Tehran, 09 January (H.S.): Iranian authorities plunged the nation into a comprehensive internet blackout on Thursday, severing digital lifelines as anti-regime protests surged into their 12th consecutive day, claiming at least 44 lives according to opposition tallies amid escalating clashes across major cities.

NetBlocks reported a precipitous collapse in internet traffic Thursday evening, coinciding with calls for mass 8 p.m. demonstrations, following earlier disruptions around 1 p.m. local time in hotspots like Lordegan where Revolutionary Guards reportedly killed eight protesters—including a woman and two teenagers—using live ammunition.

The National Council of Resistance of Iran documented 13 additional fatalities that day, with violence engulfing Isfahan where youth torched state radio and TV stations, and spreading to Tehran, Mashhad, Abadan, and western provinces witnessing general strikes, overturned police vehicles, torched buses, and toppled regime symbols like statues of Qassem Soleimani.

Reza Pahlavi, exiled son of the ousted shah, decried the communications stranglehold—encompassing landlines and potential satellite jamming—while protesters chanted Death to Khamenei and Death to the oppressor.

Trump's Renewed Threat Amplifies Global Scrutiny

President Donald Trump reiterated stern warnings Thursday in a Hugh Hewitt interview, vowing the U.S. would hit them very hard should Tehran escalate killings against brave demonstrators yearning for freedom, a message echoed by the State Department's Persian X feed.

The unrest, ignited December 28 by the rial's catastrophic devaluation and rampant inflation after years of sanctions and the June Israel war, has evolved into a revolutionary clarion demanding the Islamic Republic's overthrow, rattling Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei with millions flooding streets from north to south.

NCRI's Ali Safavi highlighted unprecedented scale, with protesters seizing government buildings in Ilam and beyond, even as a regime colonel and two Basij militiamen perished in Lordegan firefights, underscoring a regime teetering amid economic despair and unyielding defiance.

Hindusthan Samachar / Jun Sarkar