Iranians were recorded celebrating in the street on Saturday morning, before the internet blackout, in response to Israeli and US strikes on the regime’s military and government facilities, according to footage published online by Iranian diaspora media.
In one video, young Iranian men shouted “I love Trump” as smoke was seen billowing from a nearby strike.
Another video showed people dancing in the street, an act criminalized by the Islamic regime. Since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, dancing has been prohibited as clerics labeled it a "sinful act" and "an act of lust."
While The Jerusalem Post could not independently verify the videos, a warfare analyst specializing in OSINT research told the Post that the videos appear to be recent.
Despite the apparent support communicated in the video, Kurdish media shared footage of pro-regime students demonstrating outside Tehran University. It is unclear when the footage was taken, though Iranian media has purported that the protests broke out in the wake of US and Israeli strikes.
Internet blackouts across Iran
Since the publication of the videos, the internet monitoring service Netblocks has reported that internet connectivity across Iran has dropped to 4%.
The IRGC has also reportedly deployed its Basij paramilitary force to patrol the streets of Tehran, according to Fars News Agency.
As retired V.-Adm. Robert Harward, the former deputy commander of US Central Command, told the Post earlier this month that the Islamic regime has often used conflict as a way to “galvanize and draw on nationalism” to its benefit, but the latest attacks have come as the public dissent for the regime has seemingly peaked.
Protests broke out in December over the rial's declining value and the country’s dire economic crisis. The Islamic regime met the dissent with violent repression, seeing thousands murdered in the streets at protests and many more detained without a formal process.
Medical sources also told the Post that the regime had murdered protesters in their hospital beds, where they had received treatment for injuries inflicted by the security forces, and medical staff had been stalked and arrested for treating demonstrators.
Former British Army intelligence officer Lynette Nusbacher, one of the architects behind two of the UK’s National Security Strategies, told the Post that while she couldn’t comment on the videos without authentication, “we are receiving a signal here that supports the narrative of rapid regime collapse, but we already know that there are anti-regime strongholds in parts of Iran where people feel safe to demonstrate their readiness for regime change.”
While such demonstrations are a sign of Tehran’s weakening grip on the Iranian public, it is “not a sign of a well-organized successor government capable of overthrowing even a weakened regime,” she warned.