Iran International
Iranians in exile say few families have been spared by the brutal crackdown back home, describing to Iran International an unprecedented wave of killings as security forces unleash violence under a nationwide communications blackout.
For Alex, an Iranian living in Texas, the violence is no longer something he is witnessing from afar.
His cousin Mehdi was killed on Friday, January 9, in the western Iranian city of Kermanshah after joining nationwide protests following exiled Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi’s call for Iranians to rise up.
Iran International is withholding Alex’s last name to protect family members inside Iran.
“The Basij shot him in the head and the stomach," Alex said, recounting what his aunt told him. "They (Basij) hunted him like a dog."
Authorities later cut internet access across much of the country, severing communication and leaving families unable to confirm who was alive or dead.
Alex only learned what had happened days later, on Wednesday afternoon, when landlines briefly reopened during the blackout. The connection was poor and repeatedly cut out, but he could hear his aunt howling in tears and screaming.
"I only got like three minutes out of the call but what I got out of it was my aunt screaming and she said he's been killed."
Mehdi was 32 years old. Alex said his aunt later identified the body at a forensic center after days of searching. He says his aunt recognized her son by his hair.
"His face was completely unrecognizable," said Alex.
He said authorities are now demanding payment from the family to release Mehdi’s body.
From Texas, Alex said he feels hollow and barely able to function, but believes speaking publicly is the only way to honor his cousin and push back against the silence imposed by the blackout.
"He wanted a free Iran and King Reza Pahlavi."
'Fear and helplessness'
In Canada, Iranian-Canadian Ghazal Shokri described a similar sense of fear and helplessness as she waits for fragile contact with her family inside Iran. She said she has heard her mother’s voice only for seconds and her sister’s for minutes since the violence escalated.
Shokri said the scale of the killings is unlike anything Iranians have experienced before, warning that nearly every family now knows someone who has been killed.
She said she is increasingly worried not only about the physical destruction of the country but about the long-term psychological toll on Iranian society, including widespread trauma, depression and lasting social damage.
“There is every family now in Iran knows a few people got killed," Ghazal said.
"Honestly, it's not easy to talk about it. I mean, as a human being, we haven't been designed for this," she said.
Another Iranian in exile, Sobhan Nofar, said the nationwide communications blackout has intensified fear among Iranians living abroad.
“That silence is terrifying,” he said.
He said the loss of contact with people inside Iran has left many Iranians outside the country sleepless and consumed by anxiety for their families, with every fragment of information feeling like evidence of a growing bloodbath.
Hediyeh, a journalist based in Washington, DC, says she is worried not only about the health of her parents and her husband's family, but also about their financial situation, as they largely relied on allowances the couple sent through friends and relatives.
With the internet shut down, it is no longer possible to send money to the family, leaving Hediyeh concerned about how the elderly parents will make ends meet under Iran’s severe economic conditions.
Iran International has reported that at least 12,000 people were killed in just two days as security forces unleashed what analysts describe as the deadliest wave of state violence in the Islamic Republic’s history. Other estimates suggest the toll may be even higher as the blackout continues to limit verification.
Growing calls for US action
The testimonies come as calls by Iranians inside the country and across the diaspora for US military action have intensified, with demands for targeted strikes against the Islamic Republic’s security and repression apparatus.
For Iranians in exile like Alex, Shokri and Nofar, the debate is no longer abstract. It is shaped by the names and faces of people they knew and by the fear that more families will soon join them in mourning.
"Every piece of news, videos or photos coming from Iran feels like another sense of a blood bath," said Nofar "I'm really scared, deeply scared but I don't allow myself to completely fall apart because I truly believe Iranian people are bigger than this terrorist regime."
As Iran remains largely cut off from the outside world, they say speaking publicly is one of the few ways left to ensure the dead are not reduced to statistics.
Ali Khamenei in his Saturday speech blamed the United States for casualties, damage and what he described as slander against Iran, directly targeting President Donald Trump for encouraging unrest and promising support to protesters.
“We consider the US president a criminal for the casualties, damages, and the slander he inflicted on the Iranian nation,” Khamenei said. He further described the recent protests as “an American plot” and accused Washington of seeking to “devour Iran.”
Supreme leader links unrest to Washington
Trump, Khamenei said, had personally intervened, accusing him of making statements that emboldened demonstrators and pledging military backing. “Trump himself intervened in this unrest, made statements, encouraged the rioters, and said we will provide military support,” he added.
The events, he said, were planned by Americans with the aim of asserting control over Iran, repeating a long-standing narrative that external forces are behind domestic dissent. He also accused the US president of misrepresenting those involved in the unrest, saying Trump portrayed “vandals” as the Iranian nation.
At least 12,000 people have been killed in Iran in the largest killing in the country's contemporary history, much of it carried out on January 8 and 9 during an ongoing internet shutdown, according to senior government and security sources speaking to Iran International.
The killing was carried out on the direct order of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, with the explicit knowledge and approval of the heads of all three branches of government, and with an order for live fire issued by the Supreme National Security Council, Iran International has learned.
Warning to protesters and alleged backers
Khamenei issued a warning that extended beyond street protests to those he described as "instigators" at home and abroad.
The leader of the Islamic Republic said he does not intend to steer the country toward war but will not let "domestic criminals" go, while also acknowledging that “several thousand people” were killed during widespread protests across Iran.
“The Iranian nation, just as it broke the back of the riot, must also break the back of those who instigated it.”
Authorities and society, he added, would not relent in pursuing those blamed for the unrest. “The Iranian nation will not let go of the domestic and international criminals behind this unrest,” Khamenei said.
Among Iranians inside the country and across the diaspora, the pause is increasingly interpreted not as restraint but as a dangerous limbo.
Calls for decisive military action are now openly framed as a necessary step to halt executions and mass violence, while hesitation is seen as compounding an already unbearable strain.
In Persian-language commentary circulating widely online, Trump’s posture is described as calculated ambiguity rather than caution.
Trump’s public gestures, including a post thanking Iran’s leadership and authorities for not executing detained protesters, are dismissed by critics as deliberate misdirection. They say the aim is to buy time while the United States strengthens its offensive and defensive military position in the Persian Gulf.
“The shadow of a Trump attack on Iran has not disappeared. He uses his intelligence for deception more than for anything else. His post thanking Khamenei and the authorities is also deceptive. He is buying time to reach a strong offensive and defensive military position in the Persian Gulf and to decide on a surprise strike at the optimal moment,” wrote a user.
For many, the conclusion is blunt: military confrontation is inevitable.
“A military attack on the clerics is inevitable. You shouldn’t get too caught up in daily noise. The same fluctuations existed before the 12-day war. The only course is to keep documenting the clerics’ crimes and to keep demanding and applying pressure on the United States and Israel for a maximal attack,” wrote another one.
Trump remarks fuel disbelief and anger
Trump’s own comments have inflamed skepticism. "We have been told that the killing in Iran is stopping, it has stopped, it's stopping," he told reporters in the Oval Office Wednesday afternoon. "And there's no plan for executions or an execution or executions. So, I've been told that on good authority. We'll find out about it."
He also said on Friday: "Nobody convinced me, I convinced myself. You had yesterday scheduled over 800 hangings. They didn't hang anyone. They cancelled the hangings. That had a big impact."
Public reaction to Trump’s remarks was colored by memories of past crises and government narratives that later unraveled.
“Sure, Mr. Trump,” one user wrote, “they also told us they didn’t shoot down the Ukrainian plane.”
The post referenced Flight PS752, which Iranian authorities denied downing in 2020 for several days before acknowledging it was downed by Iranian missiles, hardening skepticism.
Ambiguity seen as tactic to preserve leverage
A recurring theme was Trump’s communication style. “This is Trump’s usual way,” one post read. “Maybe they called me, maybe I’ll negotiate, maybe I’ll attack, maybe I’ll attack first then negotiate. He uses this tactic to confuse his audience.”
Others argued the statements were designed to establish a record. “Politics is complex,” one user wrote. “He said that so if an attack happens tomorrow, the world won’t grab him asking why you struck. He can say, ‘I warned them and they didn’t listen.’”
Debate over patience, pressure and timing
Social media has also become a forum for strategic debate among Iranians about the role of time, restraint and foreign intervention. “This movement didn’t begin with hope for an American attack,” one wrote. “It shouldn’t end with despair over not getting one.”
Others emphasized endurance. “As long as people remain in the streets, we won’t lose hope,” another post said, arguing that internal pressure, not foreign strikes, would determine outcomes – even if outside action could shorten the path.
A more tactical strand of discussion focused on military logistics. Users pointed to reports of aircraft carrier movements, troop redeployments and regional preparations as signs that delay does not equal abandonment. “All these movements mean money, cost,” one post read. “Even if Trump orders it today, it takes weeks – equipment, transport, doctors, food.”
One argued that an immediate strike could trigger indiscriminate retaliation across the region – from Iraq and the Persian Gulf to Israel – and even false-flag attacks blamed on outside powers, invoking the PS752 precedent. In that view, delay allows for planning aimed at minimizing civilian casualties.
Some took a more psychological angle. “The fact that Trump hasn’t attacked yet has frayed your nerves,” one user wrote, “imagine what it’s doing to the nerves of the security forces.” The argument suggests waiting itself can function as pressure, exhausting those tasked with maintaining control.
Some also expressed relief that no strike had occurred, arguing that a rushed or limited attack could be politically symbolic rather than decisive, allowing leaders to disengage without addressing deeper risks. “Trump isn’t looking for a battle he can’t win,” one post said, suggesting preparation signals calculation rather than retreat.
For a society already accustomed to crisis, the waiting has become its own ordeal. Each day without action brings more frustration. As one user put it, half-joking and half-resigned, “Until news of an attack on Iran comes directly from Trump’s account, I won’t believe anything anymore.”
In the absence of certainty, Iranians continue to debate, wait and endure at one of the most sensitive moments in the country’s modern history where thousands have been killed.
Families stood in long lines outside, he added, waiting to be allowed in to look for loved ones among the dead.
Kiarash, whose last name Iran International is withholding for his safety, described the sprawling morgue as a "warehouse of bodies."
He was there to find the body of the woman, Nasim Pouaghai, after she was shot in the neck and died after a night in hospital.
Kiarash found himself face to face with what he believed to be up to 2,000 bodies brought in during a span of just a few hours on Saturday amid a nationwide internet blackout that sealed Iran off from the outside world.
“People were waiting to go inside of these warehouses to find their beloved and their killed body," Kiarash told Eye for Iran. "I saw two or three trucks that were in the queue … to unload the bodies."
His testimony is one of the few ground-level accounts of the mass killings in the worst crackdown on dissent in the country in decades as that shutdown persists.
At least 12,000 people were killed in just two days as the Islamic Republic unleashed a sweeping crackdown, according to tallies from medics and senior Iranian officials obtained by Iran International.
Kiarash said security forces were stationed at the entrance of Tehran's main cemetery, the Behesht-e Zahra. Inside, families were directed toward the main hall for washing corpses per Islamic practices, where he noticed the warehouses for the first time.
Through the open doors, he says, bodies were visible in stacked rows. Based on what he personally saw, he estimates that each warehouse held between 1,500 and 2,000 bodies by early afternoon. Trucks continued arriving, unloading more.
"I saw small bags," Kiarash added. "I found it out that there are children. There were many, many children."
'Holocaust' scenes
Phones were useless. There was no signal. When he tried to document what he was seeing but was stopped by security personnel. Around him, families broke down in tears as they searched through layers of bodies, sometimes forced to move one body aside to look for another beneath it.
He recalls one mother finding her son and begging others not to touch him, even as other families desperately searched beneath stacked bodies for their own loved ones.
Later that same day, during the blackout, Kiarash says he witnessed indiscriminate shooting at close range in Sa’adat Abad, a wealthy residential neighborhood in northwestern Tehran.
He says a shooter dressed in a black chador, traditional women's clothes in Iran, opened fire on a crowd. Bodies began hitting the ground.
“I heard bang, bang, pop, pop. Six times ... and I saw three people, they collapsed just near me. Two girls and one boy.”
Kiarash says he joined others in dragging the wounded into side streets as the shooter fled.
“We can’t stop this regime from killing the people. They’re not talking with us. They’re just killing," Kiarash said. “I just saw when they were throwing out the bodies in the cemetery. It was the same picture which we have here in Germany from the Holocaust.”
You can listen to Eye for Iran on any podcast platform of your choosing or watch on YouTube.
