Iran’s deadly crackdown appears to have broadly quelled protests for now, according to a rights ​group and residents, as state media reported more arrests on Friday (January 16, 2026) in the shadow of repeated U.S. threats ‌to intervene if the killing continues.

Fears of a U.S. attack have retreated since Wednesday (January 14, 2026), when President Donald Trump said he’d ​been told killings in Iran were easing. U.S. allies, including Saudi Arabia and Qatar, conducted intense diplomacy with Washington this week to prevent a U.S. strike, warning of repercussions for the wider region that would ultimately impact the United States, a Gulf official said.

The White House said on Thursday (January 15, 2026) that Mr. Trump and his team have warned Tehran there would be “grave consequences” if there is further bloodshed.

Mr. Trump understands that 800 scheduled executions were halted, White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt added, saying the president was keeping “all of his options on the table”.

The protests erupted on December 28 over soaring inflation in Iran, whose economy has been crippled by sanctions, before spiralling into one of the biggest challenges yet ​to the clerical establishment that has run Iran since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Axios reported that the director of Israel’s Mossad spy agency, ⁠David Barnea, arrived in the U.S. on Friday (January 16, 2026) for talks on the situation in Iran. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

The news outlet also cited U.S. sources as saying the U.S. military is sending additional defensive and offensive capabilities to the region to be ready in case Trump orders ​a strike.

The U.S. military’s Central Command didn’t immediately respond to an emailed ⁠request for comment.

Analysis | Why Saudi Arabia opposed U.S. strike on Iran

Rights group reports heavy security deployment

With information flows from Iran obstructed by an internet blackout, several residents of Tehran said the capital had been quiet since Sunday (January 11, 2026). They said drones were flying over the city, where they’d seen no sign of protests on Thursday or Friday.

Iranian-Kurdish rights group Hengaw said that there had been no protest gatherings since Sunday (January 11, 2026), but “the security environment remains highly ‌restrictive”.

“Our independent sources confirm a heavy military and security presence in cities and towns where protests previously took place, as well ‌as in several locations that did not experience major demonstrations,” Norway-based Hengaw said in comments to Reuters.

Another resident in a northern city on the Caspian Sea said the streets also appeared calm.

The residents declined to be identified ‍for their safety.

Reports of sporadic unrest

There were, however, indications of unrest in some areas.

Hengaw reported that a female nurse was killed by direct gunfire from government forces during protests in Karaj, west of Iran. Reuters was not able to independently verify the report.

The state-affiliated Tasnim news outlet reported ‍that rioters set fire to a local education office in Falavarjan County, in central Isfahan Province, on Thursday (January 15, 2026).

An elderly resident of a town in Iran’s northwestern region, where many Kurdish Iranians live and which has been the focus for many of the biggest flare-ups, said sporadic protests had continued, though not as intensely.

Describing violence earlier in the protests, she said: “I have not seen scenes like that before.”

The state-owned Press TV cited Iran’s police chief as saying calm had been restored across the country.

A death toll reported by U.S.-based rights group HRANA has increased little since Wednesday, currently at 2,677 people, including 2,478 protesters and 163 people identified as affiliated with the government.

Reuters has not been able to independently verify the HRANA death toll. An Iranian official told the news agency earlier this week that about 2,000 people had been killed.

The casualty numbers dwarf the death toll from previous bouts ⁠of unrest that have been suppressed by the state.

Putin calls Netanyahu, Pezeshkian

Russian President Vladimir Putin discussed the situation in Iran in separate calls on Friday (January 16, 2026) with Netanyahu and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, and said that Moscow was willing to mediate ​in the region, the Kremlin said.

Mr. Pezeshkian told Mr. Putin that the United States and Israel had played a direct role in the unrest, Iranian state ⁠media reported.

Iranian authorities have accused foreign enemies of fomenting protests and armed people they have identified as terrorists of targeting security forces and carrying out attacks.

HRANA has reported that more than 19,000 people have been arrested, but the state-affiliated Tasnim news outlet said 3,000 people had been detained.

Tasnim also reported what it described as the arrest of a large number of leaders of recent riots in the western province of Kermanshah, and the arrest of five people accused of vandalising a gas station and a base belonging to the ⁠Basij – a branch of the security forces often used to quell unrest – in the southeastern city of Kerman.

Published – January 16, 2026 07:29 pm IST

Nationwide protests challenging Iran’s theocracy reached the two-week mark on Sunday (January 11, 2026), as the death toll in violence surrounding the demonstrations reached at least 116 people killed, activists said.

With the internet down in Iran and phone lines cut off, gauging the demonstrations from abroad has grown more difficult. But the death toll in the protests has grown to at least 116 and over 2,600 others detained, according to the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency. The agency has been accurate in multiple rounds of previous unrest in Iran.

Iranian state TV is reporting on security force casualties while portraying control over the nation, without discussing dead demonstrators, whom it increasingly refers to as “terrorists”.

However, it also acknowledged protests went on into Sunday morning, with demonstrations in Tehran and in the holy city of Mashhad to the northeast.

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has signalled a coming clampdown, despite U.S. warnings. Tehran escalated its threats on Saturday, with the Iran’s attorney general, Mohammad Movahedi Azad, warning that anyone taking part in protests will be considered an “enemy of God,” a death-penalty charge.

The statement carried by Iranian state television said even those who “helped rioters” would face the charge.

“Prosecutors must carefully and without delay, by issuing indictments, prepare the grounds for the trial and decisive confrontation with those who, by betraying the nation and creating insecurity, seek foreign domination over the country,” the statement read. “Proceedings must be conducted without leniency, compassion or indulgence.”

U.S. President Donald Trump offered support for the protesters, saying on social media that “Iran is looking at FREEDOM, perhaps like never before. The USA stands ready to help!!!”

The New York Times and Wall Street Journal, reporting citing anonymous U.S. officials, said on Saturday night that Mr. Trump had been given military options for a strike on Iran, but hadn’t made a final decision.

The State Department separately warned: “Do not play games with President Trump. When he says he’ll do something, he means it.”

Saturday marked the start of the work week in Iran, but many schools and universities reportedly held online classes, Iranian state TV reported. Internal Iranian government websites are believed to be functioning.

State TV repeatedly played a driving, martial orchestral arrangement from the “Epic of Khorramshahr” by Iranian composer Majid Entezami, while showing pro-government demonstrations.

The song, aired repeatedly during the 12-day war launched by Israel, honours Iran’s 1982 liberation of the city of Khorramshahr during the Iran-Iraq war. It has been used in videos of protesting women cutting away their hair to protest the 2022 death of Mahsa Amini as well.

It also repeatedly aired video of purported protesters shooting at security forces with firearms.

In one online video verified by The Associated Press, protesters demonstrated Friday in northern Tehran’s Saadat Abad area, with what appeared to be thousands on the street.

“Death to Khamenei!” a man chanted.

The semiofficial Fars news agency, believed to be close to Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard and one of the few media outlets able to publish to the outside world, released surveillance camera footage of what it said came from demonstrations in Isfahan.

In it, a protester appeared to fire a long gun, while others set fires and threw gasoline bombs at what appeared to be a government compound.

The Young Journalists’ Club, associated with state TV, reported that protesters killed three members of the Guard’s all-volunteer Basij force in the city of Gachsaran.

It also reported a security official was stabbed to death in Hamadan province, a police officer killed in the port city of Bandar Abbas and another in Gilan, as well as one person slain in Mashhad.

The semiofficial Tasnim news agency, also close to the Guard, claimed authorities detained nearly 200 people belonging to what it described as “operational terrorist teams.” It alleged those arrested had weapons including firearms, grenades and gasoline bombs.

State television also aired footage of a funeral service attended by hundreds in Qom, a Shiite seminary city just south of Tehran.

Iran’s theocracy cut off the nation from the internet and international telephone calls on Thursday, though it allowed some state-owned and semiofficial media to publish. Qatar’s state-funded Al Jazeera news network reported live from Iran, but they appeared to be the only major foreign outlet able to work.

Iran’s exiled Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi, who called for protests Thursday and Friday, asked in his latest message for demonstrators to take to the streets Saturday and Sunday. He urged protesters to carry Iran’s old lion-and-sun flag and other national symbols used during the time of the shah to “claim public spaces as your own.” Pahlavi’s support of and from Israel has drawn criticism in the past — particularly after the 12-day war. Demonstrators have shouted in support of the shah in some protests, but it isn’t clear whether that’s support for Pahlavi himself or a desire to return to a time before the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Online video purported to show protests ongoing Saturday night as well.

The demonstrations began Dec 28 over the collapse of the Iranian rial currency, which trades at over 1.4 million to $1, as the country’s economy is squeezed by international sanctions in part levied over its nuclear programme. The protests intensified and grew into calls directly challenging Iran’s theocracy.

Airlines have cancelled some flights into Iran over the demonstrations. Austrian Airlines said on Saturday it had decided to suspend its flights to Iran “as a precautionary measure” through Monday. Turkish Airlines earlier announced the cancellation of 17 flights to three cities in Iran.

Meanwhile, concern is growing that the internet shutdown will allow Iran’s security forces to go on a bloody crackdown, as they have in other rounds of demonstrations. Ali Rahmani, the son of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi who is imprisoned in Iran, noted that security forces killed hundreds in a 2019 protest “so we can only fear the worst.”

“They are fighting, and losing their lives, against a dictatorial regime,” Mr. Rahmani said.

Published – January 11, 2026 09:10 am IST