Iran is introducing new techniques to quickly and decisively quash nationwide protests, signaling a shift in tactics by the regime, which sees domestic opposition as an extension of its summer war with Israel.
Experts say what began as the regime’s longstanding counterinsurgency methods quickly escalated into sophisticated techniques to quell protests, combining cutting-edge military technology with sophisticated psychological operations.
Low-flying surveillance drones, signal jammers, rapid-response propaganda machines, and violent military deployments were simultaneously unleashed by regimes seeking to learn from each wave of unrest.
Iran’s latest strategy to quash dissent reflects lessons adopted after its role in Israel’s success in June’s 12-day war shocked and embarrassed the country’s deeply entrenched Iranian regime. An increasingly paranoid government is now labeling the latest wave of domestic unrest as “day 13 of the war” with Israel, painting protesters as foreign agents who must be “dealt with.”
Protesters were closely monitored by surveillance cameras on the streets, as were those who chose to protest by shouting anti-regime slogans from their home windows. Iranian police released a video titled “Discernible Sounds” showing a drone hovering outside an apartment building and spotting people shouting anti-regime sentiments.
The footage, set to eerie background music, showed drone pilots peering into residential windows to identify people shouting “death to the dictator,” followed by security officials placing warning stickers on buildings and, in some cases, arresting residents.
“We have received information that someone was chanting inside the building and that it was coming from your apartment,” a security force member told the man in blurry footage posted on social media by Iranian news agencies. The post quoted Iranian National Police and said, “Everything is under surveillance.”
Another tactic involved a communications blackout on an unprecedented scale. For days, Iran became nearly impossible to access from the outside world. Even SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet terminal, which the Iranians were using to circumvent the restrictions, was jammed using what experts describe as military-grade technology.
“We’ve never seen anything like that. It’s not a routine disruption. They have some kind of military equipment,” said Amir Rashidi, an Iranian cybersecurity expert and director of the New York City-based digital advocacy group Mian Group.
The country’s decades-long effort to nationalize its internet infrastructure has been accelerated by tightening international sanctions, greatly increasing its ability to censor, suppress and control online activity.
Iran completely shut down the internet during the 2019 fuel price protests and the 2022 women’s rights demonstrations. However, the scale and sophistication of recent blackouts demonstrate significant advances in the government’s ability to initiate and enforce communications controls.
“You can see that the process is almost completely automated… and it’s an almost instantaneous process at that point,” Alp Toker, founder of internet monitoring group Netblocks, told CNN. “This is one of the most severe internet outages we have tracked around the world.”
Rashidi said Starlink terminals were being jammed using techniques similar to those used by the Russian military in Ukraine.
“They (the administration) have never tried to sabotage Starlink before. They are definitely better than before,” Rashidi said.
Starlink is not officially authorized to operate in Iran, but Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX, which owns Starlink, has previously said the service is operational and available in Iran.
Nationwide protests continued in Iran for two weeks, but escalated significantly on January 10th. Crowds, some of them violent, took to the streets demanding the overthrow of the regime, sparking unprecedented levels of violence that left hundreds dead and thousands arrested.
The ensuing crackdown lasted almost three days and may have been the deadliest since Iran’s 1979 revolution. Iran has yet to take responsibility or admit that it killed the protesters, instead claiming that the protesters were killed by “riots” hired by Israel and the United States.
In past protests, it would have taken weeks for the government to mount that level of response. But the rapid mobilization of Basij militias, which were also deployed on the streets to identify infiltrators during the war with Israel, has signaled authorities’ willingness to use deadly force amid growing paranoia against dissent and labeling it a foreign conspiracy.
“This is a sensitive time for them, and it’s not surprising that they responded in a way that was as aggressive and heavy-handed as they feared,” said Matthew Levitt, a counterterrorism expert at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “The regime is currently at war with its own people.”
After the war with Israel, Iran’s official discourse acknowledged that the attacks exposed the country’s weaknesses. This appears to have shaped internal thinking about the country’s strategic position, allowing the regime to portray demonstrators as agents of the enemy, while at the same time giving itself legitimacy to use escalating violence against them.
The regime’s propaganda machine, operating through state-run and government-affiliated media outlets, has sought to instill fear, repeatedly warning the population that they are under continued surveillance and warning them not to participate in protests. In an unusually harsh move, state television aired a report showing rows of body bags leaving a morgue, in an apparent attempt to deter potential demonstrators from joining.
It also swiftly published the death toll of security forces and blamed “insurgents” for killing civilians. State media showed footage of dozens of blindfolded detainees lining a wall, broadcast confessions and published images of seized weapons, including items like axes and daggers, carried by demonstrators.
Large crowds filled public squares in state-sanctioned demonstrations to show unwavering support for the regime as supporters reacted angrily to footage of violence against the Islamic Republic.
By Monday there were signs that the protests in Tehran had not grown as large as last weekend following a massive crackdown by the regime, but the true scale is nearly impossible to gauge given continued communications disruptions. Iran’s foreign minister felt confident enough on Monday to insist that the government had the situation “under control.”
But protests could flare up again after President Trump on Tuesday renewed his call for Iranians to continue demonstrating and pledged that “help is on the way.”
“Keep protesting. Take over our institutions!!! Name the murderers and abusers. They will pay dearly,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
