Tehran

Tehran will "accelerate" arming Palestinians in retaliation for Israel deploying a spy drone over Iran, which was shot down, a military commander said on Aug. 25.

It is rather difficult for me to write about the new prime ministerial candidate, Ahmet Davutoğlu, since he is a classmate from university years and an old friend. Despite the differences of political views that we had from the beginning, I have always regarded him as a very kind and valuable person. I remember him as a bright student in university classes and as a civilized person.

Iran's elite Revolutionary Guard said it has brought down an Israeli stealth drone above the Natanz uranium enrichment site in the centre of the country.
      
"A spy drone of the Zionist regime (Israel) was brought down by a missile... This stealth drone was trying to approach the Natanz nuclear zone," the corps said in a statement on its official website sepahnews.com.

Iran on Sunday unveiled two new missiles and two new drones it said have been added to its arsenal, in a ceremony attended by President Hassan Rouhani.
      
The Ghadir (Mighty), with a range of 300 kilometres (185 miles), is a ground-to-sea and sea-to-sea missile, the official IRNA news agency said.
     

Iran, which is helping Iraq in its fight against jihadist-led militants, sent its foreign minister to Baghdad Aug. 24, as gunmen made a renewed push for the country's main oil refinery.
      

Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif will meet EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton on September 1 in Brussels to agree a framework for renewed nuclear talks, Iran said on Aug. 24.
      

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani told the visiting head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog on Sunday that Tehran will not discuss its long-range missile program as part of talks aimed at resolving a decade-long nuclear dispute, official media reported.
     

Iraq's caretaker premier Nuri al-Maliki said Wednesday it will take a court ruling for him to leave power, defying the president's decision to task a rival with forming a government.
      
"I confirm that the government will continue and there will not be a replacement for it without a decision from the federal court," Maliki said in his televised weekly address.
      

Iranian mathematician Maryam Mirzakhani on Aug. 13 became the first woman to be awarded the Fields Medal, mathematics' equivalent to the Nobel Prize.

All 48 passengers and crew members died as a small jet crashed near the airport of Iran's capital Tehran.

Two infants and three children under the age of 12 were reportedly among the victims, according to Al Jazeera, which cites the country's Civil Aviation Authority.

The machine was en route to Tabas, a city in Iran's east, but went down at 09:18 local time (04:48 GMT).