Buildings, buses and shops have been burned to the ground, turning Iran’s capital Tehran into a “war zone” as protests demanding the fall of the country’s supreme leader grow.
At least 65 people have been killed in clashes with police and 2,300 arrested, according to rights groups, who say the toll could be greater since Ayatollah Ali Khameini’s regime has cut off the outside world with a near-total internet blackout.
Follow the latest updates here.
This unrest follows a tumultuous period for the regime, which is still recovering from a heavy 12-day conflict in June, initiated by Israel, that saw US forces bomb Iranian nuclear facilities.
“This looks like a war zone – all the shops have been destroyed,” said an Iranian journalist in front of the fires on Shariati Street in the Caspian Sea port of Rasht.
Here’s what to know about the protests and the challenges facing Iran’s government.
How widespread are the Iran protests?
Iran has seen hundreds of protests erupt across all 31 provinces in the last two weeks.
The US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) said demonstrations had formed in 512 locations, across 180 cities, by Friday, the 13th day of action against the government.
The regime has scaled up its response in recent days, making at least 2,311 arrests. A further 65 people have been killed, HRANA says, including 50 protesters, of whom seven were children.
Tallying casualties and monitoring the spread of protests has been made difficult by Iran’s decision to impose a nationwide internet blackout on Thursday, as opposition factions encouraged Iranians to resist.
Online videos offer only brief, shaky glimpses of people in the streets or the sound of gunfire. Journalists in general in Iran also face limits on reporting such as requiring permission to travel around the country, as well as the threat of harassment or arrest by authorities.
But the protests do not appear to be stopping, even after Khamenei on Saturday said “rioters must be put in their place”.
Why did the protests start?
Protests broke out in two major markets in downtown Tehran on 28 December, after the Iranian rial plunged to 1.42 million to the US dollar, a new record low.
The collapse of the rial has led to a widening economic crisis in Iran. Prices are up on meat, rice and other staples. The nation has been struggling with an annual inflation rate of some 40 per cent.
In December, Iran introduced a new pricing tier for its nationally subsidised gasoline, raising the price of some of the world’s cheapest gas and further pressuring the population. Tehran may seek steeper price increases in the future, as the government will now review prices every three months.
Meanwhile, food prices are expected to spike after Iran’s Central Bank ended a preferential, subsidised dollar-rial exchange rate for all products except medicine and wheat.
While protests initially focused on economic issues, the demonstrations soon saw protesters chanting anti-government statements as well.
Anger has been simmering over the years, particularly after the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in police custody in 2022. Amini died in hospital after being arrested by the so-called ‘morality police’ for allegedly not wearing a headscarf in line with local rules.
Nationwide internet blackout: ‘Escalating digital censorship’
A nationwide internet blackout was reported in Iran on Thursday, according to internet monitoring group Netblocks. Iranians abroad have said they have been unable to contact their families due to the restrictions in place.
A statement from the group reads: “Live metrics show Iran is now in the midst of a nationwide internet blackout; the incident follows a series of escalating digital censorship measures targeting protests across the country and hinders the public's right to communicate at a critical moment.”
The blackout crossed the 24 hour mark late on Friday. National connectivity flatlined at ~1% of ordinary levels, and information on the protests dried up. Iran’s military continued to warn civilians against joining protests, and rights groups continued to publish updated figures on casualties.
Ayatollah Khameini’s response to political unrest
Khameini insisted the Islamic Republic would not “back down” in his first address since the unrest on Friday.
“The Islamic Republic will not tolerate mercenaries working for foreign powers,” he continued. “To President Trump: focus on the problems in your own country.
“Everyone should know that the Islamic Republic came to power with the blood of hundreds of thousands of honourable people, and it will not back down in the face of saboteurs.”
What does it mean for Iran’s allies?
Iran’s “Axis of Resistance”, which grew in prominence in the years after the 2003 US-led invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq, is reeling.
Israel has crushed Hamas in the devastating war in the Gaza Strip. Hezbollah, the Shiite militant group in Lebanon, has seen its top leadership killed by Israel and has been struggling since.
A lightning offensive in December 2024 overthrew Iran’s longtime stalwart ally and client in Syria, president Bashar Assad, after years of war there. Yemen’s Iranian-backed Houthi rebels also have been pounded by Israeli and US airstrikes.
China meanwhile has remained a major buyer of Iranian crude oil, but hasn’t provided overt military support. Neither has Russia, which has relied on Iranian drones in its war on Ukraine.
What does it mean for Iran’s nuclear capabilities?
Iran has insisted for decades that its nuclear programme is peaceful. However, its officials have increasingly threatened to pursue a nuclear weapon.
Iran had been enriching uranium to near weapons-grade levels prior to the US attack in June, making it the only country in the world without a nuclear weapons programme to do so.
Tehran also increasingly cut back its cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN’s nuclear watchdog, as tensions increased over its nuclear programme in recent years. The IAEA’s director-general has warned Iran could build as many as 10 nuclear bombs, should it decide to weaponise its programme.
US intelligence agencies have assessed that Iran has yet to begin a weapons programme, but has “undertaken activities that better position it to produce a nuclear device, if it chooses to do so”.
Iran recently said it was no longer enriching uranium at any site in the country, trying to signal to the West that it remains open to potential negotiations over its atomic programme to ease sanctions. But there’s been no significant talks in the months since the June war.
Are Trump, the US and Israel involved?
Iranian authorities have blamed “terrorist agents” from the US and Israel for the unrest. The Ayatollah called protesters “saboteurs” and said they were “ruining their own streets [to] make the president of another country happy”.
US president Donald Trump warned that if Tehran “violently kills peaceful protesters” the US “will come to their rescue,” threats that acquired fresh resonance following the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, a long-standing ally of Tehran.
“We’re watching it very closely,” Trump said on Sunday. “If they start killing people like they have in the past, I think they’re going to get hit very hard by the United States.” He reiterated the threats on Friday, saying the US was still watching very closely.
Decades ago, Iran was one of the United States’ top allies in the Middle East under shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who purchased American military weapons and allowed CIA technicians to run secret listening posts monitoring the neighbouring Soviet Union.
The CIA fomented a 1953 coup that cemented the shah’s rule. But in January 1979, the shah fled Iran as mass demonstrations swelled against his rule. Then came the Islamic Revolution led by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, which created Iran’s theocratic government.
Later that year, university students overran the US Embassy in Tehran, seeking the Shah’s extradition and sparking the 444-day hostage crisis that saw diplomatic relations between Iran and the US severed.
During the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s, the US backed Saddam Hussein. During that conflict, the US launched a one-day assault that crippled Iran at sea as part of the so-called “Tanker War”, and later shot down an Iranian commercial airliner that the US military said it mistook for a warplane.
Iran and the US have seesawed between enmity and grudging diplomacy in the years since. Relations peaked with the 2015 nuclear deal, which saw Iran greatly limit its programme in exchange for the lifting of sanctions.
But Trump unilaterally withdrew America from the accord in 2018, sparking tensions in the Mideast that intensified after 7 October attack by Hamas.
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Iran shuts off internet as protests blaze. A timeline of how unrest unfolded and grew
