With protests surging across cities and towns across Iran, the regime has reportedly unleashed foreign fighters to crack down on protesters. The U.S. State Department raised the alarm about Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Iraqi terror militia set loose on Iranians.
“The United States is concerned by reports that the Islamic Republic has employed Hezbollah terrorists and Iraqi militias to crack down on peaceful protests,” State Department’s Persian-language account on X said on Saturday.
The State Department’s statement comes as Secretary Marco Rubio threw his weight behind the freedom-loving people of Iran. “The United States supports the brave people of Iran,” Rubio wrote on X.
On Friday, President Donald Trump repeated his warning to the Mullah regime that the U.S. will respond if the regime keeps killing peaceful demonstrators.
Reuters reported:
Trump, who bombed Iran last summer and warned Tehran last week the U.S. could come to the protesters’ aid issued another warning on Friday, saying: “You better not start shooting because we’ll start shooting too.””I just hope the protesters in Iran are going to be safe, because that’s a very dangerous place right now,” he added.
The regime has so far decided to ignore these warnings, with Khamenei himself mocking the president during the Friday prayer, claiming he would be “overthrown” like “arrogant” rulers before him amid customary chants of “Death to America.”
After Ayatollah Khamenei, on Friday, accused the protesters of being U.S. and Israel “agents,” and vowed to crush the uprising, the regime forces were cracking down on protests with even deadlier force, raising the estimated death toll to hundreds.
The New York Post on Saturday reported that “fears grow that the death toll has climbed to more than 200.” According to Time magazine, “A Tehran doctor [revealed] on condition of anonymity that just six hospitals in the capital had recorded at least 217 protester deaths, ‘most by live ammunition.'”
The British daily Independent reported drastic scenes at hospitals as the regime tried to cover up the brutality of its crackdown:
A doctor and a medic in Iran said that their hospitals have been inundated with patients as the protests continue to swell.One doctor told the BBC that an eye hospital in Tehran was in ‘crisis mode’ due to the number of injuries they were treating.A health worker at another hospital in the capital said patients were arriving with gunshot wounds.A medic at another hospital, in Shiraz, said there were not enough surgeons to treat the number of patients coming in.
With the regime imposing a complete internet and telecommunication blackout, the Iranians have been cut off from the outer world and from each other for the third day in a row. “As the blackout kicked in, 90% of internet traffic to Iran evaporated,” The Guardian (UK) reported Saturday. “International calls to the country appeared blocked and domestic mobile phones had no service (…).”
The regime blocked the internet and phones after mass demonstrations erupted in Tehran and other cities, heeding a call to action by Iran’s exiled Crown Prince, Reza Pahlavi.
Rattled by the ferocity of the unrest, the regime is resorting to extreme measures. Iran’s prosecutor general threatened “all protesters” with the death penalty. They were guilty of ‘mohareb,’ Persian for ‘waging war against Allah,’ he explained.
The Sky News (UK) reports on Saturday:
All protesters will be charged as “enemies of god” (or “mohareb”), Mohammad Movahedi Azad, the country’s prosecutor-general, has said in a statement, as Iranian state media reported.The offence is punishable by death penalty.This would apply to “rioters and terrorists” who damaged property and undermined security and those who helped them alike, Movahedi Azad said.Prosecutors should swiftly prepare trials and not show any “leniency, compassion, or indulgence”, he added.
Despite a brutal and deadly crackdown, the protesters remain undeterred as the unrest enters its third week.
“Iran was on edge Saturday after another night of protest in major cities and escalating threats from the government,” The Washington Post reported.
“[V]ideos shared by Persian-language news outlets based abroad (…) showed huge crowds in three cities including Tehran, Mashhad and Yazd, chanting for an end to the Islamic Republic and praising Iran’s deposed monarchy,” the daily added.
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