Individuals stroll in entrance a billboard with graphic exhibiting a U.S plane provider with broken fighter jets on its deck, and signal studying in Farsi and English: “If you sow the wind, you’ll reap whirlwind,” on the Enqelab-e-Eslami (Islamic Revolution) sq., in Tehran, Iran, Sunday, Jan. 25, 2026.
Vahid Salemi/AP
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Vahid Salemi/AP
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Iran’s bloody crackdown on nationwide protests killed at the very least 6,126 folks whereas many others nonetheless are feared lifeless, activists stated Tuesday, as a U.S. plane provider group arrived within the Mideast to steer any American army response to the disaster.
The arrival of the usAbraham Lincoln plane provider and guided missile destroyers accompanying it present the U.S. the flexibility to strike Iran, notably as Gulf Arab states have signaled they need to keep out of any assault regardless of internet hosting American army personnel.
Two Iranian-backed militias within the Mideast have signaled their willingness to launch new assaults, doubtless making an attempt to again Iran after U.S. President Donald Trump threatened army motion over the killing of peaceable protesters or Tehran launching mass executions within the wake of the demonstrations.
Iran has repeatedly threatened to tug all the Mideast right into a warfare, although its air defenses and army are nonetheless reeling after the June warfare launched by Israel in opposition to the nation.
Each the Houthis and Kataib Hezbollah sat out from Israel’s 12-day warfare on Iran that noticed the US bomb Iranian nuclear websites. The hesitancy to get entangled exhibits the disarray nonetheless affecting Iran’s self-described “Axis of Resistance” after dealing with assaults from Israel throughout its warfare on Hamas within the Gaza Strip.
Activists supply new dying toll
The brand new figures Tuesday got here from the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists Information Company, which has been correct in a number of rounds of unrest in Iran. The group verifies every dying with a community of activists on the bottom in Iran.
It recognized the lifeless as together with at the very least 5,777 protesters, 214 government-affiliated forces, 86 youngsters and 49 civilians who weren’t demonstrating. The crackdown has seen over 41,800 arrests, it added.
A Hezbollah supporter waves an Iranian flag throughout a rally to indicate their solidarity with the Iranian authorities, within the southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, Monday, Jan. 26, 2026.
Hussein Malla/AP
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Hussein Malla/AP
The Related Press has been unable to independently assess the dying toll given authorities slicing off the web and disrupting calls into the Islamic Republic.
Iran’s authorities has put the dying toll at a far decrease 3,117, saying 2,427 had been civilians and safety forces, and labeled the remainder “terrorists.” Up to now, Iran’s theocracy has undercounted or not reported fatalities from unrest.
That dying toll exceeds that of some other spherical of protest or unrest there in a long time, and remembers the chaos surrounding Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution.
The protests in Iran started on Dec. 28, sparked by the autumn of the Iranian foreign money, the rial, and shortly unfold throughout the nation. They had been met by a violent crackdown by Iran’s theocracy, the size of which is just beginning to change into clear because the nation has confronted greater than two weeks of web blackout — essentially the most complete in its historical past.
Iran’s U.N. ambassador advised a U.N. Safety Council assembly late Monday that Trump’s repeated threats to make use of army drive in opposition to the nation “are neither ambiguous nor misinterpreted.” Amir Saeid Iravani additionally repeated allegations that the U.S. chief incited violence by “armed terrorist groups” supported by the US and Israel, however gave no proof to help his claims.
Iranian state media has tried to accuse forces overseas for the protests because the theocracy stays broadly unable to deal with the nation’s ailing economic system, which remains to be squeezed by worldwide sanctions, notably over its nuclear program.
Some Iranian-backed militias counsel willingness to battle
Iran projected its energy throughout the Mideast by the “Axis of Resistance,” a community of proxy militant teams in Gaza, Lebanon, Yemen, Syria and Iraq, and different locations. It was additionally seen as a defensive buffer, meant to maintain battle away from Iranian borders. However it has collapsed after Israel focused Hamas, Hezbollah in Lebanon and others in the course of the Gaza warfare. In the meantime, rebels in 2024 overthrew Syria’s Bashar Assad after a yearslong, bloody warfare wherein Iran backed his rule.
Yemen’s Houthi rebels, backed by Iran, have repeatedly warned they might resume hearth if wanted on transport within the Crimson Sea, releasing outdated footage of a earlier assault Monday. Ahmad “Abu Hussein” al-Hamidawi, the chief of Iraq’s Kataib Hezbollah militia, warned “the enemies that the war on the (Islamic) Republic will not be a picnic; rather, you will taste the bitterest forms of death, and nothing will remain of you in our region.”
The Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, considered one of Iran’s staunchest allies, refused to say the way it deliberate to react within the case of a attainable assault.
“During the past two months, several parties have asked me a clear and frank question: If Israel and America go to war against Iran, will Hezbollah intervene or not?” Hezbollah chief Sheikh Naim Kassem stated in a video deal with.
He stated the group is making ready for “possible aggression and is determined to defend” in opposition to it. However as to how it could act, he stated, “these details will be determined by the battle and we will determine them according to the interests that are present.”
