Donald Trump was persuaded not to strike Iran on Wednesday night by the last-minute diplomatic efforts of Persian Gulf states.
Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Oman made urgent calls to Washington to persuade the US president to delay military action and allow Tehran to demonstrate “good intentions”.
Late on Wednesday, Mr Trump appeared to step back from imminent action, saying he had been assured that “the killing in Iran is stopping”.
It was an iconic image: A photogenic young Iranian woman filmed herself lighting a cigarette with a picture of Iran’s leader, an evocative protest against the misogynistic clerics who run Iran.
It grabbed the attention of a world captivated by the Iranian uprisings, quickly inspiring copycats — including other young women and American politicians — and stylized artwork as well as AI knockoffs.
Distressing new videos have emerged from a mortuary in Tehran showing rows of bodies, blood soaked floors and crowds of people searching for loved ones following a deadly government crackdown on protesters in Iran.
The videos analysed by BBC Verify and BBC Persian, which are too graphic to show, contain some of the most shocking examples so far of how brutal the government’s retaliation has been since the unrest began on 28 December.
Forensic examination of the footage reveals nearly 200 bodies laid throughout the mortuary complex, many with visible wounds and one victim identified as young as 16.
Iran's Foreign Minister says it's actually "Israeli Mossad agents" killing protesters, not them 🙈
https://t.co/JIiTpmMObe— Tommy Robinson 🇬🇧 (@TRobinsonNewEra) January 14, 2026
Heading home after joining a protest in Tehran on 8 January, Reza put his arms around his wife Maryam to protect her. “Suddenly, I felt my arm go light – there was only her jacket in my hands,” he told a family member, who later spoke to BBC Persian. Maryam had been fatally shot – and they had no idea where the bullet had come from.
The current protests gripping Iran began as demonstrations against the economic conditions in the country.
Sky's international correspondent @alexrossiSKY reports on how Iran's regime is trying to seize back control of the narrative.
Live updates: https://t.co/Yd45o5AbBX pic.twitter.com/AoEam1A8b8
— Sky News (@SkyNews) January 14, 2026
Iran issued a sickening threat against President Trump Wednesday, broadcasting a picture of the commander in chief during the 2024 Butler rally assassination attempt — with the words “This time it will not miss the target.”
The ominous warning was aired on Iranian state-run TV, Agence France Presse (AFP) reported.
UNREST IN IRAN: Protesters clash with security forces in riot gear after weeks of anti-government unrest.
Iranian state television reportedly acknowledges the Islamic Republic has lost “a lot of martyrs” as protests sweep across the country.
At least 2,000 people have been… pic.twitter.com/IzXB5vtK7Q
— Fox News (@FoxNews) January 14, 2026
🚨🇱🇧🇮🇶 HEZBOLLAH AND IRAQI MILITIA ARE READY TO BACK THE IRAN REGIME
Hezbollah and Iraq’s Hashd al-Shaabi militias say they’re ready to head into Iran and help “handle” the protests.
Right now, Iranians are out in the streets with basically nothing, facing a regime that’s… pic.twitter.com/k1Kob01jWf
— Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) January 14, 2026
Good news ..
.@POTUS: "We have been notified pretty strongly … we've been told that the killing in Iran is stopping … and there's no plan for executions…" pic.twitter.com/O8d2MwnDJb
— Department of State (@StateDept) January 14, 2026
A big complaint of western businesses when Beijing first opened up its economy was that the Chinese never seemed to understand the concept of a deal. There would be a handshake and a document signing but then, when the investment money arrived or the first order from a factory was dispatched, the Chinese side would seek to renegotiate terms all over again.
That must be how President Xi is feeling now, only with the boot firmly on the other foot — in this case that of President Trump, who has his own unique approach to dealmaking.
How does an authoritarian regime die? As Ernest Hemingway famously said about going broke – gradually then suddenly.
The protesters in Iran and their supporters abroad were hoping that the Islamic regime in Tehran was at the suddenly stage. The signs are, if it is dying, it is still at gradual.
The last two weeks of unrest add up to a big crisis for the regime. Iranian anger and frustration have exploded into the streets before, but the latest explosion comes on top of all the military blows inflicted on Iran in the last two years by the US and Israel.
Huh?
New footage
shows rioters attacking rescue & police forces in #Mashhad, #Iran — these are not peaceful protesters, but violent elements undermining public safety. pic.twitter.com/6Xfik794cj— ☫ Iran Embassy in The Hague, The Netherlands (@IRAN_in_NL) January 13, 2026
With the government shutting down the internet and throttling phone services, Iranians are leaning heavily on Elon Musk’s Starlink service to share videos of growing protests and the regime’s escalating crackdown with the world.
But Iran has intensified efforts to jam the service, which is banned in the country, and users are being hunted.
Over the weekend, authorities began searching for and confiscating Starlink dishes in western Tehran, said Amir Rashidi, director of digital rights and security at Miaan Group, a U.S. nonprofit opposed to internet censorship.
Iranian man warns that Sharia law starts with unity between the left and Islamists.
Pay attention to what he’s saying. The same alliance between the left and Islam that is happening in the West happened in Iran decades ago. That’s how Iran became an Islamic theocracy. pic.twitter.com/UwoBHLKpOV
— Dr. Maalouf (@realMaalouf) November 6, 2025
WASHINGTON — President Trump called on Iranian protesters to take over government buildings Tuesday in one of his starkest calls yet for a regime-change revolution to topple the Islamic Republic.
“Iranian Patriots, KEEP PROTESTING – TAKE OVER YOUR INSTITUTIONS!!!” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
Whether Trump keeps his promise or not, I can guarantee you the regime in Iran will do everything in their power to prevent Iranians from seeing this post.
They will kill everyone and everything.
Time is running short, President. pic.twitter.com/QChImXWgRx
— ✡︎ (@NiohBerg) January 13, 2026
“I saw it with my own eyes – they fired directly into lines of protesters, and people fell where they stood.”
Omid’s voice was shaking as he spoke, fearful of being traced. Breaking the wall of silence between Iran and the rest of the world takes immense courage, given the risk of reprisals by the authorities.
Omid, in his early 40s and whose name we have changed for his safety, has been protesting on the streets of a small city in southern Iran over the past few days against worsening economic hardship.
Iranians chanting “Iran! Iran! Iran!” in front of the burning Al-Rasool mosque which was used as an IRGC Basij militia base for suppressing the protests in Tehran.
— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) January 12, 2026
"Effective immediately, any Country doing business with the Islamic Republic of Iran will pay a Tariff of 25% on any and all business being done with the United States of America. This Order is final and conclusive…." – PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP pic.twitter.com/UQ1ylPezs9
— The White House (@WhiteHouse) January 12, 2026
‘The Zionist regime is melting before the eyes of the world’, gloated Ayatollah Khamenei in the aftermath of Hamas’s pogrom of 7 October 2023. His giddy foretelling of the death of the Jewish nation was echoed across the realm of Israelophobia. Israel’s downfall ‘is a matter of when, not if’, said the Islamo-loons of 5 Pillars. Leftist hotheads agreed that the invasion of Israel by Iran’s proxies sounded the death knell for ‘the Zionist project’.
In Shahsavar, northern Iran, thousands of anti-regime protesters took to the streets. pic.twitter.com/VTSM1MK8yN
— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) January 11, 2026
“You’ll find out pretty soon” was President Donald Trump’s answer this weekend to a reporter’s question about whether he had a “message” for the Iranian opposition.
h/t AB
Iran has called on Donald Trump’s administration to negotiate after his threat to strike the Islamic Republic over its use of lethal force on protesters.
The death toll in the nationwide demonstrations has risen to at least 544, human rights groups said on Monday. Mr Trump said that Iran had started to cross a line with their violent response to protesters.
Abbas Araghchi, Iran’s foreign minister, said on Monday morning that the protesters were “now under total control” after claiming “terrorists” had targeted both protesters and security officials.
Ahmadreza Radan, Islamic Republic’s Chief of Police, on Iran protests (Jan 7, 2026):
“We vow to come after the rioters, down to the very last one. We will come after every single person who spreads this, down to the last one.”#IranProtests pic.twitter.com/x7UkDjOb5n— حافظه تاریخی (@hafezeh_tarikhi) January 11, 2026
BREAKING:
Islamic authorities in Iran have announced the imminent executions of participants in anti-regime protests.
Officials said that following expedited court proceedings, the first group of convicted “ringleaders of unrest” will be executed on Wednesday morning.
Among… pic.twitter.com/CnTFXr7ITu
— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) January 12, 2026
I don’t trust the Mullahs for some reason.
A U-Haul driver allegedly plowed into a massive crowd of protesters at an anti-Iran regime rally in Los Angeles on Sunday — injuring at least two people in a chaotic scene caught on video.
Authorities responded after the U-Haul truck drove into a sea of an estimated 3,000 people at the large demonstration in Westwood around 3:40 p.m. local time, an LAPD spokesperson told The Post.
The rental truck, which had the words “NO SHAH. NO REGIME. USA: DON’T REPEAT 1953. NO MULLAH” emblazoned on one side, was swarmed by protesters as tensions quickly escalated, according to harrowing footage obtained by KABC.
🚨 BREAKING: Another angle of the U-Haul truck plowing through anti-Islamic regime protestors in Los Angeles
PLEASE pray hard for these victims. It isn’t looking good 🙏🏻
pic.twitter.com/fUBMmX6la7— Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) January 12, 2026
LAPD arrest driver of U-Haul truck after he rammed his vehicle through a crowd of Iranians.
— Oli London (@OliLondonTV) January 12, 2026
h/t Patti Jo
The Middle East has long been organised around two competing logics: pragmatic alignment and ideological alignment. Before the 7 October war, these logics produced two regional blocs that structured most political, diplomatic and security behaviour. The Palestinian attack and invasion that triggered the war ruptured both systems. Incentives shifted, alliances frayed, and assumptions collapsed. What followed has not been the emergence of a calmer order, but a reconfiguration in which ideology has returned in new forms and pragmatism has narrowed, and hardened, requiring deliberate encouragement and support to survive.
For more than a decade, regional politics moved along these two tracks. Pragmatic alliances rested on interests that could be negotiated, measured and enforced. Security cooperation, intelligence sharing, economic integration, technological exchange and opposition to common threats mattered more than symbolic solidarity. Stability carried value. Growth carried legitimacy. Ideological discomfort could be managed or deferred.
This Palestinian activist is very angry that the Iranian protests are diverting attention from Palestine and says she doesn’t support the Free Iran movement because it’s ‘rooted in Islamophobia.’
Why are they always like this?
— Dr. Maalouf (@realMaalouf) January 11, 2026
