Iran Rounds Up Thousands In Mass Arrest Campaign After Crushing Unrest: Reuters
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Clerical rulers are under rising pressure as Trump threatens strikes to inspire protesters once more.
DUBAI (Reuters) — Plainclothes Iranian security forces have rounded up thousands of people in a campaign of mass arrests and intimidation to deter further protests after crushing the bloodiest unrest since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, sources told Reuters.
Modest protests that began last month in Tehran’s Grand Bazaar over economic hardship unleashed long-suppressed wider grievances and swiftly escalated into the gravest existential threat to Iran’s Shi’ite theocracy in nearly five decades, with protesters commonly calling for ruling clerics to step down.
Authorities cut internet access and stifled the unrest with overwhelming force that killed thousands, according to rights groups. Tehran blames “armed terrorists” linked to Israel and the United States for the violence.
Within days, plainclothes security forces launched a campaign of widespread arrests accompanied by an intensified street presence based around checkpoints, according to five activists who spoke on condition of anonymity from inside Iran.
They said detainees had been placed in secret lockups.
Oil prices exceeded $100 per barrel on Monday, reaching peaks unseen since 2022, as the Iran war triggered a global energy crisis.
The officials also claimed that the sharp increase in gasoline prices resulting from the Iran war would last only weeks.
Bahrain has accused Iran of striking a desalination plant as the regional war expands and targets more civilian sites in Gulf states.
It was not immediately clear what caused the blast or who was involved, the Oslo police department said in a separate statement.
Among the injured are three minors: one 16-year-old and two 17-year-olds, according to the executive director of the Trujillo Health Network.
The Milan Cortina Winter Paralympics has officially opened with some countries boycotting the opening ceremony because of the return of the Russian flag to the global sports stage.
Oil prices hit their highest levels in almost two years, and Qatari officials warn they could spike as high as $150 per barrel.
A blackout has left millions of people without power in Havana and the rest of western Cuba in the latest outage on an island struggling with dwindling oil reserves and a crumbling electric grid.
Their entry into the war could pose a significant challenge to the embattled authorities in Tehran and could also risk pulling Iraq further into the conflict.
In a new text approved by Pope Leo, a top Vatican commission warned it can lead to an unrealistic search for a perfect figure.
The goal would be to create room for Iranians opposed to the Islamic regime to rise up, they noted.
Ten people were killed when protesters breached the compound’s outer wall after the killing of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
The military campaign has killed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, sunk at least 10 Iranian warships and struck more than 1,000 targets.