrupt banker and businessman,” and froze his London property assets worth more than 150 million pounds.

German Chancellor: The Suppression of Protesters Is a Sign of the Iranian Regime’s Weakness

The Financial Times has now identified a complex network of offshore companies stretching from Luxembourg and Saint Kitts and Nevis to Austria, Germany, and Spain, through which Ansari has amassed a vast and previously unreported portfolio of properties across Europe.

Based on this, the total known value of Ansari’s property empire in Britain and Europe is estimated at around 400 million euros, a figure calculated from prices recorded in land registries and valuations listed in company accounts.

Ansari, who according to Britain’s sanctions list holds passports from Iran, Saint Kitts and Nevis, and Cyprus, is not currently sanctioned by the European Union. However, these properties illustrate how businessmen close to Iran’s regime have been able to obtain lucrative assets in the West, despite extensive efforts to exclude them from Western economies.

Ansari owns two hotels in Frankfurt and a shopping center in Oberhausen, Germany.

The collapse of Ayandeh Bank late last year intensified the economic crisis, which ultimately led to protests in Iran this month—protests that reportedly left thousands dead and are considered the most severe violence since the 1979 revolution.

According to European officials, the European Union is considering new sanctions against Iran ahead of a meeting of foreign ministers at the end of the month.

Offshore company documents show that Ansari, through several Spanish and German holding companies, owns the Golf de Andratx and Camp de Mar complex, a 164-room luxury hotel in Mallorca that provides access to one of the Mediterranean’s most challenging golf courses. The complex is valued at 22 million euros.

He also holds a stake in a luxury ski resort in the Austrian Alps called Schloss Hotel Kitzbühel.

Ansari also owns two hotels in Germany: the Hilton Frankfurt City Centre and the Hilton Frankfurt Gravenbruch.

Each of these hotels is held through Dutch and German holding companies and is valued at around 80 million euros.

Reports and Horrific Accounts of the Massacre of Protesters and Coup-De-Grace Shots In Hospitals

He also owns, through shell companies, the Bero Oberhausen shopping center in northwestern Germany, which has been valued at 68 million euros.

The recent protests in Iran began last month after a sharp collapse in the value of the national currency and a soaring surge in inflation and then evolved into broader protests against Iran’s regime.

Many protesters have directed their anger at what they call structural corruption, which they say has allowed individuals close to the government to continue enriching themselves despite the sharp decline in people’s living standards.

Ayandeh Bank, which was merged into a state-owned bank to protect depositors, had for years been accused by politicians and analysts of channeling financial resources into speculative activities and to individuals linked to Iran’s regime.

Washington warned Baghdad that the presence of armed groups close to Tehran in Iraq’s future government could have severe economic consequences for the country.

Reuters news agency reported on Friday, January 23, citing four informed sources, that over the past two months the United States has warned senior Iraqi political officials that sanctions will be imposed on the Iraqi government if armed groups backed by the Iranian regime participate in the future government.

Accordingly, these sanctions are likely to target Iraq’s oil revenue flows, which are managed through the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

According to three Iraqi officials and one informed source, these warnings were conveyed by Joshua Harris, the chargé d’affaires of the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, during repeated meetings and discussions with Iraqi officials and influential Shiite figures, including leaders of groups close to Tehran, through intermediaries.

Maximum pressure to contain Tehran in Baghdad

According to Reuters, this stance represents the strongest example of policies by U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration aimed at reducing the influence of groups close to the Iranian regime in Iraq, a country that for years has balanced between its two main partners, the United States and Iran.

In response to Reuters’ questions, a spokesperson for the U.S. State Department said the United States supports Iraq’s sovereignty and sees no role for Iranian regime–backed militias that pursue destructive interests, fuel sectarian divisions, and spread terrorism in the region.

The U.S. official did not directly elaborate on potential sanctions.

Iraq: an economic lifeline for the Iranian regime

The Iranian regime views Iraq as a key element for sustaining its economic survival under sanctions and, according to U.S. and Iraqi officials, has in recent years used Baghdad’s banking system to circumvent financial restrictions.

U.S. administrations in recent years have sanctioned more than 12 Iraqi banks but have so far not halted the transfer of dollars from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York to the Central Bank of Iraq.

Now, the threat to target this very source of revenue signals a shift in the level of pressure Washington is applying to prevent further Iranian regime influence in Iraq.

Linking developments in Iraq and Venezuela to the Iranian people’s national uprising

The increase in U.S. pressure on Iraq comes as nationwide protests in Iran and the bloody suppression of protesters have heightened tensions between Tehran and Washington.

Trump said on Thursday, January 22, referring to the large-scale deployment of U.S. military assets and the movement of a “large fleet” toward the Middle East, that developments in Iran are being closely monitored.

He also added that his previous warnings about possible military action played a role in halting executions in Iran, a claim rejected by Iranian regime officials.

A look into the background of Ali Shademani, commander of the IRGC Central Headquarters

Earlier, on October 19, 2025, in an interview with Fox News, Trump described the starting point of his administration’s confrontation with the Iranian regime as the killing of Qassem Soleimani, the former commander of the IRGC Quds Force.

He also once again defended the bombing of the Iranian regime’s nuclear facilities, calling it one of the most successful military operations by the U.S. armed forces, and said the destruction of nuclear capabilities ensured that the Iranian regime was no longer the “Middle East bully.”