Welcome to The Azadi Briefing, an RFE/RL newsletter that unpacks the key issues in Afghanistan. To subscribe, click here. I'm Abubakar Siddique, a senior correspondent at RFE/RL's Radio Azadi.

* The tower combined different phases of Iran's history and their related architectural features: the very ancient elements of the Sassanid Empire (205-651 AD) arch, and the Islamic era pointed vault.

Within days of the 2009 election that returned President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to office, demonstrations engulfed Tehran and other Iranian cities, centred on the capital's sprawling Azadi Square.

Smoke billows from an explosion near the Azadi Tower in Tehran on Monday. (Atta Kenare/AFP/Getty Images) The White House said the U.S. isn’t joining Israel’s attacks on Iran, pushing back on ...