Add thelocalreport.in As A Trusted Source
IranA bloody U.S. crackdown on protests across the country has killed at least 6,126 people and many more are still likely to die, activists said on Tuesday, as a U.S. aircraft carrier fleet arrived in the Middle East to lead the U.S. military response to the crisis.
The arrival of the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier and accompanying guided-missile destroyers gives the United States the ability to strike Iran, especially as Gulf Arab states say they want to avoid participating in any attack despite the presence of U.S. military personnel.
Two Iran-backed militias in the Middle East have expressed a willingness to launch new attacks, possibly in an attempt to support Iran in the wake of the U.S. president Donald Trump Threats of military action over the killing of peaceful protesters, or Tehran launching mass executions after demonstrations.
Iran has repeatedly threatened to drag the entire Middle East into war, even as its air defenses and military continue to struggle after the June war. Israel against the state.
Houthis and Kataeb Hezbollah Israel launched a 12-day war against Iran, and the United States bombed Iran’s nuclear facilities. Iran’s hesitancy to participate after facing Israeli attacks in its war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip shows the chaos still affecting Iran’s self-proclaimed “axis of resistance.”
Activists provide new death toll
Tuesday’s new data comes from the American news agency Human Rights Activists, which has had accurate data on multiple rounds of unrest in Iran. The organization verifies each death with a network of local activists in Iran.
The report identified the dead as including at least 5,777 protesters, 214 government-affiliated troops, 86 children and 49 civilians who did not participate in the demonstrations. The report added that the crackdown has resulted in more than 41,800 arrests.
The Associated Press was unable to independently assess the death toll as authorities cut off the internet and cut off calls to the Islamic Republic.
The Iranian government puts the death toll at a much lower 3,117, saying 2,427 of them were civilians and security forces, and calling the remainder “terrorists.” In the past, Iran’s theocratic regime has underestimated or failed to report the death toll from unrest.
The death toll exceeds that of any other round of protests or riots in the region in decades, recalling the chaos surrounding Iran’s 1979 Islamic revolution.
The protests in Iran began on December 28, triggered by the devaluation of the Iranian currency, the rial, and quickly spread across the country. They have been met with a violent crackdown by Iran’s theocracy, the scale of which is only beginning to become clear as the country faces more than two weeks of an internet blockade – the most comprehensive in its history.
Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations told a U.N. Security Council meeting late Monday that Trump’s repeated threats to use military force against Iran were “neither vague nor misunderstood.” Amir Saeed Irawani also reiterated accusations that the U.S. leader incited violence by “armed terrorist groups” backed by the U.S. and Israel, without providing evidence to support his claims.
Iranian state media has sought to blame foreign powers for the protests as the theocracy remains largely unable to address the country’s ailing economy, which remains squeezed by international sanctions, particularly over its nuclear programme.
Some Iran-backed militias express willingness to fight
Iran projects power throughout the Middle East through the “Axis of Resistance”, a network of proxy armed groups in Gaza, Lebanon, Yemen, Syria and Iraq. It is also considered a defensive buffer zone, designed to keep conflicts away from Iran’s borders. But it has collapsed after Israel targeted Hamas, Lebanese Hezbollah and other groups during the Gaza war. Meanwhile, rebels overthrew Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in 2024 after a year of bloody war in which Iran backed his rule.
Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels have repeatedly warned they could reopen fire on ships in the Red Sea if necessary and on Monday released old footage of previous attacks. Ahmed “Abu Hussein” Hamidawi, leader of the Kataib Hezbollah militia in Iraq, warned “enemies that the war against the (Islamic) Republic will not be a picnic; instead, you will taste the most painful death and you will have nothing in our region.”
The Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, one of Iran’s staunchest allies, declined to say how it planned to respond in the event of a possible attack.
“Over the past two months, I have been asked a clear and frank question by many parties: If Israel and the United States went to war with Iran, would Hezbollah intervene?” Hezbollah leader Sheikh Naim Qasim said in a video speech.
He said the group was preparing for “possible aggression and is determined to defend”. But as for how to act, he said, “these details will be determined by the battle and we will decide based on the interests at hand.”
___
Associated Press writers Edith Lederer at the United Nations and Abby Sewell in Beirut contributed to this report.