Iranian state TV on Wednesday issued the first official death toll from demonstrations that began on Dec. 28, saying 3,117 people were killed, 2,427 being civilians and security forces, but did not elaborate on the others.
U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency said the death toll was at least 4,560. The agency has been accurate throughout the years on demonstrations and unrest in Iran, relying on a network of activists inside the country that confirms all reported fatalities. The Associated Press has been unable to independently assess the death toll.
State television carried statements by the Interior Ministry and the Martyrs Foundation, an official body providing services to families of those killed in wars.
“I think the scale is much higher than that,” Arsalan Kahnemuyipour, Iranian Canadian human rights activist and University of Toronto linguistics professor told CBC’s Power & Politics. “These numbers are based on names that the human rights agencies have been able to identify.”
WATCH | Iranian Canadian human rights activist says scale of deaths ‘much higher’:
He said the death toll is “unprecedented” even considering Iran’s “record of violence against civilians.”
Kahnemuyipour said the Islamic Republic’s insistence that U.S. President Donald Trump’s promise to act against Iran served to incite more violence among protesters is a “self-serving narrative.”
“The reality is there is a chance people may have been motivated for going out because they thought there would be support, which turned out to be a hollow promise from President Trump. But the fact that there was any kind of foreign intervention, interference, in terms of instigating the protests, or killing the people, this is totally made up,” Kahnemuyipour said.
Meanwhile, Iranian foreign minister issued the most direct threat yet against the United States after Tehran’s bloody crackdown, warning the Islamic Republic will be “firing back with everything we have if we come under renewed attack.”
The comments by Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, who saw his invitation to the World Economic Forum in Davos rescinded over the killings, came as a U.S. aircraft carrier group moved west toward the Middle East from Asia. U.S. fighter jets and other equipment appeared to be moving in the Mideast after a major U.S. military deployment in the Caribbean saw troops seize Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro.
Highest death toll in decades
The death toll exceeds that of any other round of protest or unrest in Iran in decades, and recalls the chaos surrounding the 1979 revolution that brought the Islamic Republic into being.
Although there have been no protests for days, there are fears the toll could increase significantly as information gradually emerges from a country still under a government-imposed shutdown of the internet since Jan. 8.
The first indication from authorities of the extent of casualties came Saturday from Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who said the protests had left “several thousand” people dead and blamed the United States. The protests began over economic pressures but quickly broadened to take on the theocracy.
The Interior Ministry statement Wednesday asserted that “terrorists used live ammunition that led to the deaths of 2,427 people and security forces.”
The Martyrs Foundation said Iran would pursue what it called “terrorists” who it claimed were tied to Israel and “supported, equipped and armed” by the U.S.
Nearly 26,500 people have been arrested, according to the Human Rights Activists News Agency. Comments from officials have led to fears of some of those detained being put to death in Iran, one of the world’s top executioners.
That and the killing of peaceful protesters have been two red lines laid down by U.S. President Donald Trump in the tensions.
Araghchi makes threat in column
Araghchi made the threat in an opinion article published by The Wall Street Journal. The foreign minister contended “the violent phase of the unrest lasted less than 72 hours” and sought again to blame armed demonstrators for the violence. Videos that made it out of Iran despite an internet shutdown appear to show security forces repeatedly using live fire to target apparently unarmed protesters, something unaddressed by Araghchi.
“Unlike the restraint Iran showed in June 2025, our powerful armed forces have no qualms about firing back with everything we have if we come under renewed attack,” Araghchi wrote, referring to the 12-day war launched by Israel on Iran in June. “This isn’t a threat, but a reality I feel I need to convey explicitly, because as a diplomat and a veteran, I abhor war.”
He added: “An all-out confrontation will certainly be ferocious and drag on far, far longer than the fantasy timelines that Israel and its proxies are trying to peddle to the White House. It will certainly engulf the wider region and have an impact on ordinary people around the globe.”
Araghchi’s comments likely refer to Iran’s short- and medium-range missiles. The Islamic Republic relied on ballistic missiles to target Israel in the war and left its stockpile of the shorter-range missiles unused, something that could be fired to target U.S. bases and interests in the Persian Gulf. Already, there have been some restrictions on U.S. diplomats traveling to bases in Kuwait and Qatar.
Mideast nations, particularly diplomats from Gulf Arab countries, had lobbied Trump not to attack Iran after he threatened to act in response to the killing of demonstrators. Last week, Iran shut its airspace, likely in anticipation of a strike.
The USS Abraham Lincoln, which had been in the South China Sea in recent days, had passed through the Strait of Malacca, a key waterway connecting the sea and Indian Ocean, by Tuesday, ship-tracking data showed.
A U.S. Navy official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the aircraft carrier and three accompanying destroyers were heading west.
While naval and other defence officials stopped short of saying the carrier strike group was headed to the Middle East, its current heading and location in the Indian Ocean means it is only days away from moving into the region. Meanwhile, U.S. military images released in recent days showed F-15E Strike Eagles arriving in the Mideast and forces in the region moving a HIMARS missile system, the type used with great success by Ukraine after Russia’s full-scale invasion in the country in 2022.
Kurdish exiles claim Iranian attack in Iraq
The National Army of Kurdistan, the armed wing of the Kurdistan Freedom Party, or PAK, claimed Iran launched an attack against one of its bases near Irbil, some 320 kilometres north of Baghdad. It said one fighter had been killed, and released mobile phone footage of a fire in the predawn darkness.
Iran did not immediately acknowledge the attack, which would be the first foreign operation Tehran has launched since the protests started.
A handful of Iranian Kurdish dissident or separatist groups — some with armed wings — have long found a safe haven in northern Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdish region, where their presence has been a point of friction between the central government in Baghdad and Tehran. The PAK has claimed it launched attacks in Iran as a crackdown on the demonstrations took place, something reported by semi-official Iranian news agencies as well.
