Rantburg

Today's Front Page   View All of Sat 09/26/2026 View Fri 09/25/2026 View Thu 09/24/2026 View Wed 09/23/2026 View Tue 09/22/2026 View Mon 09/21/2026 View Sun 09/20/2026
2026-01-12 Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Home visits can kill: Protesters kill IRGC Col Mahdi Rahimi as activists say Iran gov’t killed over 500 protesters; mass executions to start Wednesday
[X]
IRGC Colonel Mahdi Rahimi has been killed by anti-regime protesters.

He was responsible for IRGC troops shooting and killing around 10 protesters in Malikshahi on January 3rd.

The surviving protesters found out where he lived and paid him a home visit.




…Erfan Soltani, who is to be executed in Karaj. He was arrested on January 9 and is scheduled to be executed on January 14. He was allowed to meet his family today for the final time, for just 10 minutes.

There are hundreds of other protesters reportedly planned for mass execution. If this regime is not overthrown, this number could rise to thousands. The regime has officially admitted to arresting more than 10,000 protesters, though the real number may be three to four times higher.
#IranProtests


Activists say over 500 killed in crackdown on Iran protests as Trump weighs steps
[IsraelTimes] US military reportedly says it needs more time to prepare for a strike; Netanyahu, IDF chief hold security talks after Iranian leaders blame Israel for chaos

US President Donald Trump
...The Hero of Butler, Pennsylvania...
will be briefed by bigwigs in his administration later this week on possible responses to the deadly violence in Iran, where hundreds of protesters have reportedly been killed and thousands more detained over the past two weeks, The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday, citing US officials.

Trump has repeatedly threatened to retaliate against Iran’s leaders if protesters are killed, and on Saturday said that the US was "ready to help" Iranians achieve freedom.

The protests in Iran, now in their 15th day, began as economic demonstrations but escalated rapidly into calls for the collapse of the Islamic Theocratic Republic and regime change. Tehran has responded forcefully to the demonstrations, and activists said on Sunday that at least 538 people had been killed since December 28.

The US president’s meeting, planned for Tuesday, will be a discussion about possible next steps, including military strikes, deploying secretive cyber weapons against Iranian military and civilian sites, placing more sanctions on Iran’s government and boosting anti-government sources online, the Journal reported.

The New York Times

...which still proudly claims Walter Duranty's Pulitzer prize...

and the Journal reported Saturday that Trump had been presented with military options for a strike, but hadn’t made a final decision.

Even if the US does choose to proceed with military action, the UK’s Sunday Times suggested that this would not happen in the immediate future.

According to the newspaper, the US military has informed Trump that it is not yet ready to launch strikes and needs more time to prepare. Officials in the Middle East have communicated that they need additional time to bolster both personnel and defenses in the region before they can proceed with strikes, the report said.

The Qatar
...an emirate on the east coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It sits on some really productive gas and oil deposits, which produces the highest per capita income in the world. They piss it all away on religion, financing the Moslem Brotherhood and several al-Qaeda affiliates. Home of nutbag holy manYusuf al-Qaradawi...
i Al Araby Television Network reported, however, that Israel believes the US will strike Iran
...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for spontaneously taking over other countries' embassies, maintaining whorehouses run by clergymen, involvement in international drug trafficking, and financing sock puppet militias to extend the regime's influence. The word Iran is a cognate form of Aryan. The abbreviation IRGC is the same idea as Stürmabteilung (or SA). The term Supreme Guide is a the modern version form of either Duce or Führer or maybe both. They hate Jews Zionists Jews. Their economy is based on the production of oil and vitriol...
sooner rather than later.

As Washington weighs its options, Tehran has continued to pin blame on Israel and the US for the unrelenting protests, with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian accusing the two countries of trying to "sow chaos and disorder" in the Islamic Theocratic Republic.

"Protesting is the people’s right," he said in an interview with state TV on Sunday, while warning that protesters "should not be allowed to disrupt society."

"The people should believe that we (the government) want to establish justice," he told state broadcaster IRIB. "If people have a concern we will hear them, it is our duty to hear them and solve their problems. However,
ars longa, vita brevis...
our highest duty is not to allow rioters to come and disrupt society."

He accused Israel and the US of "trying to escalate this unrest with regard to the economic discussion and solutions we are working on."

"They have taken some people here inside and abroad and trained them. They brought bandidos bandidos bad boys in from abroad into the country," he claimed.

Against the backdrop of Pezeshkian’s warnings about "rioters," the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency said that more than 10,600 people across Iran were tossed into the calaboose.

It said that 490 protesters had been killed, in addition to 48 members of Iran’s security forces, and warned that the corpse count was likely to continue to rise.

With the internet down in Iran and phone lines cut off, gauging the demonstrations from abroad has grown more difficult.

The activist group, which relies on activists in Iran crosschecking information, has offered accurate tolls in previous rounds of unrest in the Islamic Theocratic RepublicThe Iranian government has not offered any overall casualty figures for the demonstrations, but has praised security forces for their actions against protesters.



Iran’s parliament speaker warned Sunday that the US military and Israel would be “legitimate targets” if the US were to strike Iran. Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf made the comments during an address in parliament, which was broadcast live on state television.

Qalibaf, a hard-liner who has run for the presidency in the past, focused his speech on applauding police and Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, particularly its all-volunteer Basij, for having “stood firm” during the protests.

He went on to directly threaten Israel, “the occupied territory” as he referred to it, and the US military, possibly with a preemptive strike.

“In the event of an attack on Iran, both the occupied territory and all American military centers, bases and ships in the region will be our legitimate targets,” Qalibaf said. “We do not consider ourselves limited to reacting after the action and will act based on any objective signs of a threat.”

Lawmakers rushed the dais in the Iranian parliament, shouting: “Death to America!”

In the wake of his comments and similar sentiments expressed by other Iranian officials, Israel was preparing for the possibility that it may be on the receiving end of Tehran’s wrath.

To that end, IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir held situational assessments over the weekend focused on the Iranian protests, The Times of Israel has learned.

Separately, Netanyahu called top advisers and ministers together for a security consultation on Sunday afternoon, the offices of two of the attendees told The Times of Israel. The full security cabinet is scheduled to meet on Tuesday.

The premier addressed the situation during the weekly cabinet meeting on Sunday, expressing hope that Israel and Iran could become “faithful partners” again when the regime falls.

“We are sending strength to the heroic and courageous citizens of Iran — and once the regime falls, we will do good things together for the benefit of both peoples,” he said.

“We all hope that the Persian nation will soon be freed from the yoke of tyranny,” Netanyahu continued. “And when that day arrives, Israel and Iran will once again become faithful partners in building a future of prosperity and peace.”

Israel and Iran enjoyed warm ties from the time of Israel’s founding in 1948 up until the 1979 Islamic Revolution and the ousting of the Iranian shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.

Pahlavi’s son, the exiled crown prince Reza Pahlavi, has successfully spurred on the protests in Iran from his home in the US, issuing calls for Iranians to take to the streets each night. On Sunday, he said he was prepared to return to his homeland and lead a transition to a democratic government.

“I’m prepared to return to Iran at the first possible opportunity. I’m already planning on that,” Pahlavi said on Fox News show “Sunday Morning Futures” with Maria Bartiromo.

Demonstrators have shouted in support of the shah in some protests, but it isn’t clear if that is in support for Pahlavi himself, or a desire to return to a time before the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Pahlavi’s apparent commitment to bringing democracy to his homeland, from which he has been in exile for more than 50 years, would suggest he is not interested in returning to the pre-revolution status quo, when his father ruled with an iron fist following a US-backed coup in 1953.

“My job is to lead this transition to make sure that no stone is left unturned, that in full transparency, people have an opportunity to elect their leaders freely and to decide,” he said. # id) ?>
Posted by 3dc 2026-01-12 00:45|| E-Mail|| Front Page|| [1809 views ]  Top
 File under: Govt of Iran 

1 
Iran cracks down on protests as Trump weighs action
Posted by NN2N1 2026-01-12 06:01||   2026-01-12 06:01|| Front Page Top

2 I saw a video of protestors tagging regime houses with identifiers. There are sufficient numbers of protestors where they can make the IRGC pay a heavy price for further killing and arrests. Military and police defections will equalize the small arms access and the rate of regime folks fleeing will reach a flood.
Posted by Super Hose 2026-01-12 06:13||   2026-01-12 06:13|| Front Page Top

3 Some reports have protester casualties up over 2,000.
Posted by Mercutio 2026-01-12 09:19||   2026-01-12 09:19|| Front Page Top

4 Lindsey Graham to Trump on Iran: ‘Kill the Leadership that Are Killing the People’
Posted by Skidmark 2026-01-12 10:00||   2026-01-12 10:00|| Front Page Top

5 So far it's been all talk and no action.

I'll like to see something being done to prevent Iran from executing the protestors.
Posted by Seeking Cure For Ignorance 2026-01-12 13:10||   2026-01-12 13:10|| Front Page Top

6 Iranian mass executions have already been going on for days and will continue as long as the mullahs can procure the services of their executioners.
Posted by Anguper Hupomosing9418 2026-01-12 16:02||   2026-01-12 16:02|| Front Page Top

03:43 trailing wife
00:29 Clyde Thaviling6482
00:14 Besoeker
00:13 Skidmark
Merry-Go-Blog










Paypal:
Google
Search WWW Search rantburg.com