Iran Protest Crackdown: Over 6,000 Killed as Activists Reveal Grim Toll

DUBAI – Activists reported on Tuesday that the violent suppression of widespread protests in Iran has resulted in the deaths of at least 6,126 individuals, with fears that the actual number could be higher. In response to the escalating crisis, a U.S. aircraft carrier group has arrived in the Middle East, poised to lead any potential American military intervention.

The USS Abraham Lincoln, along with its accompanying guided missile destroyers, has reached the region, providing the United States with the capability to launch strikes against Iran. This strategic move comes as Gulf Arab nations, despite hosting American forces, have indicated a desire to avoid involvement in any offensive actions.

In the region, two militias with ties to Iran have expressed readiness to carry out fresh assaults, likely in support of Iran following threats from U.S. President Donald Trump. These threats target Iran’s actions, either the violent crackdown on demonstrators or potential mass executions in response to the protests.

Iran has issued repeated threats of expanding the conflict throughout the Middle East, although its military capabilities have been weakened after the June conflict initiated by Israel. This suggests Iran’s defenses are still recovering from the recent hostilities.

Notably, the Houthis and Kataib Hezbollah abstained from participating in Israel’s 12-day conflict with Iran, during which U.S. forces targeted Iranian nuclear facilities. Their reluctance reflects the ongoing turmoil within Iran’s so-called “Axis of Resistance,” which has been destabilized by Israeli attacks during its campaign against Hamas in Gaza.

Activists offer new death toll

The new figures Tuesday came from the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency, which has been accurate in multiple rounds of unrest in Iran. The group verifies each death with a network of activists on the ground in Iran.

It identified the dead as including at least 5,777 protesters, 214 government-affiliated forces, 86 children and 49 civilians who weren’t demonstrating. The crackdown has seen over 41,800 arrests, it added.

The Associated Press has been unable to independently assess the death toll given authorities cutting off the internet and disrupting calls into the Islamic Republic.

Iran’s government has put the death toll at a far lower 3,117, saying 2,427 were civilians and security forces, and labeled the rest “terrorists.” In the past, Iran’s theocracy has undercounted or not reported fatalities from unrest.

That death toll exceeds that of any other round of protest or unrest there in decades, and recalls the chaos surrounding Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution.

The protests in Iran began on Dec. 28, sparked by the fall of the Iranian currency, the rial, and quickly spread across the country. They were met by a violent crackdown by Iran’s theocracy, the scale of which is only starting to become clear as the country has faced more than two weeks of internet blackout — the most comprehensive in its history.

Iran’s U.N. ambassador told a U.N. Security Council meeting late Monday that Trump’s repeated threats to use military force against the country “are neither ambiguous nor misinterpreted.” Amir Saeid Iravani also repeated allegations that the U.S. leader incited violence by “armed terrorist groups” supported by the United States and Israel, but gave no evidence to support his claims.

Iranian state media has tried to accuse forces abroad for the protests as the theocracy remains broadly unable to address the country’s ailing economy, which is still squeezed by international sanctions, particularly over its nuclear program.

Some Iranian-backed militias suggest willingness to fight

Iran projected its power across the Mideast through the “Axis of Resistance,” a network of proxy militant groups in Gaza, Lebanon, Yemen, Syria and Iraq, and other places. It was also seen as a defensive buffer, intended to keep conflict away from Iranian borders. But it has collapsed after Israel targeted Hamas, Hezbollah in Lebanon and others during the Gaza war. Meanwhile, rebels in 2024 overthrew Syria’s Bashar Assad after a yearslong, bloody war in which Iran backed his rule.

Yemen’s Houthi rebels, backed by Iran, have repeatedly warned they could resume fire if needed on shipping in the Red Sea, releasing old footage of a previous attack Monday. Ahmad “Abu Hussein” al-Hamidawi, the leader of Iraq’s Kataib Hezbollah militia, warned “the enemies that the war on the (Islamic) Republic will not be a picnic; rather, you will taste the bitterest forms of death, and nothing will remain of you in our region.”

The Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, one of Iran’s staunchest allies, refused to say how it planned to react in the case of a possible attack.

“During the past two months, several parties have asked me a clear and frank question: If Israel and America go to war against Iran, will Hezbollah intervene or not?” Hezbollah leader Sheikh Naim Kassem said in a video address.

He said the group is preparing for “possible aggression and is determined to defend” against it. But as to how it would act, he said, “these details will be determined by the battle and we will determine them according to the interests that are present.”

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Associated Press writers Edith Lederer at the United Nations and Abby Sewell in Beirut contributed to this report.