Tehran witnessed the largest anti-government demonstrations in decades, as protests spread across several districts of the capital and the wider metropolitan area of nearly 16 million people.
For hours there on Thursday night, security forces appeared unusually restrained. In densely populated areas, police and security units have largely avoided direct confrontation, raising questions about whether authorities are deliberately holding back.
That restraint, however, appears to be selective and strategic rather than absolute. While Tehran has seen a relatively cautious approach, reports from smaller cities and provinces across the country tell a more violent story.
According to several Iranian human rights organizations, including the German-based Kurdish Iranian human rights group Hengaw and the US-based Human Rights Activist News Agency (Hrana), more than 40 people have been killed since the protests began nearly two weeks ago.
The BBC Persian verification team confirmed the identities of at least 21 victims through interviews with relatives, most of whom were killed in the Lorestan and Kurdish-majority regions of Illam and Kermanshah provinces. Video evidence obtained by the BBC shows security forces firing directly at protesters. At least four security forces were also killed.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei issued a strong warning, declaring that the Islamic Republic “will not back down in the face of vandals”. In a speech Friday addressing the unrest, he framed the protests as foreign sabotage.
Referring to the damage to property in Tehran, he said the demonstrators destroyed their own buildings “to make the president of the United States happy”.
After the US impeachment of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, many of Iran’s leaders are increasingly worried that the United States will take its threats seriously, especially after the 12-day war with Israel in June, in which the US bombed Iran’s nuclear sites, and the weakening of Iranian-backed militant groups throughout the region.
It is possible that these developments will encourage Washington to strike Iran without fear of significant retaliation.
President Donald Trump has a big view of the regime’s calculations. Since nearly the start of the protests, Trump has issued repeated warnings to Tehran, saying the US will respond forcefully if peaceful protesters are killed.
In a recent US radio interview, Trump said Iran would be “really hurt” if it repeated the mass killings seen in previous uprisings. He downplayed responsibility for the deaths so far by acknowledging some of the “stampedes”, but stressed that Iranian authorities were “well informed” of where the red lines lay.
It is not clear whether these warnings will be behind the regime’s response. In Tehran, where the symbolic cost is far greater, security forces appear to be holding back to avoid images of more bloodshed. Gunshots were reportedly heard on Thursday night in Tehran, but due to the near blackout of the internet it was difficult to determine exactly what happened in the city.
Outside the capital, however, repression was swift and deadly.
During mass protests in Iran in 2022 following the death of Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini in police custody in Tehran, more than 500 people were killed, human rights groups said. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), along with allied militias and anti-riot police, played a key role in violently suppressing the protests.
Historically, the Islamic Republic has relied on a layered security apparatus to quell mass protests. Along with the riot police, the regime deployed the Basij militia – a volunteer paramilitary force under the control of the IRGC – often operating in plain clothes.
In more extreme situations, command shifts from the police to IRGC commanders, signaling that the unrest is considered a national security threat rather than a civil disturbance. This increase often precedes more severe crackdowns, including mass arrests and lethal force.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian has called for allowing what he described as “legitimate protests,” but his authority is limited. The ultimate control of security policy rests with the supreme leader, not the presidency.
The current approach suggests that the regime buys time, tries to wear down the protesters, limit casualties to visible areas, and avoid crossing thresholds that could provoke direct foreign retaliation.