The European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) advised EU airlines on Friday to avoid flights in Iranian airspace due to heightened risk of error from Iranian air defense forces on high alert, amid potential US attack.
At least 52 prisoners were executed in Iran based on prior non-political convictions during a period of nationwide protests and an ongoing internet shutdown, US-based rights group HRANA reported on Friday.
The report said the executions were carried out between January 5 and January 14 in at least 42 prisons across multiple provinces.
Those executed had previously been sentenced to death on charges including murder and drug-related offences, which HRANA said were non-political and non-security related.
The executions were reported during a time of severe restrictions on access to information, with a total internet blackout limiting public scrutiny and independent monitoring of judicial proceedings and the implementation of death sentences.
“At least 37 prisoners were executed between January 5 and January 12. Additional executions were reported in the days that followed, including a wave of executions between January 13 and January 14 in several prisons across the country,” the report said.
The group said prison authorities and relevant institutions had not officially announced the executions at the time of reporting.
Human rights organizations raised concerns about the continued use of the death penalty in Iran, particularly during periods of heightened security and restricted information flows.
“The continuation of executions amid internet shutdowns has intensified concerns over a lack of judicial transparency, access to fair trials and the increased risk of violations of the right to life,” HRANA said.
US President Donald Trump said on Friday authorities in Iran stopped what he called planned executions of more than 800 protestors.
A European diplomat, citing intelligence shared with Iran International, said their information indicates that at least 1.5 million people took to the streets in Tehran on Thursday, 8 January.
He said the number was lower on Friday, January 9, as security forces were heavily present in the streets and, in many cases, began shooting as people started to assemble, killing people en masse.
However, the European diplomat who spoke to the channel believes as many as half a million people were present in Tehran on Friday despite the mass killing.
The number of people in other cities is unclear due to the lack of foreign diplomatic presence outside Tehran—all embassies are in the capital.
However, their intelligence estimate is that at least 5 million people participated in nationwide protests on Thursday and Friday.
At least 12,000 people were killed in the deadliest crackdown in Iran’s contemporary history, carried out largely over two consecutive nights on January 8 and 9, Iran International’s editorial board concluded, based on a review of sources and medical data.
Several Iranian Kurdish political parties called on the international community to respond to the Islamic Republic’s crackdown on nationwide protests, urging governments and human rights organizations to take action.
In a joint open letter addressed to countries around the world, international institutions and human rights groups, the parties said the global community should “hear the voice of the people of Iran who have risen up” and act to stop what they described as ongoing violence by the authorities.
“We, the political parties of Kurdistan of Iran, ask the international community to hear the voice of the people of Iran,” the letter says. “Countries and human rights organizations must accept their responsibility and, with all their capacity and in every possible way, stop this regime."
"Decades of opposition to Iran’s ruling system had shown that the masses of the people and oppressed nations deserve freedom and a humane life and international support for protesters would be part of the world’s historical responsibility," the letter said.
The letter was signed by multiple Kurdish political groups, including the Kurdistan Freedom Party (PAK), the Khabat Organization of Kurdistan of Iran, the Komala Party of Kurdistan of Iran and the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran, among others.
Tehran’s Friday prayer leader Ahmad Khatami called for the execution of detained protesters and the arrest of anyone who supported the protests, delivering the remarks during his Friday sermon.
Khatami, a hardline cleric appointed by Iran's Supreme Leader, accused protesters of acting on behalf of foreign powers, calling them “servants" of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and "soldiers of Trump."
“They should await a harsh retaliation from the government. Americans and Zionists should not expect peace,” Khatami said. “The demonstrators were servants of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and soldiers of Trump.”
“I say this clearly: the police and armed forces helped, but this time it was you, the people, who brought this matter to an end once again,” Khatami added. “You were present in the field and you must remain present.”
“These fools imagined they could break the country apart. As long as one Iranian is alive, no one will allow even an inch of this land to be lost,” Khatami said. “These savages did things that even the Mongols could not do, but they failed.”
US President Donald Trump said on Friday authorities in Iran stopped what he called a planned execution of more than 800 protestors.
Asked if Arab and Israeli officials convinced him to not strike Iran, President Trump told reporters, "Nobody convinced me. I convinced myself. You had, yesterday scheduled over 800 hangings. They didn't hang anyone. They canceled the hangings. That had a big impact."
The reported killing of thousands of protesters across Iran in just two days has raised a central question: who carried out the deadliest crackdown in the country’s living memory?
The scale of the violence—put at 12,000 by Iran International and as high as 20,000 by CBS—has shocked many Iranians.
As images and accounts continue to emerge despite a near-total internet shutdown, attention has focused on who was responsible for the bloodshed.
Tehran maintains that the violence was the result of armed infiltrators backed by Israel and the United States who attacked civilians and police and damaged state property, which it says triggered their forceful response.
Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence said on Friday that it had arrested 3,000 people it described as members of “terrorist groups.”
The Guards
Witness reports suggest that the primary force deployed on the streets was the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC).
One video that circulated despite the internet shutdown appears to show a pickup truck mounted with a DShK heavy machine gun in western Tehran that resembles those used by the IRGC’s Imam Ali Security Unit, which is tasked with security operations in the capital.
Iran International has obtained new details indicating that the Revolutionary Guards’ Quds Force and its allied proxy forces in the region played a central role in the killing of Iranian protesters on January 8 and 9.
According to the information, a significant portion of the killings was carried out by the Fatemiyoun Brigade of Afghan fighters, Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces, and the Zainabiyoun Brigade, an IRGC proxy group made of Pakistani nationals which is officially designated by Islamabad as a banned terrorist organization.
The Quds Force has extensive experience in urban warfare from the Syrian conflict, where it supported Bashar al-Assad’s government against both protesters and armed opposition groups.
Reports of foreign fighter deployment
Shortly after demonstrations began, social media users reported the presence of Iraqi pro-Iran militias in Iran’s Khuzestan province.
Their potential involvement drew closer scrutiny after a series of reports and images circulated in Iraqi and international media. The reports remain unconfirmed.
On January 11, videos showed large groups of fighters from Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) holding rallies in the southern Iraqi port city of Basra publicly declaring support for the Islamic Republic.
Iran’s Press TV later aired footage of a pro-government gathering near the Iranian embassy in Iraq, where participants carried flags associated with Iraqi militias such as Hashd al-Shaabi and Kataib Hezbollah, as well as Lebanon’s Hezbollah.
Other reports alleged more direct involvement. Iraqi television channel Al-Sumaria reported on Thursday that around 3,000 Iraqi fighters had crossed into Iran in a convoy of buses through the Shalamcheh border, disguised as religious pilgrims, to join IRGC bases in cities including Ahvaz.
CNN reported the same day that a military source said thousands of Iraqi militiamen had entered Iran through two border points, while an Iraqi security source cited the entry of hundreds more under the guise of pilgrims.
An image circulating online appears to show a dark armored vehicle believed by analysts to be used by Iraqi militias alongside Iranian police and IRGC units in Tehran. One man standing atop the vehicle is wearing a green headband commonly associated with Hashd al-Shaabi. The image has not been independently verified.
Some social media users have also alleged the involvement of other Quds Force-linked groups, such as the Fatemiyoun and Zeynabiyoun brigades, composed of Afghan and Pakistani Shiites previously deployed in Syria. Those claims also remain unconfirmed.
Use of criminal networks
There is no confirmed evidence that professional criminal networks were used in the latest crackdown. However, precedent exists.
During the 2009 protests, the IRGC released or recruited criminals from prison to suppress demonstrations. IRGC commander Hossein Hamedani—who was later killed in Syria—confirmed that 5,000 such individuals had been organized into three battalions.
“These three battalions showed that if we want to train fighters, we must bring in those who are used to knives and blades,” Hamedani told state-media reporters.
In subsequent years, images have surfaced showing some notorious Iranian convicts alongside IRGC forces in Syria, reinforcing long-standing claims that irregular actors have at times been incorporated into security operations.
Claims of drug use
Officials and critics have also offered competing explanations for some of the deaths, neither supported by verifiable evidence.
Iran’s Defense Minister Aziz Nasirzadeh asserted on Thursday that some protesters had died from overdoses of industrial drugs rather than violence, saying they showed “no other injuries.”
Dissident activists, by contrast, have raised the possibility that Captagon—an amphetamine-type stimulant—was used to increase aggressiveness among forces deployed to suppress protests.
The UN Office on Drugs and Crime has identified Syria as a major producer of Captagon, with large seizures of Syrian-origin pills documented in Iraq.