After Tehran's deadliest crackdown on dissidents in decades and with broad domestic security mobilization and sweeping internet blackout still in place, Tehran now tries to project an image of calm.
US President Donald Trump on Saturday called for an end to Ali Khamenei's reign in Iran, responding to comments by the Supreme Leader who blamed Trump for the protest deaths in Iran.
Iran’s supreme leader accused the US president of orchestrating unrest and committing crimes against the Iranian nation, escalating his rhetoric against Washington as authorities continue to frame recent protests as a foreign-backed plot.
At least 16,500 protesters have been killed and about 330,000 injured during Iran’s unrest, according to a report compiled by doctors inside the country and cited by The Sunday Times, as a near-total internet blackout has made independent verification increasingly difficult.
A senior Iranian diplomat based at the United Nations’ European headquarters in Geneva has left his post and applied for asylum in Switzerland, diplomatic sources told Iran International, amid mounting political unrest in Iran.
Iran’s foreign ministry on Saturday rejected claims by the US State Department's Persian-language account that Tehran was preparing options to target American interests in the region.
US Vice President JD Vance, a longtime skeptic of foreign interventions, supported a US attack on Iran, The Washington Post reported, citing a US official and a person close to the White House.
Tehran's chief prosecutor on Saturday vowed "firm" action against detained protesters, responding to a Truth Social post by US President Donald Trump in which he said Iran's leadership had "cancelled the executions" of 800 protesters.
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.
Argentine President Javier Milei on Saturday signed a decree proscribing the Quds Force of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and thirteen individuals linked to the IRGC's overseas arm as terrorist.
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?
Iranian Prince Reza Pahlavi on Thursday outlined his vision for how Iran could reposition itself at home and abroad after five decades of isolation and confrontation with the world if the Islamic Republic were toppled.
The events of the past two weeks in Iran point toward an openly regime-change movement, with protesters calling for the end of the Islamic Republic itself.
What is unfolding in Iran is a clash between a state that treats isolation and sacrifice as strategic virtues, and a society no longer willing to bear the economic and human cost of the Islamic Republic’s ideological and regional ambitions.
Turkey has adopted a calculated caution during the recent waves of protests in neighboring Iran, avoiding endorsement of those who took to the streets while stopping short of backing Tehran’s violent crackdown.
A review of public statements by Iran’s senior officials since late December suggests a marked hardening of tone as protests escalated, a shift that coincided with a sharp intensification of the state’s security response.
State media in Iran have widely circulated images of damaged mosques and burned Qurans inside, blaming protesters they brand “terrorists” and portraying its deadly crackdown on a protest uprising as a sacred defense of holy places.
Several foreign influencers supportive of the Islamic Republic have published content portraying life in Tehran as calm despite an escalating deadly crackdown on protests across the country amid an internet blackout.
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on Wednesday Washington is tracking what he described as a surge of capital flight by Iran’s ruling elite, as fears grow over the possible collapse of the Islamic Republic amid unrest and threats of a US strike.
A 25 percent tariff on US imports from any country that trades with Iran appears aimed at punishing third countries, but it is likely to hit Tehran far harder.
Visiting lecturer, Paris School of International Affairs (PSIA)
Iran International
Institute for National Security Studies
Iran International
Iran International
Iran International
Iran International
Iran International
Iran International
There is a cruel ritual in Iranian opposition politics: some voices abroad constantly interrogate the “purity” of activists inside—why they did not speak more sharply or endorse maximalist slogans, why survival itself looks insufficiently heroic.
The Iran projected on social media these days—brunch parties, rooftop concerts, fashion shows—is real, but only as a tiny fragment of the country’s reality, where most ordinary people struggle to make ends meet.
