IRAN CRISIS UPDATE, NOVEMBER 16
Protest activity continued to surge, occurring in 29 cities in 19 provinces.
Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s efforts to discourage prominent Sunni cleric Moulana Abdol Hamid from publicly criticizing the regime have likely failed.
A false claim is circulating online that the Iranian Parliament has sentenced 15,000 arrested protesters to death.
BBC published a purported leaked audio tape revealing internal disagreements within the regime over the cause of and correct response to the protests.
Unidentified gunmen shot and killed at least six people and injured at least 15 at a shopping center in Izeh, Khuzestan Province.
Unidentified gunmen shot at Basij and Law Enforcement Command (LEC) personnel, killing two, in Esfahan City, Esfahan Province.
The judiciary sentenced three protesters to death.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) or one of its proxies likely conducted a kamikaze drone attack on an Israeli-owned tanker in the Gulf of Oman.
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/iran-crisis-update-november-16
IRAN CRISIS UPDATE, NOVEMBER 17
Regime security personnel sustained relatively significant casualties.
Protest organizations are trying to sustain the recent high protester turnout for at least three to four more days.
At least 40 protests took place in 33 cities across 18 provinces.
The regime may be trying to blame the Izeh attack on the Islamic State (IS) as part of an effort to associate the protests with terrorism.
Likely Iranian proxies conducted a rocket attack on US forces in northeastern Syria.
Certain components of the ongoing protest movement in Iran may have reached the threshold identified in US military doctrine for a “latent and incipient” insurgency. American counter-insurgency doctrine, using a modified version of the Maoist insurgency framework, defines the lowest level of insurgency as follows:
“The first phase is latent and incipient. During this phase, activities include the emergence of insurgent leadership, creation of initial organizational infrastructure, training, acquisition of resources, and political actions, such as organizing protests. A group that eventually becomes members of an insurgency may simply be a legitimate political group at this stage. Governmental actions and changes in society can transform political groups into insurgencies.”[1]
Anti-regime outlet Iran International published purported leaked memos from the Artesh Ground Forces on November 17.[60] The Artesh Ground Forces reportedly issued a memo on November 7 requiring unit commanders to report daily whether any service members or their families participated in anti-regime protests or used anti-regime language. The Artesh Ground Forces reportedly issued a second memo on November 9, warning that anti-regime actors may sabotage military facilities. If true, these memos indicate that Artesh leadership is concerned about service members and their families joining and sympathizing with protesters. The English-language version of the Iran International article mischaracterized these memos, however, reporting that they “show that [Artesh] staff and their families have been supporting the popular anti-government protests since September.”[61] There is no information in the memos to corroborate this claim nor can CTP verify their authenticity.
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/iran-crisis-update-november-17