At least 5,000 people have died during protests in Iran, including about 500 security force personnel, an anonymous Iranian official told Reuters.
Protesters set fire to a photo of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei near the Iranian Embassy building in London, January 12, 2026. Photo: AP Photo/Alastair Grant
He also noted that some of the fiercest clashes and the highest number of deaths were recorded in Kurdish areas in northwestern Iran.
The official accused "terrorists and armed rioters" of killing "innocent Iranians."
It is worth recalling that a few days ago, Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei for the first time publicly acknowledged that thousands of people had died during mass protests in the country. At the same time, he blamed the United States and Israel for the events, accusing them of inciting popular uprisings, specifically mentioning US President Donald Trump.
Mass protests in Iran began on December 28, 2025. In early January, they reached their largest scale: mass demonstrations swept almost all provinces, with millions of people taking to the streets demanding the overthrow of the regime. The fiercest clashes occurred from January 8 to 12, when security forces, according to various estimates, killed from several thousand to tens of thousands of people.
After a wave of repression, protest activity significantly decreased: armed patrols appeared in cities, and information from the country almost stopped flowing. Against the backdrop of these events, the United States considered the possibility of a military strike on Iran, but Trump later abandoned such a step, stating that he had received assurances that the mass killings would cease.
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