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Student poisonings have resumed in Iran after approximately three weeks without reported incidents, indicating that the regime has failed to take the necessary security measures to permanently prevent these attacks. CTP recorded ten student poisoning cases on April 5, four cases on April 4, and one case on April 3. The April 3 chemical poisoning attack on Iranian school girls in Naghadeh, West Azerbaijan Province marked the first of such attacks since March 13, as CTP previously reported. The pause in student poisonings between March 13 and April 3 roughly corresponds to the Iranian New Year holiday between March 20 and April 2, suggesting that the recent respite from student poisonings was not due to the regime’s ability to effectively crack down on the perpetrators of these attacks, but because schools were not in session. The resumption of student poisoning attacks also indicates that the network targeting Iranian school girls still exists and retains the ability to operate in Iran.

Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei reaffirmed his commitment to enforcing the mandatory hijab law during a meeting with senior regime officials on April 4. Khamenei framed the law as both a political and religious requirement. He added that the hijab issue “will definitely be solved,” but did not specify how exactly regime officials should go about enforcing mandatory veiling. It is noteworthy that Khamenei provided no specific guidance on how to enforce the hijab law given that regime officials have articulated different theories on how to do so in recent days. Khamenei’s explicit endorsement of mandatory veiling on April 4 differs from his vague reference to this issue in his Nowrouz address on March 21. Khamenei previously implied that the economy should be the primary topic of intra-regime debate in his Nowrouz address, as CTP previously reported, implying that socio-cultural issues, such as the hijab requirement, are not up for discussion. Khamenei contrastingly stated on April 4 that “choosing an economic slogan does not mean disregarding social and cultural issues.” Khamenei may have made this clarification to explain to regime officials that they can discuss the hijab—in addition to the economy—so long as their discussions about veiling are in the context of enforcing the hijab law.

The Israel Defense Force conducted an airstrike targeting at least two Iranian-backed militia bases in western Syria on April 1, 2023. Unidentified Western intelligence sources reported that rockets hit the al Dabaa Military Airport and T4 Tyas air base, according to a Reuters report. An unidentified Syrian military source claimed to the Syrian Arab News Agency that Israeli forces targeted multiple military targets in Homs city and its outskirts on April 1 killing five Syrian soldiers. The Syrian Ministry of Defense released a statement claiming that Syrian air defense systems shot down several Israeli missiles over Homs city and countryside. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and Crisis 24 reported that the IDF also damaged an Iranian research facility in Khirbat al Tain, western Homs.[4] An anti-Syrian regime Twitter account claimed that a Lebanese Hezbollah leader was killed in the Israeli airstrike on April 1.

ISW is publishing an abbreviated campaign update today, April 2. This report discusses the assassination of prominent pro-war Russian milblogger Maksim Fomin (also known as Vladlen Tatarsky) in St. Petersburg on April 2. Fomin was one of the most significant Russian milbloggers with a Telegram platform of 560,000 followers and deep connections with the Wagner Group, the Kremlin, the Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR), and the Russian nationalists who have been dominating the Russian information space since the start of the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Fomin’s assassination at a Wagner-affiliated bar in St. Petersburg may reveal further fractures within the Kremlin and its inner circle. Fomin was a vocal critic of the Russian military command and the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD). Fomin’s death marks the first high-profile assassination of an ultranationalist milblogger in Russia since the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.