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Protests in Iran, day 27: Khamenei cancelled Friday prayers. Fearing to meet his 72 virgins

By: Arnt Jensvoll   24. January 2026, 07:00
Ali Hosseini Khamenei is afraid he might have to meet the 72 virgins. His Friday prayer was cancelled out of fear of American B-2 bombers. He is no kindly old grandfather with a beard. Photo: https://farsi.khamenei.ir CC0 1.0

The vast majority of Iranians want to overthrow the Islamic Republic, not reform it, but the regime will show no restraint in its response. The killings so far of thousands of protesters bear that out. Medical personnel tell The Times that “at least 16,500 protesters have died, and 330,000 have been injured – most in the space of two days in the most brutal crackdown by the mullahs since they came to power 47 years ago.”</p
<Iran’s Attorney General Mohammad Movahedi denies Donald Trump’s claim that the US President prevented 800 executions of jailed protesters.

– The claim is completely false; no such number exists. The judiciary has made no such decision.

360 hours without connection to the outside world

Movahedi suggested that Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi might have given Trump this figure to prevent US military action.

For over a week, it appeared that the US would follow through on Trump’s promise to help the protesters through a combination of kinetic strikes on the regime’s repressive infrastructure and non-kinetic cyberattacks, internet restoration and a new layer of sanctions.

– Admiral Brad Cooper of CENTCOM has landed in Israel, according to Amir Tsarfati.

On 23 January, the internet blackout entered its third week, or 360 hours without connection to the outside world. According to human rights groups, the Islamic Republic has used the blackout to “commit genocide in digital darkness”. The regime in Tehran justifies the genocide by calling the protesters “terrorists” who are “committing crimes against Allah”.

The regime is weaker than at any time since the 1979 Islamic revolution. The combined effects of heavy sanctions and the massive Israeli-US air strikes in June last year have made the mullahs paranoid about internal security. But if the Islamic Republic is to end up in the dustbin of history, it still needs a push over the edge.

– Trump wrote again tonight that “help is on the way for the Iranian people”. Have faith in Trump. He keeps all his promises.

The regime’s strategy is well known: survive, wait, normalise, but a society where large parts of the population openly challenge power cannot be stabilised with weapons alone. History has shown that regimes that rely solely on fear sooner or later perish from their own exhaustion.

The fall of the regime would be a welcome setback for its anti-Western allies around the world – not least for its terrorist allies Hamas and Hezbollah, but also for local, potent terrorist cells around the world. And it would bring freedom to Iranians after nearly 50 years of sado-theocratic dictatorship.

At this moment, the arrival of CENTCOM (U.S. Central Command) command aircraft in Jordan is registered in the Middle East region. It has become known that Jordan is likely to become the main US base in the event of a war with Iran.

Tehran has already responded with an official statement: “If a country supports the US and Israel in actions against Iran, that country will become a legitimate target.”

Credible update on US force build-up

NSTRIKE – @NSTRIKE1231 – provides a comprehensive overview of the deployment of US armed forces within the areas of responsibility of Central Command and European Command. We can’t verify this list or most everything else currently coming out of and about Iran, but we’re thinking no smoke without fire.

– Currently, the following forces are stationed in the Middle East and Europe:

Warships armed with Tomahawk cruise missiles stationed in the Middle East and Europe:

<USS “Mitscher”, USS “McFaul”, USS “Oscar Austin”, USS “Roosevelt”, USS “Bulkeley”, USS “Paul Ignatius”, USS “South Dakota”, USS “Georgia”.

The Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier group with escorting Arleigh Burke-class destroyers

.

The full NSTRIKE list is in the tweet below.

Characteristics of a pre-war state

Fear of an attack on Iran and the possibility of war has led several airlines to cancel flights to Iran:

British Airways, KLM and Air France have tonight cancelled all flights to certain destinations in the Middle East. Lufthansa has also cancelled flights to Tel Aviv and Riyadh

.

– More signs that the US and Israel are about to attack Iran is that flights to Israel, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates are being cancelled at the last minute. No one is talking about war, but it looks like something is afoot.

– Russia is urging its citizens to leave Iran and avoid travelling there for security reasons. Turkey’s foreign minister says there are signs that Israel is preparing an attack on Iran. The region is on edge.

Khamenei fears having to face the 72 virgins. His Friday prayer was cancelled, reportedly due to fears of attacks by US B-2 bombers.

– The Islamic Republic is in a state of war. Khamenei’s Friday prayers have been cancelled. In recent weeks, the IRGC has managed to get Khamenei out of his bunker for a few minutes to hold his public Friday prayer. Today he did not turn up. He remains in the bunker.

The uprising is not just against Islam. It’s also against communism

– This is not just an uprising against an Islamic regime, or just against religion. Iranians are rejecting two intertwined ideologies simultaneously: politicised Islam and the collectivist, authoritarian system that sustains it.

The Islamic Republic combines religious absolutism with socialist state control, centralised power, suppression of private enterprise, enforced conformity and hostility to individual freedom. The result is predictable: loss of dignity, agency and choice. That’s why protests target clerics, ideology and symbols of enforced conformity. Hijabs are not burned as a provocation, but as a rejection. State symbols are torn down, not in chaos, but with purpose. By burning down 30 per cent of mosques, Iranians are not asking for reform, they are rejecting the premise entirely.

This is also why the Western left is uncomfortable and silent. The uprising reveals a simple truth: When collectivist ideologies gain power, whether justified by God or by “the people”, they converge on the same outcome: control, censorship and violence justified as virtue.

Iran is not just rebelling against a regime. It is rebelling against the ideologies that make tyranny possible.

It is claimed that large demonstrations are still taking place, but it is difficult to know when the videos were filmed. It could be recycling of previous material:

<blockquote

– New video from Mashhad shows tens of thousands of Iranians in the streets. The scale of the protests was unprecedented.

Estimates of the number of fatalities are increasing day by day and seem to have no ceiling. The figures provided below are not verified.

– Latest estimates from Iran:

  • 43,000 killed
  • 10,000 blinded
  • 350,000 injured

Many of the injured do not seek medical treatment, for fear of being executed in hospital.

Tasnim News Agency, affiliated with the IRGC Quds Force, has acknowledged “extensive damage” to the regime’s infrastructure:

    • Public buildings: 314 destroyed, 155 burned down

.

  • Banks: 399 destroyed, 303 burned down.</li
  • Police vehicles: 749 destroyed, 90 burnt down.
  • Seminars: 89 locations destroyed or burned down.
    </ulNote that seminaries serve as the ideological backbone of the Iranian regime. They train clerics, judges and officials who enforce the regime’s absolute rule and justify its repression.

    All of the institutions attacked by protesters served the regime’s exploitation of the Iranian people. These entities are fundamentally linked to the IRGC, which along with Khamenei’s so-called foundations controls about 95 per cent of Iran’s economy and the nation’s wealth.

Sana Ebrahimi: “The most recent report I’ve received, from someone with contact with sources within the government, suggests that the regime’s own estimate of the number of people killed exceeds 80,000.

– In a meeting with Mohsen Hashemi, he reportedly stated that the total number of people killed, based on military estimates, is over 80,000.

In addition, wounded patients are in extremely critical condition. Due to shortages of blood and medical supplies, there is a high risk that many will die. Unfortunately, the numbers continue to rise.

Many injured people are also afraid to seek medical help because they fear being arrested.

Sepehr, where are you? 12 minutes of apocalypse

– 12-minute video of an Iranian father trying to find his murdered son among thousands of victims. This is just a single location. It’s an apocalypse on a scale we’ve barely seen since World War II.

https://twitter.com/NiohBerg/status/2014698359601160413?s=20

The video is strong. X doesn’t allow it to be shared on the site, but you can enter at your own risk by clicking on the link above. It’s kind of worth it.

Inhuman oppression

– Basij and plainclothes forces are filmed brutally beating a young woman with batons and knives.

– Mohammad, a local blogger known as “Mohammad Fun”, has been killed. He was shot in the leg and tried to escape. A motorcyclist stopped and told him to hop on: “I will take you to a safe place.” The driver was dressed in civilian clothes. A moment later, another man jumped on the bike. A few metres further on, they stabbed Mohammad, threw him into the street and ran off. That’s not an arrest. It’s a manhunt.

– I admit that I never imagined how much sacrifice the Iranians are capable of making. Milad Hassan Zadeh, a 17-year-old boy, left a farewell letter for his family before heading out to protest. I’m sharing his words because it was his own wish, to make sure his voice was heard. Let’s make sure his wish comes true. If I am killed or arrested, please know that I chose to live with honour and dignity.

No matter what happens to me, I want the news to spread like an explosion so that I become a role model for the rest of my generation. 2 January 2026, signed Milad Hassan Zadeh.”

Enough is enough!

The protests in Iran, day 26: The calm before the storm?

 

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