Kinlore
2025–2026

Massacre, war and a new Supreme Leader

After a twelve-day war with Israel in 2025, nationwide protests are crushed with thousands killed in January 2026; weeks later US–Israeli strikes kill Ali Khamenei and plunge the country into war.

Well established warrepressionprotestforeign-interference

In June 2025 Israel, later joined by US strikes on nuclear sites, fought a twelve-day air war with Iran. As the economy sank under sanctions and a collapsing currency, protests over prices broke out at the end of 2025 and grew into nationwide calls for the end of the Islamic Republic. In January 2026 the authorities responded with the bloodiest crackdown in the regime’s history. The government itself put the death toll at 3,117; the rights group HRANA had verified more than 6,800 deaths, with thousands more cases under investigation and tens of thousands arrested.

On 28 February 2026 US and Israeli strikes on Iran killed the Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, who had ruled since 1989. On 8 March the Assembly of Experts named his son, Mojtaba Khamenei, as his successor; he was reported to have been wounded in the same strike, and for months made no public appearance. Iran struck back at Israel, US bases and Gulf states, and the war dragged on through 2026, interrupted by ceasefires.

How it's seen
Many opposition-minded Iranians

The regime's massacre of its own people in January 2026 destroyed whatever legitimacy it had left. Views on the foreign strikes are split: some saw them as the only way the regime could be broken, others insist that change must come from Iranians, not from bombs.

The Islamic Republic and its supporters

The protests were riots fomented by the United States and Israel, which then murdered the Leader in an unprovoked attack during negotiations. Iran was defending itself, as in the Sacred Defence of the 1980s.

Why it matters today

Iran

These events are recent and raw, and Iranians are deeply divided over them. Many grieve thousands of protesters killed by their own state; many also grieve civilians killed by foreign bombs, and fear their country being destroyed. Some welcomed the death of Khamenei, others mourned him, and many feel both relief and dread. Be very careful assuming what any Iranian feels about this war.