The state-run Nour News, a media outlet close to the slain Ali Shamkhani, revealed that the meeting in which he and several senior Iranian regime military commanders were killed on the first day of the 40-day war had been convened, among other purposes, to follow up on a new plan aimed at organizing forces and procuring new equipment to confront protests.
The outlet wrote on Friday, July 24, that one of the two agenda items for the morning meeting on February 28, 2026, was to follow up on the implementation of the plan for “organizing resources, structures, personnel, and procuring new equipment for managing unrest.” The second agenda item was reportedly to examine the imminent possibility of a U.S. and Israeli attack on Iran.
According to Nour News, the plan was drafted after the widespread January protests, and Ali Khamenei, the former supreme leader of the Iranian regime, had approved its implementation and emphasized accelerating its execution.
The report also states that Khamenei had instructed the Secretariat of the Defense Council and Ali Shamkhani personally, rather than the Supreme National Security Council, to oversee the implementation of the plan through to its execution.
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Ali Shamkhani, who served as secretary of the Iranian regime’s Supreme National Security Council from 2013 to 2023, was appointed secretary of the newly established Defense Council after it was formed in 2025.
Nour News claimed that the purpose of the plan was to increase the preparedness of security and law enforcement forces to confront future protests with “the least possible damage and human casualties.”
During the January protests, Iran’s regime carried out the bloodiest crackdown on protests in its history through widespread internet shutdowns and the use of lethal force.
Human rights organizations, including Amnesty International, have documented the widespread use of live ammunition against protesters, and Iranian regime officials themselves confirmed that at least 3,117 people were killed during the protests. The real figure is estimated to be much higher.
In another part of its report, Nour News revealed for the first time that Shahid Meysami Industries, affiliated with the Iranian regime’s Ministry of Defense and targeted by Israel during the 12-day war, was responsible for designing and producing equipment used to control gatherings and protests.
According to Nour News, the facility’s primary mission was to develop tools that would enable the management of protests without the use of lethal weapons.
At the time of the attack on the facility, Iranian regime officials had provided no explanation as to why it had been targeted, and the nature of its activities had not been officially disclosed. This is the first time that a media outlet close to the regime has publicly described the facility’s mission.
The protests that began on December 28, 2025, initially erupted in response to the collapse of the rial’s value, inflation, and the cost-of-living crisis, and quickly spread to dozens of cities. Within a short time, protesters’ slogans began targeting the Iranian regime and Ali Khamenei personally.
Contrary to the official figures released by Iran’s regime regarding protesters killed, some human rights organizations estimated the death toll at between five thousand and six thousand people.
Like other Iranian regime media outlets and officials, Nour News also claimed that the January protests were part of a foreign plot and a prelude to a U.S. and Israeli military attack, even though Iranian regime officials have consistently blamed anti-government protests on foreign governments.
According to the Nour News report, the Defense Council’s subcommittee meeting, chaired by Shamkhani, was reviewing this plan as well as the possibility of an imminent U.S. and Israeli attack when the first wave of strikes in the 40-day war began.
Ali Shamkhani was killed on the morning of February 28 during that very meeting, along with several senior Iranian regime commanders, in a joint U.S.-Israeli attack.
Abbas Araghchi, the Iranian regime’s foreign minister, recently said that on February 28, when the joint Israeli-U.S. attack on Iran began, in addition to the office of Ali Khamenei, the offices of Ali Shamkhani, Mohammad Shirazi—both senior military officials—and Ali Asghar Hejazi, a senior security official and close aide to Khamenei, were also targeted. Of those targeted, only Hejazi survived.
