US personnel told to leave Qatar base as Iran warns neighbors

Carried by some demonstrators from the earliest days of the unrest, it served as a visual rejection of the Islamic Republic’s theocratic rule.

But after exiled Prince Reza Pahlavi called on Iranians abroad to replace the Islamic Republic’s flag at embassies and consulates, the Lion and Sun moved to the center of Iran’s political narrative.

Even before that call, an Iranian protester climbed the wall of Iran's embassy in London to replace the official flag with the Lion and Sun. The footage spread rapidly online and was even shared by US President Donald Trump.

The act was repeated the following day, turning the embassy into a symbolic battleground over national identity.

Similar actions followed in Canberra, Stockholm, Oslo, Rome, Munich, Hamburg, and Ljubljana, where Iranians replaced official symbols, installed flags at entrances, or painted the Lion and Sun emblem and protest slogans on diplomatic buildings.

Videos from several cities inside Iran showed protesters carrying or displaying the Lion and Sun during demonstrations–an instant visual marker that a local protest was part of a broader national movement.

For many, the flag is less about monarchism and more about distancing themselves from the Islamic Republic. Its power lies in clarity. In a single image, it communicates rejection of the regime and identification with an alternative vision of Iran.

That efficiency has made it one of the most repeated visual motifs of the current unrest.

And that is perhaps why X also decided to change its Iran flag icon to the Lion and Sun.

The endurance of the tricolor

Iran’s green, white, and red tricolor was formalized during the Constitutional Revolution of the early 20th century, when the idea of a modern Iranian nation-state first took shape. Over time, the colors acquired widely accepted meanings: green for vitality and land, white for peace and clarity, red for courage and sacrifice.

What makes the tricolor distinctive is its continuity. It has survived monarchies, coups, revolutions, and war with minimal dispute. Across political divisions, it remained one of the few symbols broadly viewed as “Iranian” rather than “governmental.”

The Lion and Sun emblem is among Iran’s oldest political symbols. Its formal use dates back to the Safavid era and was standardized under the Qajars and later the Pahlavis as a lion holding a sword beneath a radiant sun.

In Iranian symbolism, the lion represents power, guardianship, and independence; the sun conveys enlightenment, sovereignty, and renewal. Together, they evoke a civilizational memory that predates the Islamic Republic.

This layered meaning explains why many Iranians view the emblem as representing Iran itself rather than a specific political system.

After 1979: a symbolic rupture

After the 1979 revolution, the Islamic Republic removed the Lion and Sun and replaced it with a new emblem built from stylized Islamic inscriptions.

The post-revolutionary clerical government viewed the Lion and Sun symbol as representing the "oppressive Westernising monarchy."

Over four decades of its placement on ministry façades, military uniforms, public buildings, textbooks, and state media, the emblem increasingly became seen as the “flag of the Islamic Republic” – not the “flag of Iran.”

This symbolic rupture explains why the Lion and Sun resurfaces during moments of crisis – from 2009 to 2019 to 2022, and now again. Its return in 2026 is simply its most visible resurgence.

Many leftists, republicans, and nationalists avoided it, wary of monarchist associations. This year’s protests have altered that calculus. The scale of unrest and the need for a non-regime symbol have softened ideological boundaries.

Many Iranians with no attachment to monarchy now carry the Lion and Sun as a marker of resistance, not restoration, as a symbol of “Iran without the Islamic Republic.”

In a moment of complete digital blackout, censorship and repression, symbols have again become the language of the street – durable, replicable, and difficult to silence.

Whether the lion and sun becomes a temporary emblem of a protest movement or a lasting symbol of a future political order remains one of the most consequential questions emerging from this year’s unrest.

The killings in Kuhdasht, Azna and Lordegan came before the government shut down internet access, cutting off communication with the outside world and plunging Iran into silence. The area home to Iran's marginalized Lur ethnic minority.

In those early hours, shock and horror spread through hushed calls and voice notes, as brief videos surfaced of blood-stained children of Iran — someone’s son, someone’s brother, someone’s loved one — all killed by security forces.

Sources who spoke to Iran International requested anonymity, fearing reprisals from authorities for speaking to the media.

Hessam Khodayarifard: a life snuffed out on New Year’s Eve

Hessam Khodayarifard was shot dead in the western Iranian city of Kuhdasht on the evening of New Year's eve. The 22-year-old was killed on Wednesday night, December 31, 2025, during a crackdown on protests, two family sources told Iran International.

Authorities initially refused to hand over his body and pressured the family to present him as a member of the Revolutionary Guard’s Basij militia, relatives said. The claim was later publicly rejected by Hessam’s father, who spoke at his son’s funeral after the body was eventually returned.

But his burial brought no peace. Mourners gathered in large numbers, chanting anti-government slogans. Confrontations erupted as security personnel moved in, turning the funeral into another site of repression where grief and anger were met with force.

Shayan Asadollahi: the family’s only provider

On New Year’s Day, gunfire cut through the night in Azna in Iran’s western Lorestan province, where Shayan Asadollahi was shot dead. He was 28.

A relative told Iran International that Shayan was killed as he and a group of other protesters were returning home from a demonstration. Several military pickup trucks belonging to the Revolutionary Guard attacked the group, the source said, and security forces opened fire using military-grade weapons.

A live round struck Shayan in the abdomen according to photographs verified by Iran International. At least two other protesters were also killed during the same crackdown, the source added. Revolutionary Guards-affiliated Fars News later reported that three protesters had been killed in Azna.

Shayan was a barber, known in his community for working long hours to support his family. About a year earlier, his father and uncle had both died in an accident, the source said, leaving Shayan as the family’s sole breadwinner.

Reza Moradi: a child killed in the protests

Another victim from Azna was still a child.

Reza Moradi was 17 — the eldest child in his family which hails from the Abdolvand tribe, part of Iran’s Lur minority. He was shot on Thursday, January 1 during protests outside Azna’s central police station.

Security forces shot him twice, a source close to the family said: once in the head and once in the lower torso.

Video analyzed and verified by Iran International from that evening shows Reza unconscious on the ground, blood visible along the side of his head. Bystanders carried him to Valian Hospital in the nearby city of Aligudarz.

The hospital was placed under heavy security, the source said. Visits were banned. Only once — after repeated insistence — was Reza’s mother allowed to see her son briefly.

Reza died in hospital on the following Monday morning.

Authorities initially refused to hand over his body. When Reza was eventually returned and buried, a video at his grave site showed his younger brother clinging to the fresh earth in tears.

Reza had dropped out of school to help support his family, working as an apprentice in auto body repair and paint. His father is a laborer, and the family’s financial situation was dire, the source said.

Sajjad Valamanesh: grief and coercion

In neighboring Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari province, home to Bakhtiari Lur communities and about a three-hour drive southeast of Azna, authorities followed up another deadly shooting with further crackdowns.

In the city of Lordegan, Sajjad Valamanesh, a 20-year-old protester, was killed after being shot by security forces during demonstrations on Thursday, January 1, sources close to the family told Iran International.

The violence did not end with his death. Authorities repeatedly contacted Sajjad’s relatives in the days that followed, including calls from the Revolutionary Guard’s Intelligence Organization, a source close to the family said.

His father was pressured into giving an interview aired by state media in which he called for an official crackdown on "rioters," but the source said he did so only to secure the release of Sajjad’s body for burial.

Sajjad was not a member of the Basij and was a monarchy supporter, the source said.

He was buried on Friday with a large crowd attending his funeral.

Witness to the fate of the boy in a blue T-shirt

A 20-year-old witness who was present at the protests in Azna said he saw security forces shoot a teenager who looked “no more than 15 years old” on a road near the city’s main police station, where protesters had gathered on January 1.

“I saw them with my own eyes,” he said. “Security forces shot the boy, and he fell into a roadside drainage ditch.”

A group of protesters rushed to help him, he said. “But he was not moving anymore.”

The witness said the scene stayed with him.

“After seeing what I saw, I just could not take it anymore,” he said. “So I went back to the protests the next day as well.”

In messages sent shortly before the internet was shut down, the witness said he feared the world would never know what was happening in his hometown.

“Maybe it does not matter to the world,” he said, “because Azna is so small.”

“But the truth is that Lurs and Bakhtiaris have been deeply harmed by this wretched regime, even though this land is rich and full of resources,” he added.

“For us, it is already over,” he said. “I only wish that the lives of the next generation will be more beautiful.”

Before contact was cut, he made a final plea: “Please tell our stories,” he said. “Please tell the world what they did to my people.”

Four names, countless others remain unknown

These four names represent only a fraction of what unfolded in those days. They are among the few cases Iran International was able to document in detail.

Eyewitnesses and medics told Iran International the preliminary death tolls since protests began on Dec. 28 had ramped up in recent days to up to 2,000 people.

As an internet shutdown entered its fifth day, cutting off Iranians from the world and silencing independent reporting, the scale of the violence and suffering remained unknown.

The Islamic Republic is facing one of the greatest ever challenges to its nearly 50-year rule as nationwide protests which have swelled since starting on Dec. 28 have been met with deadly force.

Eyewitnesses and medics told Iran International the preliminary death tolls since protests began on Dec. 28 had ramped up in recent days to at least 2,000 people.

The two longtime adversaries were already in a diplomatic stalemate even before US President Donald Trump repeatedly threatened attacking Iran should it kill demonstrators.

But both countries signaled openness to diplomacy on Monday.

“I think one thing President Trump is very good at is always keeping all of his options on the table,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Monday.

“Airstrikes would be of the many, many options that are on the table for the commander-in-chief," she added. "Diplomacy is always the first option for the president. He told all of you last night that what you’re hearing from the Iranian regime is quite differently from the messages the administration has received privately.”

“I think the president has an interest in exploring those messages. However, with that said, the president has shown he’s unafraid to use military options if and when deemed necessary,” Leavitt continued. “Nobody knows that better than Iran.”

US air strikes capped off a surprise Israeli military attack on Iran in June which Trump said had "obliterated" Iran's nuclear sites.

Iran's foreign minister Abbas Araghchi has been in touch in recent days with Trump's special envoy Steve Witkoff, CNN and Axios reported on Monday citing sources familiar with the matter, but it remained unclear what progress the contacts achieved.

But the US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee told Sky News on Monday that bringing about regime change in Iran was not Washington's aim.

"I don't think it's something that the United States is actively engaged in trying to hasten anything," he was quoted as saying. "It's a matter of respect," he added, "and this is what President Trump has framed it (as); he wants there to be recognition that the government of Iran should not murder its own people."

Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has long rejected US demands that it end domestic uranium enrichment and rein in its missile program and support for armed allies in the region, saying it amounts to an attack on Iran's sovereignty.

But foreign minister Abbas Araghchi on Monday appeared to signal the possibility of a diplomatic off-ramp to the quarrel.

“The Islamic Republic is not seeking war, but it is fully prepared for war," he said. “The Islamic Republic is also ready for negotiations, but these talks must be fair, based on equal rights and founded on mutual respect.”

Trump said on Sunday that Iranian officials had reached out seeking talks on a nuclear deal and said the United States may meet with them after repeatedly warning Tehran against killing demonstrators and mooting "very strong" military options.

Former British Army officer and military analyst Andrew Fox told Iran International that the Islamic Republic is deliberately applying maximum force early to crush the protests before Washington can act decisively.

“If (Trump) limits his intervention to just rhetoric, then clearly that is, of course, strategic restraint, but also an absolute betrayal at a critical moment,” Fox said.

“He’s made promises. It’s very clear that there were promises that the Americans were not ready to deliver.”

Trump, in a post on Truth Social last week, warned that the United States is “locked and loaded” and ready to intervene in Iran if authorities violently suppress demonstrators — statements that analysts say emboldened many to take to the streets.

“It’s questionable that this many people would have protested had Mr. Trump not made those promises,” Fox said. “So at the moment,” he added, “America potentially has blood on its hands quite frankly.”

Publicly, Iranian officials struck a defiant tone. Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Iran was open to negotiations but also “fully prepared for war,” insisting the situation inside the country was under control.

Behind the scenes, however, US officials say Tehran is sending a different message.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said an Iranian official had reached out to US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff “expressing a far different tone than what you’re seeing publicly.”

Axios earlier reported a phone call between Araghchi and Witkoff during which the two sides discussed both the protests and Iran’s nuclear program.

On the ground, the crackdown has intensified amid a near-total internet shutdown.

Medics and eyewitnesses told Iran International that the preliminary death toll over more than two weeks of unrest had surged in recent days to as many as 2,000 people.

The full scale remains impossible to verify due to communications blackouts.

New evidence suggests the state response is being conducted as a wartime operation.

A physician who treated large numbers of wounded protesters described mass-casualty conditions, overwhelmed hospitals, and the use of live ammunition and military-grade weapons by Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Basij forces according to the Center for Human Rights in Iran.

The doctor said security forces operated under orders that eliminated accountability and treated civilian protests as a battlefield scenario, with injured protesters systematically identified inside hospitals and communications deliberately shut down.

To intervene or not?

Trump’s own mixed messaging, analysts say, risks compounding the damage.

“President Trump’s comments on Air Force One contained something for everyone in them,” said Jason Brodsky, the policy director for United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI), pointing to the combination of military threats, diplomacy with Tehran and outreach to the opposition.

While unpredictability can have tactical benefits, Brodsky warned that a US meeting with Iran’s leadership now “will provide relief for the regime.”

“It can prop-up the currency while demoralizing the Iranian freedom fighters on the ground,” he said. “There is great benefit for Iran in a negotiating process with the US. But no benefit for the US.”

Such talks, Brodsky said, would be “perceived by the Iranian people as external American intervention on the side of the Islamic Republic, not the Iranian people.”

“We should be giving time, space, and resources to the Iranian people,” he said, “not the Islamic Republic.”

Confidence that US military action was imminent has meanwhile begun to waver.

“Do I believe President Trump will strike Iran? Yesterday I was more confident of an attack, today, not quite as much,” said Dr. Eric Mandel, director of the Middle East Political Information Network (MEPIN).

Mandel said he had spoken with Israeli analysts saying they were confident Trump would strike but “did not know sooner or later.”

He said Washington still retains options short of a full-scale war, including seizing oil tankers tied to Iran’s shadow fleet exporting more than two million barrels of oil a day, CIA covert actions, cyber operations, kinetic action against the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Basij and restoring communications through satellite internet systems such as Starlink.

Trump said Sunday he would speak to Elon Musk about restoring internet access in Iran.

As the death toll rises and Iran remains largely cut off from the outside world, analysts warn the moment for measures is rapidly disappearing.

What comes next, they say, will determine not only the fate of Iran’s uprising — but whether US warnings are remembered as deterrence or as words that raised hope just long enough to deepen a sense of betrayal.

Informed sources told Iran International that security forces in parts of Tehran started door-to-door operations on Monday, removing satellite dishes and confiscating recordings from private CCTV cameras.

These actions are taking place amid a complete internet blackout and severe disruption to phone networks nationwide that started on January 8, leaving satellite channels as almost the only source of updates.

Agents posed as water and electricity officials to enter homes and seize satellite dishes, residents told Iran International.

Iran has entered its fifth day of a nationwide internet shutdown. NetBlocks said the blackout had reached 100 hours on Monday evening local time.

The loss of internet and phone access has left families inside and outside Iran increasingly cut off from one another. Many people have been unable to contact loved ones, heightening public anxiety and fear, according to messages sent to Iran International.

Protesters disable CCTV cameras

Despite the restrictions, limited footage that has reached the outside world shows protests continuing in several cities.

Videos sent to Iran International show protesters disabling CCTV cameras in Karaj, Alborz province; Mahallat, Markazi province; and Pakdasht, Tehran province.

One video from Karaj, shows a protester disabling a CCTV camera amid a crowd.

Other footage from Mahallat, in central Iran’s Markazi province, shows protesters lighting fires in the street and taking surveillance cameras offline.

A separate video from the funeral of Khodadad Shirvani, a protester killed in Marvdasht, Fars province, shows a mourner disabling a security camera as the crowd chants slogans against the government.

In another video from Pakdasht, southeast of Tehran, a resident says: “Out of fear of the people, they are installing cameras again.”