Iran International
The reported killing of thousands of protesters across Iran in just two days has raised a central question: who carried out the deadliest crackdown in the country’s living memory?
The scale of the violence—put at 12,000 by Iran International and as high as 20,000 by CBS—has shocked many Iranians.
As images and accounts continue to emerge despite a near-total internet shutdown, attention has focused on who was responsible for the bloodshed.
Tehran maintains that the violence was the result of armed infiltrators backed by Israel and the United States who attacked civilians and police and damaged state property, which it says triggered their forceful response.
Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence said on Friday that it had arrested 3,000 people it described as members of “terrorist groups.”
The Guards
Witness reports suggest that the primary force deployed on the streets was the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC).
One video that circulated despite the internet shutdown appears to show a pickup truck mounted with a DShK heavy machine gun in western Tehran that resembles those used by the IRGC’s Imam Ali Security Unit, which is tasked with security operations in the capital.
Iran International has obtained new details indicating that the Revolutionary Guards’ Quds Force and its allied proxy forces in the region played a central role in the killing of Iranian protesters on January 8 and 9.
According to the information, a significant portion of the killings was carried out by the Fatemiyoun Brigade of Afghan fighters, Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces, and the Zainabiyoun Brigade, an IRGC proxy group made of Pakistani nationals which is officially designated by Islamabad as a banned terrorist organization.
The Quds Force has extensive experience in urban warfare from the Syrian conflict, where it supported Bashar al-Assad’s government against both protesters and armed opposition groups.
Reports of foreign fighter deployment
Shortly after demonstrations began, social media users reported the presence of Iraqi pro-Iran militias in Iran’s Khuzestan province.
Their potential involvement drew closer scrutiny after a series of reports and images circulated in Iraqi and international media. The reports remain unconfirmed.
On January 11, videos showed large groups of fighters from Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) holding rallies in the southern Iraqi port city of Basra publicly declaring support for the Islamic Republic.
Iran’s Press TV later aired footage of a pro-government gathering near the Iranian embassy in Iraq, where participants carried flags associated with Iraqi militias such as Hashd al-Shaabi and Kataib Hezbollah, as well as Lebanon’s Hezbollah.
Other reports alleged more direct involvement. Iraqi television channel Al-Sumaria reported on Thursday that around 3,000 Iraqi fighters had crossed into Iran in a convoy of buses through the Shalamcheh border, disguised as religious pilgrims, to join IRGC bases in cities including Ahvaz.
CNN reported the same day that a military source said thousands of Iraqi militiamen had entered Iran through two border points, while an Iraqi security source cited the entry of hundreds more under the guise of pilgrims.
An image circulating online appears to show a dark armored vehicle believed by analysts to be used by Iraqi militias alongside Iranian police and IRGC units in Tehran. One man standing atop the vehicle is wearing a green headband commonly associated with Hashd al-Shaabi. The image has not been independently verified.
Some social media users have also alleged the involvement of other Quds Force-linked groups, such as the Fatemiyoun and Zeynabiyoun brigades, composed of Afghan and Pakistani Shiites previously deployed in Syria. Those claims also remain unconfirmed.
Use of criminal networks
There is no confirmed evidence that professional criminal networks were used in the latest crackdown. However, precedent exists.
During the 2009 protests, the IRGC released or recruited criminals from prison to suppress demonstrations. IRGC commander Hossein Hamedani—who was later killed in Syria—confirmed that 5,000 such individuals had been organized into three battalions.
“These three battalions showed that if we want to train fighters, we must bring in those who are used to knives and blades,” Hamedani told state-media reporters.
In subsequent years, images have surfaced showing some notorious Iranian convicts alongside IRGC forces in Syria, reinforcing long-standing claims that irregular actors have at times been incorporated into security operations.
Claims of drug use
Officials and critics have also offered competing explanations for some of the deaths, neither supported by verifiable evidence.
Iran’s Defense Minister Aziz Nasirzadeh asserted on Thursday that some protesters had died from overdoses of industrial drugs rather than violence, saying they showed “no other injuries.”
Dissident activists, by contrast, have raised the possibility that Captagon—an amphetamine-type stimulant—was used to increase aggressiveness among forces deployed to suppress protests.
The UN Office on Drugs and Crime has identified Syria as a major producer of Captagon, with large seizures of Syrian-origin pills documented in Iraq.
Tehran’s unveiling of a towering statue depicting the Roman Emperor Valerian kneeling before pre-Islamic Persian King Shapur I has renewed criticism of the Islamic Republic’s appeal to nationalist sentiment following the June war with Israel.
For over forty years, the theocracy purged ancient Persian history from schoolbooks, replacing it with post-Islamic narratives. But after the 12-day conflict with Israel, officials have turned to the distant pre-Islamic past to rally a divided society.
From murals of ancient kings and soldiers to patriotic songs added to Shi’ite mourning ceremonies performed before Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, Tehran now embraces imagery once deemed heretical by its own revolutionary ethos.
'Kneel before Iran' campaign
Tehran’s Revolution (Enghelab) Square was the scene of an unusual spectacle on Friday as officials unveiled a massive bronze statue depicting Roman Emperor Valerian kneeling in submission before Sassanid King Shapur I, commemorating Iran’s victory at the Battle of Edessa (260 AD).
The event was held under the slogan “Kneel before Iran,” part of what authorities describe as a campaign to project “national unity and historical pride” following the June war with Israel.
Tehran Mayor Alireza Zakani, a staunch ultraconservative, said on X: “Enmity with Great Iran can only end in kneeling before this historic nation.”
Municipal official Davood Goodarzi said the installation would be accompanied by visual displays depicting “other victories of Iranians over foreign aggressors,” including the defeat of British forces by local commander Rais-Ali Delvari, Mirza Kuchak Khan’s resistance against Russian troops, and Surena’s triumph over Rome at the Battle of Carrhae in 53 BCE.
The goal, Goodarzi said, is “strengthening concepts such as national dignity, social unity, and Iranian identity.”
The statue, he said, would remain temporarily at Revolution Square before being moved to a city gateway “where it will stand as the first emblem of Iran before diplomats and foreign visitors.”
Unveiled women were allowed to attend the unveiling ceremony—an uncommon scene at events organized by Tehran’s ultra-hardline municipality.
The turn to the pre-Islamic past
The sharp reversal also recalls remarks once made by Khamenei. In a 2011 speech, he asserted that “all the great military victories of this nation came after Islam,” dismissing pre-Islamic accounts as “things that are not documented.”
In 1987, he had said that prophets triumphed over kings such as Cyrus and that “nothing remains of these monarchs in history but names remembered with derision.”
Nevertheless, pro-government social media accounts have now gone so far as to circulate posters equating Khamenei himself with Shapur, showing him standing with a staff as Benjamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump kneel before him. The caption reads: “You will kneel before Iran.”
'Hypocrisy'
Pro-government figures have hailed the move as a patriotic success. Conservative political reporter Hossein Saremi posted: “Today’s grand Iranian gathering showed that people and the state share one essence: Iran itself. Nothing can take our homeland away.”
Others, however, called the spectacle “hypocrisy.” Journalist Gholamhossein Pashaei wrote on X: “Every year you close Pasargadae to stop people from celebrating Cyrus Day, yet you unveil Shapur’s statue in Enghelab Square with drums and fireworks during Fatimiyya (mourning period)!”
Dissident commentator Hamid Asafi called the ceremony “a perfect snapshot of the Islamic Republic’s contradictions.”
On Telegram he wrote: “A week ago they closed Cyrus’s tomb out of fear of the crowds, and now they glorify Shapur in the same breath. The Islamic Republic fears living history but poses for selfies with its corpse.”
He added: “They know people no longer respond to rosaries and sermons. That’s why they’ve brought history back to the stage—in a controlled costume. If they can’t erase the past, they’ll try to own it.”
The irony deepened as UNESCO formally recognized Cyrus’s Charter as one of the earliest human-rights documents.
President Masoud Pezeshkian wrote on X: “Iran, the cradle of dialogue, justice, and coexistence, can still inspire peace today.”
Users swiftly replied, questioning how such pride could coexist with a government that blocks access to Cyrus’s tomb each year to those wishing to visit it on his birthday.