The protests in Iran are the biggest in years to challenge the regime. Here’s what you need to know.

Iran has faced difficulties nationwide protests for nearly two weeks, marking the biggest challenge to the country’s ruling government in years – and vowing to President Trump to intervene on behalf of protesters if they face violent abuses.

It started and started IranWith the economic collapse and high inflation, the protests have already intensified, with about 180 cities facing protests. One vigilante group has reported thousands of arrests and dozens of deaths since the protests began.

Here’s what you need to know:

How the protests in Iran began, and what they have become

The current wave of protests began in the capital, Tehran, in late December as striking shopkeepers marched into the streets. Small business owners in Iran have long been seen as supportive of the regime, but anger over rising inflation and the nation’s currency, which lost more than 40% of its value last year, making everyday goods unaffordable for many, sparked protests.

The protests quickly spread, with people joining marches across the country denouncing not only the economic crisis, but also expressing widespread dissatisfaction with the country’s strong state.

As of Friday, protests were reported in at least 180 cities across the country’s 31 states, according to the Human Rights Activists News Agency, or HRANA, a US-based monitoring group founded by anti-government activists.

Protests have been reported at many universities since late December, while strikes and shop closures have been reported in markets in more than a dozen cities, HRANA said.

Videos posted on social media almost every night are shown crowds of protesters marching through the streets of different cities in Iransinging slogans against the government and conflict with the country’s security forces in some cases.

How did the Iranian authorities respond?

More than 2,300 people have been arrested since the protests began, including at least 167 under the age of 18, according to HRANA. About 65 people have been killed, the group said, including 50 protesters, at least seven people under the age of 18 and 14 members of the security forces.

The Islamic Republic’s semiofficial Fars news agency said Monday that about 250 policemen and 45 members of the Basij security forces were injured during the riots.

Iranian authorities disconnect phone service and web access on Thursday night across the country, according to internet watchdog NetBlocks, which said a “nationwide internet blackout” continued on Friday.

“Even Starlink, which has been a major means of communication for some activists in different parts of the country, is stuck,” Maziar Bahari, editor of the independent website IranWire, told CBS News on Friday, referring to the satellite communications program run by Elon Musk.

CBS News sought comment from SpaceX, which operates Starlink, but did not immediately receive a response.

Trump warns that he will hit Iran “hard” if it kills protesters

Mr. Trump threatened several times since the protests began that he would order US intervention if the Iranian authorities kill the protesters.

Speaking at the White House on Jan. 9, Mr. Trump reiterated that he was open to some US action, although he said that would not involve US intervention.

“I have spoken a lot that if they start killing people like before, we will go in,” said Mr. “We’re going to hit them hard where it hurts. And that doesn’t mean boots on the ground, but it means hitting them hard, hard where it hurts. So, we don’t want that to happen.”

In a January 2 post on Truth Social, he said: “If Iran [shoots] and violently kill peaceful protesters, which is their practice, the United States of America will help them.”

“We’re locked and loaded and ready to go,” the president said.

Speaking on Fox News on Jan. 8, Mr. Trump said the US is “ready” to hit Iran hard if protesters are killed, but added, “for the most part, they never” have.

The president’s comments came just six months after he left office he ordered airstrikes on three of Iran’s nuclear sitesbetween a the conflict of the fatal days between Iran and Israel.

Chaos in Iran also comes as Mr Trump takes an aggressive stance on the world stage.

The US military arrested former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro at four o’clock military operations at night in Caracas on Jan. 3, and Mr. Trump has suggested he is open to military action in Colombia to fight drug trafficking, and to take control of Greenland.

Alex Vatanka, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute who studies Iran, told CBS News last week that Mr.

Bahari, of IranWire, said Iranian officials had told him they were concerned that Mr. Trump may intervene in Iran even before the protests begin.

The recent US attack on Venezuela, “has really scared many Iranian officials and may have affected their actions in terms of how to deal with the protesters. But at the same time, it has encouraged many protesters to come out, because they know that the leader of the most powerful country in the world supports their cause.”

Iranian leaders acknowledge the problems, but blame the US

In a speech on state television on Friday, after a tense night of protests, Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei vowed that his regime “will not back down,” called for unity and accused “a bunch of world destroyers” in Tehran of creating chaos in the capital “to please the US president.”

In some cases, Iranian officials have tried to strike a conciliatory tone, admitting that the people economic concerns and emphasizing that people have the right to protest peacefully. State media reported that President Masoud Pezeshkian had it security forces have been targeted not to fight the protesters peacefully.

The government also provided some help with $7 a month that can be used at grocery stores to buy basic necessities.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Iran condemned the threat of Mr. Trump on US intervention, accusing the US of “inciting violence and terrorism.”

Iran’s military commander Major General Amir Hatami threatened on Wednesday “to cut off the hand of any aggressor.”

Iran’s history of mass protests

Protests – and severe crackdowns – are a recurring theme in Iran.

The last major round of protests came in 2022, sparked by the death in police custody of Mahsa Amini, 22, who was arrested by theocratic government forces for allegedly wearing her headscarf inappropriately. Hundreds of people were like that you have been killed throughout the months of protests.

Other protests followed 2019 again 2017and Iran it was hit by a coup d’état in 2009 in a contested presidential election.

“According to what we have seen on social media and in interviews with different people in Iran, the number of protesters in different parts of the country is not as high as it was in 2022, but there are many protests – the protests are very widespread in different parts of the country,” Bahari told CBS News. “So, even small towns where they never had a protest in those cities, they are seeing protests these days, and I think people are more desperate than before.”

The current protests seem different compared to previous rounds – and would be difficult for the government to end by granting permission – because of their roots in the country’s economic problems, according to Mona Yacoubian, Director and Senior Advisor of the Middle East Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

He pointed out that in 2022, the state was able to appease the protesters “by simply addressing their grievances about veiling for women and so on.”

But the protesters are now more focused on economic problems, and “there’s really nothing.” [the regime] what I can do” is to get Iran’s crumbling economy back on track, he said.

“These protests are about the state of the economy, but they are also about dignity,” Bahari told CBS News. “It’s about national pride. And because of that, this protest will be very difficult to contain.”

Iran’s Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi welcomed the protests

Iran’s Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi, whose father was the shah, fled shortly before the 1979 Islamic Revolution that brought the current clerical regime to power, welcomed the protests from exile, urging protesters this week to keep the movement “disciplined” and “as big as possible.”

The crown prince called on Iranians to sing together against the country’s leadership at 8 p.m. local time, or 12 p.m. Eastern, on Thursday and Friday, and many appeared to be answering his call.

Pahlavi’s call to action “could be a turning point” in the protest, Yacoubian told CBS News on Thursday.

“This is a regime that is not afraid to use lethal force,” Yacoubian said. “But the question is, if they get frustrated, if the protests become too big and if there are things that affect the security forces, the police, and so on, the kind of that local level, those who suffer from the consequences of this economic crisis and who decide not to shoot people: These are the kinds of questions that I think we have to look at.”