DUBAI: Iran’s deadly crackdown appears to have broadly quelled protests for now, according to a rights group and residents, as state media reported more arrests on Friday in the shadow of repeated US threats to intervene if the killing continues.
Fears of a US attack have retreated since Wednesday, when President Donald Trump said he’d been told killings in Iran were easing. US allies, including Saudi Arabia and Qatar, conducted intense diplomacy with Washington this week to prevent a US strike, warning of repercussions for the wider region that would ultimately impact the United States, a Gulf official said.
The White House said on Thursday that Trump and his team have warned Tehran there would be “grave consequences” if there was further bloodshed.
Trump understands that 800 scheduled executions were halted, White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt added, saying the president was keeping “all of his options on the table”. More accounts of the violence have been spreading after a communications blackout was lifted earlier this week.
One woman in Tehran told Reuters by phone that her daughter was killed on Friday after joining a demonstration near their home. “She was 15 years old. She was not a terrorist, not a rioter. Basij forces followed her as she was trying to return home,” she said, referring to a branch of the security forces often used to quell unrest.
The protests erupted on December 28 over soaring inflation in Iran, where the economy has been crippled by sanctions, before spiralling into one of the biggest challenges yet to the clerical establishment that has run Iran since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. David Barnea, the director of Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency, was in the US on Friday for talks on Iran, according to a source familiar with the matter who said that the Israeli spy chief was expected to meet White House envoy Steve Witkoff.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. The United States is expected to send additional offensive and defensive capabilities to the region, but the exact make-up of those forces and the timing of their arrival was still unclear, a US official said speaking on condition of anonymity. The US military’s Central Command declined to comment, saying it does not discuss ship movements.
Several residents of Tehran said the capital had been quiet since Sunday. They said drones were flying over the city, where they’d seen no sign of protests on Thursday or Friday.
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