The nationwide uprising of January 2026, with its unprecedented geographic spread and structure-breaking slogans, placed the entire Iranian regime in the face of an existential challenge and a “survival situation.” The intensity of this popular uprising was such that it eroded and weakened the regime’s traditional apparatus of repression. Credible field reports and strategic analyses show that the authorities, fearing noncompliance by domestic forces and defections within the repressive ranks, resorted to an unprecedented and dangerous measure: summoning extraterritorial arms and proxy militias to confront the Iranian people directly.

Field evidence; traces of foreigners on Iran’s streets

An examination of data from credible news sources and eyewitness reports reveals a grim reality. Irrefutable evidence indicates that by early January 2026, at least 800 militia forces affiliated with groups such as “Kataib Hezbollah,” “Harakat al-Nujaba,” “Sayyid al-Shuhada Brigades,” and the “Badr Organization”—all Iraqi Iran-aligned armed groups—were deployed from Iraq into Iranian territory.

The deployment geography of these forces targeted the most volatile centers of the uprising: the provinces of Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari, Khuzestan (especially Abadan), Isfahan, Lorestan, and the city of Mashhad.

Iranian Regime Officials Committed Mass Massacres, Human Rights Body Reports #IranProtests #IranRevolution #FreeIran2026 #No2ShahNo2Mullahshttps://t.co/9wOXEemMum

— Iran Focus (@Iran_Focus) February 5, 2026

Eyewitness reports from Zand Boulevard in Shiraz and the streets of Abadan describe the presence of agents speaking with a strong Arabic accent—distinct from the dialect of Iranian Arabs in Khuzestan—who suppressed protesters with a level of brutality markedly different from that of local forces. In Mashhad, the presence of a 150-member unit wearing specialized combat gear has also been reported, indicating an organized plan to contain the uprising.

Strategic logic; why did the regime resort to “imported mercenaries”?

The use of proxy forces within national borders represents a fundamental shift in the regime’s repression model, based on three main pillars:

Emotional and national disconnect: The imported forces—whether Iraqi militias or units such as the Fatemiyoun Division—lack any national, historical, or emotional ties to the Iranian people. While the people of Iran and the region have long-standing fraternal bonds, the regime has deployed these elements, who have been indoctrinated with sectarian ideology for years, to ensure its survival. For these mercenaries, firing on rebellious Iranian youth is not the killing of compatriots but the elimination of a presumed enemy, pushing the brutality of repression to its peak.

Fear of internal defiance: By importing foreign forces, the regime sends a threatening message to its domestic security apparatus. This move serves as leverage to prevent any potential sympathy between local forces and the people and to block avenues for defection or disobedience within the repressive structure.

Expertise in urban warfare: These militias have spent years in the ruins of Syria and Iraq, learning guerrilla warfare tactics and neighborhood-clearing operations. The regime is now employing these grim experiences to confront uprising centers in Iranian cities.

Diplomacy in the service of crime

Investigations show that the infrastructure enabling the rapid transfer of these forces was not accidental but the result of years of planning. Handing over the regime’s embassies in the region to commanders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), such as Iraj Masjedi in Iraq, effectively turned these diplomatic missions into logistical and support hubs for organizing and deploying militias. This process proves that the regime’s foreign policy apparatus is an inseparable part of its military repression machine.

The Uncertain Fate of Detainees Following the Bloody Crackdown on Iran Protests #IranProtests #IranRevolution #FreeIran2026 #No2ShahNo2Mullahshttps://t.co/3d1gd4WcjC

— Iran Focus (@Iran_Focus) February 4, 2026

International reactions and the stance of the Resistance

In numerous statements, the National Council of Resistance of Iran, while exposing this sinister plan, has emphasized that the regime is now using forces it previously organized under the deceptive label of “defenders of the shrine” to defend the regime against the Iranian people.

On the international stage, recent statements by the European Parliament and positions taken by Kaja Kallas, stressing that repression cannot go unanswered, are reactions to this very genocide in digital darkness. The involvement of extraterritorial terrorist forces in suppressing the Iranian people is now being cited as a powerful legal document in the case for designating the IRGC as a terrorist organization in Europe.

Iran as an occupied land

The use of proxy forces in the January 2026 uprising delivered the final blow to the false claims of the regime’s armed forces being “popular” and “powerful.” This action proved that the clerical regime, to preserve its power, views Iran not as a homeland but as an “occupied land,” over which it will commit any crime— even seeking the help of foreigners to massacre the rightful owners of this country— to maintain its domination.

According to information released so far, at least 86 students were killed during the January protests. Naturally, this figure does not yet include all names, as severe pressure on families and strict communication restrictions remain in place.

According to student activists, the closure of universities has created an environment for the silent suppression of students. Every day, student media report the arrest of a new student. “Ali Taheri-Kia,” “Mobin Safdari,” and “Abbas Yousefi” are three students from the University of Tehran whose arrest, while on routes leading to student dormitories, now dates back nearly four weeks. According to student activists, dozens of students are currently being held in detention.

Iranian Regime Officials Committed Mass Massacres, Human Rights Body Reports #IranProtests #IranRevolution #FreeIran2026 #No2ShahNo2Mullahshttps://t.co/9wOXEemMum

— Iran Focus (@Iran_Focus) February 5, 2026

According to student sources, with the loss of safe spaces on university campuses and under recent psychological and security pressures, at least five students have taken their own lives. “Elina Bahrami” and “Nia Samari,” students at the University of Tehran; “Fatemeh Kamali,” a student at Shiraz University; and “Erfan Taherkhani” and “Farhad Salari,” students at a university of medical sciences, are among the students who have lost their lives under suspicious circumstances in recent days.

The state-run news website Emtedad writes that the Ministry of Science, by transferring its responsibilities to universities, has effectively remained inactive and passive under these critical conditions. Emtedad writes: “It seems that the Ministry of Science, which itself lacks the ability to make decisions and accept the consequences of its own decisions, is trying to absolve itself of all responsibility by delegating these decisions to universities. Since the beginning of the recent protests, this ministry has done nothing but issue directives and release slogan-filled statements, while the Ministry of Health has remained completely silent. This is while universities, more than ever, are in need of proper management to reduce tensions during these days.”

A privacy and internet security analyst says that Iran, due to internet shutdowns imposed by the Iranian regime, loses 1.56 million dollars every hour, further damaging its already stagnant economy and disrupting the lives of more than 90 million people.

Simon Migliano, head of research at the privacy company Privacy, told Fox News about Iran’s prolonged internet shutdowns that the losses caused by these disruptions continue even after partial internet connectivity is restored.

In this interview, which was published on Wednesday, February 4, he noted: “The current blackout is costing Iran an estimated $37.4 million per day, or $1.56 million every hour.”
Migliano added that the complete internet shutdown has cost Iran more than 780 million dollars, and subsequent strict filtering continues to have a significant economic impact.

The Uncertain Fate of Detainees Following the Bloody Crackdown on Iran Protests

He added: “Iran has already drained $215 million from its economy in 2025 by disrupting internet access.”
Migliano said his estimates were calculated using the “NetBlocks Cost” tool, an economic model that measures the immediate impact on a country’s gross domestic product when its digital economy is forcibly taken offline.

According to Fox, this model assesses the direct damage to productivity, online transactions, and remote work using data from the World Bank, the International Telecommunication Union, Eurostat, and the United States Census Bureau.

Earlier, Sattar Hashemi, the Iranian regime’s minister of communications, said last week that internet shutdowns cause daily losses of five quadrillion rials to Iran’s economy (approximately 31.25 million dollars).

He also announced on February 1 that internet speeds have not yet returned to the conditions prior to January 7 and 8, and that traffic levels remain low.

Internet access in Iran was cut by Iranian regime authorities on Thursday night, January 8, following widespread public protests.

Fox wrote: “While officials later restored much of the country’s domestic bandwidth, as well as local and international phone calls and SMS messaging, the population is largely unable to freely access the internet because of heavy state filtering.”
Before explaining how, even when access is briefly restored, the internet remains heavily censored and effectively unusable without circumvention tools such as VPNs, Migliano said:

“We can see spikes showing that as soon as connectivity returned, users immediately sought VPNs to reach sites and services outside the state-controlled network, including global platforms such as WhatsApp and Telegram that remain otherwise inaccessible.”

He said:”Sustained demand — averaging 427% above normal levels — indicates Iranians are stockpiling circumvention tools in anticipation of further blackouts.”
Migliano added: “The usual strategy is to download as many free tools as possible and cycle between them. It becomes a cat-and-mouse game, as the government blocks individual VPN servers and providers rotate IP addresses to stay ahead of the censors.”
He pointed out: “Iran’s three-week internet blackout may have been lifted, but connectivity remains severely disrupted still.”

“Access is still heavily filtered. It is restricted to a government-approved ‘whitelist’ of sites and apps and the connection itself remains highly unstable throughout the day,” Migliano claimed.
In this regard, Conduit statistics show that daily connections by Iranian users to the Conduit–Psiphon network have risen from a few thousand to more than 29 million.

According to data from the Conduit website, prior to January 20, the number of daily connections from Iran was fewer than 8,000.

Plans for renewed nuclear talks between the United States and Iran are at risk of collapse following a disagreement over the location and structure of the negotiations, according to U.S. officials cited by Axios.

The talks had been scheduled for Friday in Istanbul, with other Middle Eastern countries participating as observers. However, Iranian officials informed Washington on Tuesday that they wanted the meeting moved to Oman and limited to a bilateral format focused exclusively on nuclear issues. U.S. officials said Washington rejected those demands on Wednesday.

A senior U.S. official told Axios that Iran responded by walking away from the talks. “We told them it is this or nothing, and they said, ‘Ok, then nothing,’” the official said.

Dispute Over the Agenda

According to Axios, the original plan for the Istanbul meeting involved two parallel tracks. One would consist of direct talks between U.S. and Iranian representatives on a possible nuclear deal. The second would involve multilateral discussions on broader issues, including Iran’s missile program, its support for regional proxy groups, and human rights concerns related to the violent crackdown on protesters.

The Uncertain Fate of Detainees Following the Bloody Crackdown on Iran Protests

Iran’s request to change both the venue and the format appeared aimed at narrowing the agenda. U.S. officials said they considered the proposal to relocate the talks but ultimately decided to reject it, signaling that the agreed framework was not open for renegotiation.

One U.S. official told Axios that Washington did not want to repeat previous negotiation models. “We didn’t want to be flexible here because if there is a deal it has to be real,” the official said.

Rising Tensions

The breakdown comes amid increasingly blunt warnings from U.S. officials. A senior official told Axios that Washington wants to reach a meaningful agreement quickly, adding that failure to do so would prompt consideration of “other options,” an apparent reference to President Donald Trump’s repeated threats of military action.

A second U.S. official said there was now “a good chance the talks won’t happen at all this week,” citing Tehran’s refusal to return to the original format and the lack of progress in previous discussions.

The Iranian regime’s mission to the United Nations did not respond to Axios’s request for comment.

Regional Diplomacy Continues

Despite the stalled talks with Tehran, U.S. engagement in the region is continuing. Axios reported that White House envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, President Trump’s son-in-law and adviser, are expected to travel to Qatar for discussions with the country’s prime minister on Iran-related issues.

However, U.S. officials said the two are currently expected to return to the United States afterward, rather than traveling on to meet Iranian representatives.

Outlook

U.S. officials told Axios that Washington remains open to talks if Iran agrees to the original framework and location. At the same time, they expressed skepticism that a breakthrough is possible under current conditions.

“We are not naive about the Iranians,” one U.S. official said. “If there is a real conversation to have we will have it but we are not going to waste our time.”

For now, a dispute over logistics rather than substance has placed the next phase of U.S.-Iran nuclear diplomacy in doubt.

Following the bloody crackdown on protests in Iran that left thousands killed, alarming accounts have emerged about the condition of detainees. The fate of thousands of people remains uncertain. An interview with two experts from two human rights organizations.

Five weeks after the start of a new wave of anti-regime protests in Iran, which was met with an unprecedentedly bloody crackdown in the 47-year history of the Iranian regime, horrifying news has emerged about the mass arrests of citizens.

Mass Arrests After Protests in Iran, the Naked Repression of Khamenei’s Rule

Accounts published by human rights activists and media outlets indicate severe violence against detainees, including beatings, verbal abuse, torture, sexual abuse, and deprivation of access to the most basic human and sanitary needs, especially for detained women, at a time when detention centers and prisons are overcrowded beyond capacity.

Security agencies abduct and detain citizens, and brutal torture to extract confessions begins immediately.The lives of detainees are currently in serious danger, and the Iranian regime has a long record of torture and deaths under torture in prisons and security detention centers.

Detainees have no access to any of their basic rights. Even the families of some detainees, in complete ignorance of their children’s fate, are visiting morgues and cemeteries in the hope of finding some trace of them. The handling of detainees’ cases is in no way following any legal process. Everything is under the control of intelligence agencies and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC, the regime’s main military and security force), and no judicial institution is accountable to families.

While most attention is focused on those killed in the January 2026 protests, people are witnessing widespread, illegal, and arbitrary arrests across the country, in all cities and provinces. It appears that everything currently known about these arrests, in terms of their scale and number, may still be only the tip of the iceberg, as many families are remaining silent due to fear and intimidation by security bodies and judicial authorities warning them not to publicize news of the arrests.

Security agencies intimidate families into not publicizing the arrests, telling them that if the cases become public, the detainee’s situation will worsen, even though this claim is completely at odds with reality.

UK Sanctions 10 Iranian Regime Officials Over Human Rights Abuses

The alarming situation of detainees

All those who have so far been released and managed to contact human rights organizations have stated that the physical and psychological pressure and torture were unbearable, and that many detainees were forced to make coerced confessions under these conditions and were then released the same day on bail.

Previously, many detainees were forced to sign blank papers, and there is now a risk that these individuals could face the most serious security-related charges.

Iranian society is in an extremely volatile state following the bloody suppression of the January 2026 protests. This is a society in which a large segment of the population was already living under the pressure of deep economic and social crises. Now, the combination of these factors has made the outlook for the future more troubling than ever, a situation in which thousands of families are spending their days waiting for news of their detained loved ones, living with fear, uncertainty, and anguish.