LONDON (AP) — The chief of the British police force that recommended that fans from Israeli soccer team Maccabi Tel Aviv be banned from attending a football match against English Premier League club Aston Villa in Birmingham last year retired Friday following criticism of that decision.
Craig Guildford, the chief constable of West Midlands Police, will step down with immediate effect as the head of the force following mounting pressure for him to quit over the controversy.
“I have come to the conclusion that the political and media frenzy around myself and my position has become detrimental to all the great work undertaken by my officers and staff in serving communities across the West Midlands," Guildford said.
Guildford's position has been precarious since Wednesday's publication of a report into the decision to ban Maccabi fans from attending the match at Villa Park on Nov. 6. The report found the decision last year overstated the threat posed by Maccabi fans and understated the risk to them. Following the publication of what she termed the “damning” report, Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood said she had lost confidence in the 52-year-old and urged him to stand down.
“By stepping down, Craig Guildford has done the right thing today," she said after his retirement was announced, adding that the report had “set out a catalogue of failings that have harmed trust in West Midlands Police.”
Mahmood said she didn’t have the power to fire Guildford as a result of a policy change by the previous Conservative government in 2011, but she was looking to reinstate that power to home secretaries. Currently, locally elected police and crime commissioners have that power.
Simon Foster, the police and crime commissioner for the West Midlands, said Guildford had “acted with honor" in stepping down.
The Campaign Against Antisemitism called for Foster to resign over failing to sack Guildford.
“His retirement, after the pitiful failure of West Midlands Police and Crime Commissioner Simon Foster to sack him, should result in the resignation of Foster as well,” its chief executive Gideon Falter said.
The ban came at a time of heightened concerns about antisemitism in Britain following a deadly attack on a Manchester synagogue and calls from Palestinians and their supporters for a sports boycott of Israel over the war with Hamas in Gaza.
West Midlands Police said at the time it had deemed the match to be high risk “based on current intelligence and previous incidents,” including violence and hate crimes that took place when Maccabi played Ajax in Amsterdam last season. That view heavily influenced the local safety and advisory board, which made the ultimate decision.
FILE - Britain's Prime Minister Keir Starmer, left, is reflected as Britain's Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood speaks to members of the Jewish community at the Community Security Trust (CST) in north west London, Thursday, Oct. 16, 2025. (Carlos Jasso, Pool Photo via AP, file)
FILE - Maccabi Tel Aviv's fan is escorted by police ahead of the Europa League soccer match between Aston Villa and Maccabi Tel Aviv in Birmingham, England, Thursday, Nov. 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Darren Staples, file)
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — As Iran returned to uneasy calm after a wave of protests that drew a bloody crackdown, a senior hard-line cleric called Friday for the death penalty for detained demonstrators and directly threatened U.S. President Donald Trump — evidence of the rage gripping authorities in the Islamic Republic.
Harsh repression that has left several thousand people dead appears to have succeeded in stifling demonstrations that began Dec. 28 over Iran’s ailing economy and morphed into protests directly challenging the country’s theocracy.
There have been no signs of protests for days in Tehran, where shopping and street life have returned to outward normality, though a week-old internet blackout continued. Authorities have not reported any unrest elsewhere in the country.
The U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency on Friday put the death toll, at 2,797. The number continues to rise.
Iran's exiled Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi urged the U.S. to make good on its pledge to intervene, calling Trump “a man of his word.”
Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami's sermon, carried by Iranian state radio, sparked chants from those gathered for prayers, including: “Armed hypocrites should be put to death!” Executions, as well as the killing of peaceful protesters, are two of the red lines laid down by Trump for possible military action against Iran.
Khatami, a member of Iran's Assembly of Experts and Guardian Council long known for his hard-line views, described the protesters as the “butlers” of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and “Trump’s soldiers.” He insisted their plans “imagined disintegrating the country.”
“They should wait for hard revenge from the system,” Khatami said of Netanyahu and Trump. “Americans and Zionists should not expect peace.”
His fiery speech came as allies of Iran and the United States alike sought to defuse tensions. Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke Friday to both Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and Israel's Netanyahu, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
Peskov said “the situation in the region is quite tense, and the president is continuing his efforts to help de-escalate it.”
Russia had previously kept largely quiet about the protests. Moscow has watched several key allies suffer blows as its resources and focus are consumed by its 4-year-old war against Ukraine, including the downfall of Syria’s former President Bashar Assad in 2024, last year’s U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran and the U.S. seizure of Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro this month.
Days after Trump pledged “help is on its way” for the protesters, both the demonstrations and the prospect of imminent U.S. retaliation appeared to have receded. One diplomat told The Associated Press that top officials from Egypt, Oman, Saudi Arabia and Qatar had raised concerns with Trump that a U.S. military intervention would shake the global economy and destabilize an already volatile region.
Yet the Trump administration has warned it will act if Iran executes detained protesters. Pahlavi, whose father was overthrown by Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution, said he still believes the president's promise of assistance.
“I believe the president is a man of his word," Pahlavi told reporters in Washington. He added that "regardless of whether action is taken or not, we as Iranians have no choice to carry on the fight.“
Despite support by diehard monarchists in the diaspora, Pahlavi has struggled to gain wider appeal within Iran. But that has not stopped him from presenting himself as the transitional leader of Iran if the regime were to fall.
Iran and the U.S. traded angry accusations Thursday at a session of the United Nations Security Council, with U.S. ambassador Mike Waltz saying that Trump “has made it clear that all options are on the table to stop the slaughter.”
Gholam Hossein Darzi, the deputy Iranian ambassador to the U.N., blasted the U.S. for what he said was American “direct involvement in steering unrest in Iran to violence.”
Khatami, the hard-line cleric, also provided the first overall statistics on damage from the protests, claiming 350 mosques, 126 prayer halls and 20 other holy places had sustained damage. Another 80 homes of Friday prayer leaders — an important position within Iran's theocracy — were also damaged, likely underlining the anger demonstrators felt toward symbols of the government.
He said 400 hospitals, 106 ambulance, 71 fire department vehicles and another 50 emergency vehicles also sustained damage.
Even as protests appeared to have been smothered inside Iran, thousands of exiled Iranians and their supporters have taken to the streets in cities across Europe to shout out their rage at the government of the Islamic Republic.
Amid the continuing internet shutdown, some Iranians crossed borders to communicate with the outside world. At a border crossing in Turkey’s eastern province of Van, a trickle of Iranians crossing Friday said they were traveling to get around the communications blackout.
“I will go back to Iran after they open the internet,” said a traveler who gave only his first name, Mehdi, out of security concerns.
Also crossing the border were some Turkish citizens escaping the unrest in Iran.
Mehmet Önder, 47, was in Tehran for his textiles business when the protests erupted. He said laid low in his hotel until it was shut for security reasons, then stayed with one of his customers until he was able to return to Turkey.
Although he did not venture into the streets, Önder said he heard heavy gunfire.
“I understand guns, because I served in the military in the southeast of Turkey,” he said. “The guns they were firing were not simple weapons. They were machine-guns.”
In a sign of the conflict’s potential to spill over borders, a Kurdish separatist group in Iraq said it has launched attacks on Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard in recent days in retaliation for Tehran’s crackdown on protests.
A representative of the Kurdistan Freedom Party, or PAK, said its members have “played a role in the protests through both financial support and armed operations to defend protesters when needed.” The group said the attacks were launched by members of its military wing based inside Iran.
The death toll of at least 2,797, provided by the Human Rights Activists News Agency, exceeds that of any other round of protest or unrest in Iran in decades and recalls the chaos surrounding the 1979 revolution.
The agency has been accurate throughout years of demonstrations, relying on a network of activists inside Iran that confirms all reported fatalities. The AP has been unable to independently confirm the toll. Iran's government has not provided casualty figures.
Amiri reported from New York. Associated Press journalist Serra Yedikardes contributed to this story from Kapikoy Border Crossing, Turkey.
Iranian opposition leader Reza Pahlavi speaks during a news conference on Friday, Jan. 16, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
A woman crosses an intersection in downtown Tehran, Iran, Friday, Jan. 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
People cross an intersection in downtown Tehran, Iran, Friday, Jan. 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
Vehicles drive in downtown Tehran, Iran, Friday, Jan. 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
A street vendor adjusts clothes for sale in downtown Tehran, Iran, Friday, Jan. 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
Vehicles drive in downtown Tehran, Iran, Friday, Jan. 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
FILE - Iranian senior cleric Ahmad Khatami delivers his sermon during Friday prayer ceremony in Tehran, Iran, Friday, Jan. 5, 2018. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi, File)
