Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi on Tuesday appealed for national unity and tried to allay anger against the country’s rulers, even as the anti-government protests that have engulfed the country for weeks continued to spread to universities and high schools.

Raisi acknowledged that the Islamic Republic had “weaknesses and shortcomings,” but repeated the official line that the unrest sparked last month by the death of a woman in the custody of the country’s morality police was nothing short of a plot by Iran’s enemies.

The civil unrest in Iran in response to the recent death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini while she was waiting at a Tehran police station, although rooted in legitimate grievances, also bears the hallmark of a western-sponsored covert war, covering multiple fronts.

A U.S. Army AH-64 Apache attack helicopter from Task Force Wolfpack, 1st Attack Battalion, 82nd Combat Aviation Brigade, flies over northern Iraq. (US Army photo by Maj. Jason Sweeney)

Iran has faced two weeks of civil unrest following the death of a 22-year-old woman named Mahsa Amini in religious police custody under suspicious circumstances. Tehran released CCTV footage debunking protesters’ claims that the woman was beaten into a coma, and accused the US and others of trying to foment a color revolution.

Hezbollah secretary general Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah has ripped Washington for engaging in a “satanic” campaign to try to bring down the Iranian government and divide the Islamic world.

The US has slapped new sanctions on Chinese firms related to Iran’s petrochemical and petroleum trade, after years of reports of Chinese tankers engaged in sanctions-busting activity, and at a moment that a finalized restored JCPOA nuclear deal has all but collapsed.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced punitive measures Thursday against two China-based companies, Zhonggu Storage and Transportation Co Ltd and WS Shipping Co Ltd, which stand accused of sanctions evasion.

A US citizen named Omar Mahmoudzadeh has been killed in Iraqi Kurdistan, as the Iranian Revolutionary Guards attacked Kurdish opposition groups with missiles and drones. Mahmoudzadeh lived in the US since 1990s, Iran International reported. At least 13 people were killed and 60 injured by Iranian attacks on Iraq, presumably to interdict Iraqi Kurdish support for the insurgents. US State Department deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel said he could not comment on Mahmoudzadeh’s death.

In fact the video is part of a Turkish drama called Ata Ocaği.

The US on Thursday announced new sanctions targeting Iran’s oil exports in the latest sign that a revival of the Iran nuclear deal is unlikely.

On May 11, an Israeli soldier killed Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh in Jenin, and months later the perpetrator of this outrageous crime is still no closer to being brought to justice.