Iran and Oman were reportedly told in advance that US special envoy Steve Witkoff and US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner would visit the USS Abraham Lincoln on Saturday.
CNN on Sunday reported that Tehran and Muscat got advanced notice of the visit — a move that apparently signaled the persistent threat of US military action against Iran if they did not agree to a deal to curb their nuclear program.
According to Channel 12, Tehran was notified before the visit so that the Iranians would not be angered if caught unaware.
Witkoff and Kushner, who led the US delegation’s talks with Iran in Oman on Friday, visited the aircraft carrier at the invitation of US Central Command chief, Adm. Brad Cooper.
The United States and Iran reopened negotiations on Friday in Oman, after the previous talks between the two countries were suspended due to Israel’s 12-day war with Iran in June 2025, which ended with a US strike on several Iranian nuclear sites.
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Western countries suspect Iran is seeking to acquire a nuclear bomb. Iran has denied seeking to acquire nuclear weapons. However, it has enriched uranium to levels that have no peaceful application, obstructed international inspectors from checking its nuclear facilities, and expanded its ballistic missile capabilities. Prior to the June war, Israel said Iran had recently taken steps toward weaponization.
Smoke billows after an Israeli airstrike on the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) building in Tehran on June 16, 2025. (AFP)
The threat of war continues to hover over the negotiations, even as Trump called the talks “very good” and Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian posted on social media that they “constitute a step forward.” Iran has repeatedly ruled out accepting Washington’s key demand that it give up uranium enrichment.
Following Friday’s first round in Oman, Trump signed an executive order calling for the “imposition of tariffs” on countries still doing business with Iran despite US sanctions.
The United States also announced new sanctions against numerous shipping entities and vessels, aimed at curbing Iran’s oil exports.
In a clear warning against further military action, a new billboard overlooking Tehran’s Palestine Square, which popped up on Sunday, threatened Tel Aviv with missile fire, showing a map of the city’s metro area below the Hebrew words, “Under raining missiles, it’s a small area!”
A caption below that in English reads, “You start… We finish it!”
The picture shows a map of the Tel Aviv metro area, known in Hebrew as Gush Dan, stretching roughly from Ra’anana in the north to Holon and Ben Gurion Airport in the south, and pocked with red target marks. A legend on the map shows the city names of Tel Aviv, Ramat Gan, Bnei Brak, and Herzliya. It then says, “For the first day!”
⚡️#BREAKING Message from Tehran: New threatening sign in Hebrew unveiled in Palestine Square pic.twitter.com/8SiXZ8aM2T
— War Monitor (@WarMonitors) February 8, 2026
In the billboard, that map appears atop a table with a red button bearing the word “FIRE” in English, along with a walkie-talkie, and models of a plane and missiles.
Iran has posted images threatening Israel at the square in the past, including a clock purportedly counting down toward Israel’s destruction.
During the Israel-Iran war last June, Iran fired over 500 ballistic missiles and around 1,100 drones at Israel.
Talks between Washington and Tehran came amid a massive US military buildup in the region in the wake of Iran’s brutal crackdown on protests that began in late December, driven by economic grievances.
Authorities in Iran have acknowledged that 3,117 people were killed in the recent protests, publishing on Sunday a list of 2,986 names, most of whom they say were members of the security forces and innocent bystanders.
International organizations and media have put the toll far higher, possibly in the tens of thousands.
The US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), which has kept a running toll since the onset of the protests, says it has verified 6,961 deaths, mainly of protesters, and has another 11,630 cases under investigation. It has also counted more than 51,000 arrests.
In this frame grab from footage circulating on social media shows protesters dancing and cheering around a bonfire as they take to the streets despite an intensifying crackdown as the Islamic Republic remains cut off from the rest of the world, in Tehran, Iran, January 9, 2026.(UGC via AP)
Nobel winner sentenced to six years in jail
An Iranian court sentenced Nobel Peace Prize winner Narges Mohammadi to a six-year prison term, her lawyer told AFP on Sunday.
“She has been sentenced to six years in prison for gathering and collusion to commit crimes,” lawyer Mostafa Nili said, adding that she had also received a two-year ban on leaving the country.
Mohammadi also received a one-and-a-half-year prison sentence for propaganda activities and is sentenced to be exiled for two years to the city of Khosf in the eastern province of South Khorasan, the lawyer stated.
She won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2023 in recognition of her activism. Over the past quarter-century, Mohammadi, 53, has been repeatedly tried and jailed for her vocal campaigning against Iran’s use of capital punishment and the mandatory dress code for women.
She has spent much of the past decade behind bars and has not seen her twin children, who live in Paris, since 2015.
Leader of the Nobel Committee Berit Reiss-Andersen presents the Nobel Peace Prize for 2023 to Ali, right, and Kiana Rahmani, for their mother, imprisoned Iranian activist Narges Mohammadi, in Oslo City Hall, Oslo, Norway, December 10, 2023. (Fredrik Varfjell/NTB via AP)
Iranian authorities also arrested three reformist figures, including the head of Iran’s Reform Front coalition, Azar Mansouri, the local Fars news agency reported, alleging they had ties to Israel and the US.
“Azar Mansouri, Ebrahim Asgharzadeh and Mohsen Aminzadeh were arrested by security and judicial institutions,” the agency said.
“The accusations against these individuals include targeting national unity, taking a stance against the constitution, coordination with enemy propaganda, promoting surrender, diverting political groups and creating secret subversive mechanisms,” it added.
The judiciary’s Mizan Online news agency also reported that several people were arrested, but does not identify them.
“After completing the investigation into the actions and activities of some important political elements supporting the Zionist regime and America, four members of this group were charged with crimes, and the active elements working in favor of the Zionist regime and America were arrested,” Mizan said.
Mansouri, 60, was an adviser to reformist former president Mohammad Khatami.
An Iranian rides a moped past a huge billboard depicting crashed Israeli and US aircraft, displayed on a building in Tehran’s Valiasr Square on February 8, 2026. (ATTA KENARE / AFP)
Following the protests that started in Iran in December, she posted on Instagram that “when all avenues to be heard are closed, protest takes to the streets,” adding that a “crackdown is the worst way to deal with protesters.”
Referring to the deaths of thousands of people during the protests, she later said, “We don’t have access to the media, but we say to the grieving families: You are not alone.”
She added that “no power, no justification, and no time can cleanse this great disaster.”
Mansouri was previously arrested after the protests that followed the 2009 Iranian presidential election, and was sentenced to three years in prison for disrupting public order and propaganda against the state, among other charges.
In 2022, she was charged again and subsequently sentenced to one year and two months in prison.
Since June 2023, she has been the leader of Iran’s Reform Front, an umbrella group of reformists who traditionally call for more social freedoms and the establishment of a civil society.
Ebrahim Asgharzadeh is a former member of parliament and Mohsen Aminzadeh is a former deputy at Iran’s Foreign Ministry.