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Posted on 04/02/2026 2:57:07 PM PDT by MeanWestTexan
LONDON: Iran has declared Starlink’s satellite internet infrastructure a “legitimate target,” state-affiliated Fars News Agency has reported, as the country’s near-total internet blackout enters its second month and authorities intensify their crackdown on unauthorized connectivity.
Fars published an infographic on Wednesday showing the presence of Elon Musk’s satellite internet service in neighboring countries, including Bahrain, Kuwait and the UAE.
The announcement forms part of a broader threat from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which has warned of potential strikes on multiple American technology and defense companies.
According to internet monitoring group NetBlocks, connectivity inside Iran has dropped to about 1 percent of normal levels, leaving satellite services among the few remaining means of accessing the global internet.
The blackout has disrupted personal communications, independent news access and online businesses across a country of 90 million people.
Many Iranians have turned to SpaceX’s Starlink terminals — which use low-earth orbit systems — to circumvent the restrictions, a practice that carries severe risks.
Iranian rights activists warn that using such tools can potentially result in the death penalty.
Authorities have moved aggressively to stamp out the practice.
Ahmad-Reza Radan, Iran’s police chief, said security forces had seized 139 Starlink devices and arrested 46 people involved in selling terminals, according to the semi-official Iranian Students’ News Agency.
Police in the central city of Yazd announced on March 26 they had blocked 61 bank accounts belonging to Starlink users as part of the wider crackdown.
Despite these measures, activists and digital rights groups estimate there are still around 50,000 Starlink terminals operating inside the country.
Starlink gained prominence inside Iran in January, when it was used to bypass internet restrictions and transmit footage of protests that erupted over a deepening economic crisis and widespread public anger at the government.
While the service was widely praised at the time as a tool for circumventing censorship, experts have since cautioned that satellite internet is not immune to state interference and remains embedded within broader systems of sovereignty and control.
Iran has long maintained a national intranet — a closed, state-controlled network — but as the conflict has continued, even that system has degraded, limiting communications between essential services, according to analysts.
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Doesn’t Elon have some ICBMs?
Rods from God?
Ability to send retribution?
IRAN...You probably don’t want to po Elon...
What kind of weapons are they going to use to knock out the satellites?
If caught with a Starlink dish, just claim you were using it to find lonely goats.
Are there any firearms - handguns or bigger - that can survive a drop from an airplane unprotected?
If not, then how much padding would be required to allow them (and ammo) to land fully functional?
Because I'm guessing that dropping 10,000's or 100,000's of firearms into strategic locations across Iran might not be feasible w/ parachutes, as they move downwards so slowly that the bad guys could move swiftly to intercept.
I think what they’re saying is they will hit StarLink ground stations in other countries. Iran hasn’t allowed them, but because StarLink is circumventing their censorship of information they consider the company fair game.
They learned that from US Dems. Demonetized online sites and then canceled bank accounts.
If a jammer radiates, a Growler or Wild Weasel F16 can kill it. Go ahead and jam ...
I think what we are saying is that the IRGC has earned the right to disappear.
Iran is eaten up with smuggling routes.
Surely plenty of firearms have made it.
I hope we keep saying that until every last one of them is dead.
They had jammer trucks from China that can be hidden in box trucks but I read somewhere that they were toasted by anti-radiation missiles.
Actually gun control probably comes first.
Every launcher he has is a potential icbm if he was inclined.
What’s he up to? 10 launches a week?
He could easily rock their world if inclined.
Already done I believe.
Does the CIA still have to pay the monthly service bills for their failed color revolution attempt? The 6 or 7 thousand star link terminals they smuggled in must add up to a small fortune.
No way would that story be published but it's a notion that keeps me warm at night thinking about it.
Eat all you want, we’ll make more.
And yet whenever I watch Things to Come, my sympathies are always with Ralph Richardson.
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