Tehran, Iran – Heavily armed state forces continue to control the streets of Iran, despite the United States and Israel launching more attacks and preparing for a possible ground assault, as a nearly month-long war drags on with no clear end point on the horizon.
Checkpoints, blockades and patrols, some manned by masked forces armed with assault rifles and machine guns mounted on pick-up trucks, have become common sights in Tehran.
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Several checkpoints manned by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) paramilitary Basij force, police or plainclothes forces have been targeted by deadly drone attacks over the past two weeks. Therefore, they are often on the move, or deployed on highways, in tunnels and under bridges.
“I counted 40 cars in my neighborhood late last night honking their horns, flashing blinkers, waving flags and escorting a pick-up truck with big speakers in the back and someone inside shouting religious slogans,” a resident of western Tehran told Al Jazeera on Friday, speaking on condition of anonymity for security reasons.
He said local residents have been invited over loudspeakers on several occasions to join gatherings at a neighborhood mosque to condemn the US and Israel and express support for the religious establishment that has been in power since Iran’s 1979 Islamic revolution.
Such state-backed gatherings are taking place in many mosques as well as in city squares and streets. But they come as the US and Israel have urged Iranians to stay in their homes and wait for a “clear signal” to take to the streets and overthrow the Islamic Republic.
For their part, Iranian state television and other state-affiliated media outlets have encouraged supporters to maintain control of the streets, and are increasingly releasing footage of armed state supporters, including women, carrying guns.
Rahim Nadali, the IRGC’s deputy for cultural affairs in Tehran, claimed on state television Wednesday night that people of all ages have expressed readiness to join intelligence and security patrols and checkpoints.
“We have (reduced) the age limit to over 12 years. So now, kids as young as 12 or 13 years of age will participate in this field,” he said.
‘Sinking feeling in your stomach’
According to Iranian officials, a series of new airstrikes occurred across Iran on Friday afternoon, targeting a civilian nuclear site, as well as power posts and production lines for steel and other industrial factories.
Washington has also deployed thousands of troops to the region and has signaled that an attempt to capture one or more islands off Iran’s southern coast may be imminent.
Iranian officials have promised to retaliate forcefully if that happens, including attacking critical infrastructure across the region.
Javad Mogoi, a prominent media personality linked to the IRGC, released a video from Qeshm Island earlier this week, suggesting that the IRGC could launch missiles and drones at the Iranian islands if they were captured by the US.
Despite the possibility of further outbreaks, and while many areas of Tehran have been hit by bombs dropped from Israeli and American warplanes, the city continues to operate as people try to live normal lives.
Some people visit friends and loved ones indoors, while others go for daytime walks or work out in gyms open for limited hours for a regular routine.
“It looks like the war will last for weeks, if not months, so we can’t afford to wallow in all the anxiety and fear that comes with it,” said another resident of the capital, who sought safety in one of Iran’s northern provinces before the war but returned last week.
“But you still can’t help but take in that sinking feeling for a moment, not knowing if you’ll be next when you hear the jets take off,” he said.
Another resident, a woman who lives in the more prosperous northern areas of Tehran, where many senior officials have been murdered in residential buildings since the beginning of the war, said she found herself worried.
He said, “Sometimes this worry automatically creeps into my mind that some officer might be living in the next street or in a nearby house and my family might be exposed to him.” She said she has gone out of her house only three times in the last month to buy essential items or to meet her family.
Iranian officials have said nearly 2,000 people have been killed in US and Israeli strikes since February 28 and scores of residential units, hospitals, schools and civilian vehicles have been affected.
economy under pressure
More businesses are expected to reopen when the country’s official work week begins on Saturday, following the Persian New Year Nowruz holidays.
But the internet has been completely shut down to the civilian population for almost a month, the longest shutdown recorded in Iran. The internet shutdown has disrupted the country’s population of over 90 million and further hit the economy, which is plagued by an inflation rate of nearly 70 per cent.
State media released footage of President Massoud Pezeshkian personally visiting a hypermarket in Tehran on Friday to ensure that all essential goods are available to the population, and to ensure that sellers refrain from raising prices or engaging in hoarding.
The government has also continued to provide small cash subsidies, which it started in January following nationwide protests over the country’s economic condition.
The United Nations and international human rights groups say thousands of protesters were killed by state forces, mostly on the night of 8 and 9 January, amid another complete internet shutdown, but the Iranian government blames “terrorists” and “rioters” backed by the US and Israel for the unrest.
Iranian officials have warned that anyone who takes to the streets to protest against the regime during the ongoing war will be treated as an “enemy”. He has also announced numerous war and protest-related executions, several hundreds of arrests on security charges, and the confiscation of assets of Iranians found to be dissidents inside or outside the country.
Iran’s judiciary on Thursday announced the freezing of the assets of Ali Sharifi Zarchi, a former professor of bioinformatics and artificial intelligence at Sharif University of Technology, Iran’s top higher education institution.
Due to his tweets and interviews in recent months in opposition to the Islamic Republic while outside the country, authorities had found him to have “turned into an anti-Iran element and supporter of the Zionist regime” in reference to Israel.
During the nationwide protests in January 2026, late 2022 and early 2023 and in November 2019, Sharifi Zarchi said in a post on
