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<\/span><\/div>\nWestern media has ignored a growing trove of video evidence showing terrorist tactics deployed across Iran by protesters described by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch as\u00a0\u201clargely peaceful.\u201d<\/a>\u00a0Recent videos published both by Iranian state media and anti-government forces reveal public lynchings of unarmed guards, the torching of mosques, arson attacks on municipal buildings, marketplaces and fire stations, and mobs of armed gunmen opening fire in the heart of Iranian cities.<\/p>\n Instead, Western media has focused almost exclusively on violence attributed to the Iranian government. In doing so, they have primarily relied on death counts compiled by Iranian diaspora groups funded by the\u00a0National Endowment for Democracy<\/a>\u00a0(NED), the regime change arm of the US government, and whose boards of directors are filled with committed neoconservatives.<\/p>\n The NED has\u00a0taken credit<\/a>\u00a0for advancing the \u201cWoman, Life, Freedom\u201d protests which filled Iranian cities throughout 2023 \u2013 and which also\u00a0featured gruesome acts of violence<\/a>\u00a0ignored by Western media and human rights NGOs. Today, the NED is far from alone among the intelligence-aligned actors seeking to fuel the chaos inside Iran.<\/p>\n The Israeli spying and assassination agency known as Mossad issued a message from its official Farsi language account on Twitter\/X\u00a0urging Iranians to escalate<\/a>\u00a0their regime change activities, pledging that it would be supporting them on the ground.<\/p>\n \u201cGo out together into the streets. The time has come,\u201d Mossad instructed Iranians. \u201cWe are with you. Not only from a distance and verbally. We are with you in the field.\u201d<\/p>\n Protests began in Iran in early January 2026 when merchants took to the streets to demonstrate against rising inflation rates triggered by Western sanctions. Iran\u2019s government\u00a0responded sympathetically<\/a>\u00a0to the bazaar protests, providing them with police protection. However, these demonstrations quickly dissolved, as an amorphous mass of anti-government elements seized the moment to launch a violent insurrection encouraged by governments from Israel to the US \u2013 and by self-proclaimed \u201cCrown Prince\u201d Reza Pahlavi, who has\u00a0branded<\/a>\u00a0government workers and state media outlets as \u201clegitimate targets.\u201d<\/p>\n On January 9, the city of Mashhad became the scene of some of the most intense riots, as anti-government forces\u00a0torched fire stations<\/a>, burning fire fighters alive, while setting fire to buses, attacking city workers, vandalizing Metro stations and causing over $18 million in damage, according to local\u00a0municipal authorities<\/a>.<\/p>\n In Kermanshah, where anti-government rioters shot and killed 3 year-old Melina Asadi, groups of militants were\u00a0filmed<\/a>\u00a0firing automatic weapons at police. In cities from Hamedan to Lorestan, rioters have\u00a0filmed themselves beating<\/a>\u00a0unarmed security guards\u00a0to death<\/a>\u00a0for attempting to impede their rampages.<\/p>\n Footage has emerged from the central Iranian city of rioters attacking a public bus and setting it aflame on January 10.<\/p>\n In Tehran, meanwhile, mobs of rioters have attacked the historic\u00a0Abazar Mosque<\/a>, burning its interior, while others conducted arson attacks and burning copies of the Quran inside the\u00a0Grand Mosque of Sarableh<\/a>\u00a0and the\u00a0Muhammad ibn Musa al-Kadhim shrine<\/a>\u00a0in Kuzestan.<\/p>\n Rioters have\u00a0set fire<\/a>\u00a0to a large municipal building in the heart of the city of Karaj, while\u00a0burning the marketplace<\/a>\u00a0to the ground in central Rasht. In Borujen, anti-government hooligans reportedly torched a historic library filled with ancient texts during a night of looting and destruction.<\/p>\n None of these incidents have elicited any reaction from Western media outlets or governments, even after the Iranian foreign ministry\u00a0obliged<\/a>\u00a0ambassadors from Britain, France, Germany, and Italy to view footage of the violence carried out by rioters firsthand.<\/p>\n According to the Iranian government, over 100 police and security officers have been killed during the unrest. However, a pair of Iranian NGOs based in Washington and funded by the US government has set the death toll on the government\u2019s side at a much lower figure. These groups have become the go-to source for Western media on the protests.<\/p>\n In assessing the death toll in Iran, outlets throughout the US and Europe have depended on two NGOs based in Washington and funded by the US government\u2019s National Endowment for Democracy: the Abdorrahman Boroumand Center for Human Rights in Iran and Human Rights Activists in Iran.<\/p>\n A\u00a02024 press release<\/a>\u00a0by the NED explicitly described the\u00a0Abdorrahman Boroumand Center for Human Rights in Iran<\/a>\u00a0as \u201ca partner of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED).\u201d<\/p>\n Elsewhere, a 2021\u00a0statement<\/a>\u00a0from Human Rights Activists in Iran states that the group \u201cexpanded its network and decided to start receiving financial aid from the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), a non-governmental and non-profit organization based in the United States\u201d after it was accused by the Iran government of ties to the CIA in 2010.<\/p>\n The NED was created under the watch of the Reagan administration\u2019s CIA director, William Casey, to enable the government to continue meddling abroad despite widespread distrust in US intelligence services. One of its founders, Allen Weinstein, famously admitted, \u201ca lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA.\u201d<\/p>\n While failing to acknowledge the NGO\u2019s funding from NED,\u00a0The Washington Post<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0ABC News<\/a>\u00a0have cited the Abdorrahman Boroumand Center prominently in their coverage of Iranian protests. Seated on the\u00a0Center\u2019s board of directors<\/a>\u00a0is Francis Fukuyama, the ideologue who signed the Project for a New American Century\u2019s\u00a0founding letter<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 perhaps the most important manifesto of modern neoconservatism.<\/p>\n Figures from the suggestively-named \u201cHuman Rights Activists in Iran\u201d have circulated even more widely, with the NGO\u2019s recent estimated death toll of 544 people cited by\u00a0dozens<\/a>\u00a0of US and\u00a0Israeli<\/a>\u00a0mainstream outlets across the political spectrum, as well as by\u00a0Dropsite<\/a>. The \u201cshadow CIA\u201d intelligence firm Stratfor has also cited the NGO in an article\u00a0entitled<\/a>, \u201cProtests in Iran Provide a Window for U.S. and\/or Israeli Intervention.\u201d<\/p>\n With the precise number of casualties from the protests still difficult to ascertain, a motley crew of online influencers has filled the information void with overblown, dubiously sourced claims. These propagandists include the noted Jewish supremacist Trump confidant Laura Loomer, who\u00a0crowed<\/a>\u00a0that \u201cthe death count of Iranian protesters killed by the Islamic regimes\u2019 forces is now over 6,000!,\u201d citing a supposed \u201csource in the Intel community.\u201d<\/p>\n The digital casino Polymarket also inflated the death toll,\u00a0claiming<\/a>\u00a0without sourcing that \u201cover 10,000\u201d people had been killed by \u201cIranian Forces [using] Automatic Rifles on Protesters,\u201d and falsely stating that Iran had \u201clost nearly all control\u201d of three of its five largest cities.\u201d<\/p>\n In recent months, Polymarket has become notorious for allowing insiders to abuse advanced knowledge of political developments \u2013 such as the recent US military assault on Caracas and their abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro \u2013 to\u00a0rake in hundreds of thousands of dollars<\/a>. The self-described \u201cworld\u2019s largest prediction market\u201d was established with a\u00a0major investment<\/a>\u00a0from AI warlord Peter Thiel, and now\u00a0features<\/a>\u00a0Donald Trump Jr. as an advisor.<\/p>\n By spreading clearly inflated death tolls, regime change activists and Trump cronies are apparently goading the notoriously gullible president into launching another military assault on Tehran.<\/p>\n In a January 7\u00a0assessment<\/a>\u00a0of the protests, Stratfor described the chaos in Iran\u2019s streets as an enticing opportunity for war, writing, \u201cWhile unlikely to collapse the regime, the ongoing unrest could open the door for Israel or the United States to conduct covert or overt activities aimed at further destabilizing the Iranian government, either indirectly by encouraging the protests or directly via military action against Iranian leaders.\u201d<\/p>\n However, the CIA contractor acknowledged that \u201crenewed military strikes on Iran would also likely put an end to the current protest movement by leading instead to a wider display of Iranian nationalism and unity, a pattern observed after U.S. and Israeli strikes in 2025.\u201d<\/p>\n Iran\u2019s latest round of anti-government protests has predictably received hearty endorsements from a host of Western leaders, including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US President Donald Trump.<\/p>\n \u201cIf Iran shots [sic] and violently kills peaceful protesters, which is their custom, the United States of America will come to their rescue,\u201d Trump announced. \u201cWe are locked and loaded and ready to go.\u201d<\/p>\n Days later, Trump\u00a0threatened Iran<\/a>\u00a0again: \u201cYou better not start shooting [protesters] \u2013 because we\u2019ll start shooting too.\u201d Then, on Jan. 12, Trump\u00a0decreed<\/a>\u00a0that any country caught trading with Iran would face a 25% tariff on goods exchanged with the US.<\/p>\n Now, Trump is reportedly mulling an attack, considering options ranging from cyber-warfare to airstrikes. However, the pace of the anti-government protests appears to have slowed, with relative calm returning to major cities.<\/p>\n As the dust clears,\u00a0millions of Iranian citizens<\/a>\u00a0are pouring into the streets of cities from Tehran to Mashhad to\u00a0express their indignation<\/a>\u00a0at the riots, to\u00a0denounce the foreign elements<\/a>\u00a0that helped spur the regime change rampage, and to proclaim their support for the government. But in newsrooms across the West, giving voice to these masses of Iranian demonstrators seems forbidden.<\/p>\nToppling Tehran through terror<\/strong><\/h3>\n
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<\/p>\nRegime change lobbyists set the agenda<\/strong><\/h3>\n
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<\/p>\n\u2018Locked and loaded\u2019<\/strong><\/h3>\n