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Iran Update, January 25, 2026

Some Iranian officials have continued to leak damning information about the regime’s brutal crackdown to Western media, which indicates that some regime personnel may oppose the regime’s crackdown. The New York Times reported on January 25 that Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei ordered the Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) on January 9 to crush the protests “by any means necessary,” citing two Iranian officials briefed on Khamenei’s directive.[1] The officials stated that security forces were ordered to shoot to kill and “show no mercy.” Anti-regime media similarly reported on January 13 that Khamenei had issued a direct order to kill protesters and that the SNSC had issued an order for security forces to use live fire against protesters.[2] Khamenei’s directive to the SNSC and the SNSC’s order to security forces to use live fire are consistent with reports that SNSC Secretary Ali Larijani played a leading role in the regime’s crackdown.[3] The United States Treasury Department sanctioned Larijani on January 15 and reported that he was “responsible for coordinating the response to the protests on behalf of the Supreme Leader of Iran.”[4] Two senior Iranian officials separately told TIME on January 25 that 30,000 people may have been killed on January 8 and 9.[5] Other Iranian sources, including sources from the SNSC and Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), have previously reported high protest death counts to Western media.[6] Leaks of high protester death counts by regime officials suggest that some members of the regime may oppose the regime’s brutal crackdown on the protests. The leaks also undermine the regime’s ongoing information operation that seeks to portray itself and Iranian security forces as victims of “terrorism” and conceal its use of lethal force.[7]

The Iranian regime has not restored international internet access, and there continues to be an internal debate within the regime about restoring it. The debate primarily seems to be between regime factions that assess that restoring the internet could cause a resumption of protests and factions that assess that the economic toll of the internet shutdown could cause internal unrest. The regime shut down the internet on January 8 to prevent Iranians from being able to organize protests and to conceal the regime’s brutal crackdown on the protests.[8] Internet monitor Netblocks reported on January 25 that the internet shutdown in Iran has continued despite “brief connectivity spikes.”[9] Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC)-affiliated media reported on January 23 that international internet access would be restored across all provinces by January 24.[10] The Iranian Information and Communications Technology Ministry denied this report on January 25 and stated that the ministry “is diligently pursuing improvements in the accessibility situation.”[11] Conflicting messaging from IRGC-affiliated outlets suggests that there are divisions within the IRGC over whether to restore internet access. IRGC-affiliated Tasnim News Agency criticized on January 25 individuals who support restoring internet access for economic reasons and argued that a safe security environment is necessary for economic activity.[12] An IRGC-affiliated Telegram channel conversely said on January 21 that the Iranian regime’s decision to maintain the internet shutdown undermines Iran’s “national security interest” because the economic consequences of the shutdown risk fueling public resentment.[13]

A political analyst close to the Iranian regime stated on January 24 that the recent protests were “one of the most alarming incidents of the past century” and represented a crisis that is “slowly deepening.””[14] These statements are consistent with CTP-ISW’s assessment that protests could resume because the regime has neither addressed nor indicated a willingness to address its population’s grievances.[15] The analyst, Mostafa Najafi, assessed that the recent protests represented an “escalating trend” and described large scale protests in 2017, 2019, 2022, and 2025 as “successive eruptions of an unresolved structural dissatisfaction.”[16] Najafi stated that the periods between each of these protest waves were periods of “condensed anger and expectation.” He stated that each protest wave in Iran “accumulates the unanswered demands” of previous waves, which reflects Najafi’s awareness that the regime’s failure to address its population’s grievances or provide concessions after protests only further deepens the population’s dissatisfaction with the regime. Najafi also assessed that the size and intensity of the recent protests compared to past waves reflect the Iranian population’s “eroding trust” in the regime.[17] CTP-ISW previously assessed that the recent protests were the most serious domestic unrest the regime has faced, and that the regime responded to this unrest with an unprecedented level of brutality.[18] Najafi’s statements are consistent with CTP-ISW’s assessment that the regime’s refusal to address the underlying grievances that triggered the recent and previous protest movements could cause protests to reemerge in the future.[19]

https://understandingwar.org/research/middle-east/iran-update-january-25-2026/