What to know about the protests shaking Iran as government shuts down internet and phone networks

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Nationwide protests in Iran sparked by the Islamic Republic's ailing economy are putting new pressure on its theocracy as it has shut down the internet and telephone networks.

Tehran is still reeling from a 12-day war launched by Israel in June that saw the United States bomb nuclear sites in Iran. Economic pressure, which has intensified since September when the United Nations reimposed sanctions on the country over its atomic program, has sent Iran's rial currency into a free fall, now trading at over 1.4 million to $1.

Meanwhile, Iran's self-described “Axis of Resistance” — a coalition of countries and militant groups backed by Tehran — has been decimated since the start of the Israel-Hamas war in 2023.

A threat by U.S. President Donald Trump warning Iran that if Tehran “violently kills peaceful protesters” the U.S. “will come to their rescue," has taken on new meaning after American troops captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, a longtime ally of Tehran.

“We're watching it very closely,” Trump said Sunday. “If they start killing people like they have in the past, I think they're going to get hit very hard by the United States.”

Here's what to know about the protests and the challenges facing Iran's government.

More than 390 protests have taken place across all of Iran’s 31 provinces, the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency reported Friday. The death toll had reached at least 42, it added, with more than 2,270 arrests. The group relies on an activist network inside of Iran for its reporting and has been accurate in past unrest.

Understanding the scale of the protests has been difficult. Iranian state media has provided little information about the demonstrations. Online videos offer only brief, shaky glimpses of people in the streets or the sound of gunfire. Journalists in general in Iran also face limits on reporting such as requiring permission to travel around the country, as well as the threat of harassment or arrest by authorities. The internet shutdown has further complicated the situation.

But the protests do not appear to be stopping, even after Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Saturday said “rioters must be put in their place.”

The collapse of the rial has led to a widening economic crisis in Iran. Prices are up on meat, rice and other staples of the Iranian dinner table. The nation has been struggling with an annual inflation rate of some 40%.

In December, Iran introduced a new pricing tier for its nationally subsidized gasoline, raising the price of some of the world’s cheapest gas and further pressuring the population. Tehran may seek steeper price increases in the future, as the government now will review prices every three months. Meanwhile, food prizes are expected to spike after Iran’s Central Bank in recent days ended a preferential, subsidized dollar-rial exchange rate for all products except medicine and wheat.

The protests began in late December with merchants in Tehran before spreading. While initially focused on economic issues, the demonstrations soon saw protesters chanting anti-government statements as well. Anger has been simmering over the years, particularly after the 2022 death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in police custody that triggered nationwide demonstrations.

Iran's “Axis of Resistance," which grew in prominence in the years after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq, is reeling.

Israel has crushed Hamas in the devastating war in the Gaza Strip. Hezbollah, the Shiite militant group in Lebanon, has seen its top leadership killed by Israel and has been struggling since. A lightning offensive in December 2024 overthrew Iran’s longtime stalwart ally and client in Syria, President Bashar Assad, after years of war there. Yemen's Iranian-backed Houthi rebels also have been pounded by Israeli and U.S. airstrikes.

China meanwhile has remained a major buyer of Iranian crude oil, but hasn't provided overt military support. Neither has Russia, which has relied on Iranian drones in its war on Ukraine.

Iran has insisted for decades that its nuclear program is peaceful. However, its officials have increasingly threatened to pursue a nuclear weapon. Iran had been enriching uranium to near weapons-grade levels prior to the U.S. attack in June, making it the only country in the world without a nuclear weapons program to do so.

Tehran also increasingly cut back its cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog, as tensions increased over its nuclear program in recent years. The IAEA's director-general has warned Iran could build as many as 10 nuclear bombs, should it decide to weaponize its program.

U.S. intelligence agencies have assessed that Iran has yet to begin a weapons program, but has “undertaken activities that better position it to produce a nuclear device, if it chooses to do so.”

Iran recently said it was no longer enriching uranium at any site in the country, trying to signal to the West that it remains open to potential negotiations over its atomic program to ease sanctions. But there's been no significant talks in the months since the June war.

Iran decades ago was one of the United States’ top allies in the Mideast under Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who purchased American military weapons and allowed CIA technicians to run secret listening posts monitoring the neighboring Soviet Union. The CIA fomented a 1953 coup that cemented the shah’s rule.

But in January 1979, the shah fled Iran as mass demonstrations swelled against his rule. Then came the Islamic Revolution led by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, which created Iran’s theocratic government.

Later that year, university students overran the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, seeking the shah’s extradition and sparking the 444-day hostage crisis that saw diplomatic relations between Iran and the U.S. severed.

During the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s, the U.S. backed Saddam Hussein. During that conflict, the U.S. launched a one-day assault that crippled Iran at sea as part of the so-called “Tanker War,” and later shot down an Iranian commercial airliner that the U.S. military said it mistook for a warplane.

Iran and the U.S. have seesawed between enmity and grudging diplomacy in the years since. Relations peaked with the 2015 nuclear deal, which saw Iran greatly limit its program in exchange for the lifting of sanctions. But Trump unilaterally withdrew America from the accord in 2018, sparking tensions in the Mideast that intensified after Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel.

In this frame grab from footage circulating on social media shows protesters dancing and cheering around a bonfire as they take to the streets despite an intensifying crackdown as the Islamic Republic remains cut off from the rest of the world, in Tehran, Iran, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026.(UGC via AP)

FILE -A student looks at Iran's domestically built centrifuges in an exhibition of the country's nuclear achievements, in Tehran, Iran, Wednesday, Feb. 8, 2023. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi, File)

FILE - An Iranian security official in protective clothing walks through part of the Uranium Conversion Facility just outside the Iranian city of Isfahan, on March 30, 2005. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi, File)

FILE - A customer shops at a supermarket at a shopping mall in northern Tehran, on Sept. 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi, File)

FILE - Current and pre-revolution Iranian banknotes are displayed by a street money exchanger at Ferdowsi square, Tehran's go-to venue for foreign currency exchange, in downtown Tehran, Iran, on Aug. 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi, File)

FILE - People cross the Enqelab-e-Eslami (Islamic Revolution) street in Tehran, Iran, on Sept. 27, 2025. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi, File)

FILE - Protesters march on a bridge in Tehran, Iran, on Dec. 29, 2025. (Fars News Agency via AP, File)

People wave national flags during a ceremony commemorating the death anniversary of the late commander of the Iran's Revolutionary Guard expeditionary Quds Force, Gen. Qassem Soleimani, who was killed in a U.S. drone attack in 2020 in Iraq, at the Imam Khomeini grand mosque in Tehran, Iran, Thursday, Jan. 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran targeted the world’s busiest international airport Wednesday and attacked commercial ships as U.S. and Israeli strikes rocked Tehran, while the United Nations' most powerful body demanded a halt to the Islamic Republic’s strikes on its Gulf neighbors that threaten global oil supplies.

The latest attacks marked an escalation in Iran's campaign aimed at generating enough global economic pain to pressure the United States and Israel to end the war that started 12 days ago. But there were no signs that the conflict was letting up.

The first week of war with Iran cost the United States $11.3 billion, according to the Pentagon, which provided the estimate to Congress in a briefing earlier this week, according to a person familiar with the situation who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the private meeting. The military reported spending $5 billion on munitions alone in the war's first weekend.

Both sides have dug in, hoping to outlast the other as the conflict upends trade routes, chokes supplies of fuel and fertilizer coming out of the Gulf and threatens air traffic through one of the world’s most-traveled regions.

Iran has targeted oil fields and refineries in Gulf Arab nations and effectively stopped cargo traffic through the narrow Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of all traded oil passes.

In response, the International Energy Agency agreed to release 400 million barrels of oil, the largest volume of emergency oil reserves in its history, in a bid to counter the war's effects on energy markets. The U.S. planned to release 172 million barrels of oil next week from its Strategic Petroleum Reserve to combat steep prices.

The U.N. Security Council voted Wednesday to approve a resolution demanding a halt to Iran’s “egregious attacks” on its Gulf neighbors.

Among the most recent attacks, four people were wounded after two Iranian drones hit near Dubai International Airport in the United Arab Emirates, though flights continued, the Dubai Media Office said. Firefighters extinguished a blaze early Thursday at a luxury apartment tower in Dubai Creek Harbor after an Iranian drone strike.

Bahrain’s Ministry of Interior said Iranian-linked attacks targeted fuel tanks at a facility in Muharraq Governorate, northeast of the country’s capital, Manama, while crews at Oman’s Port of Salalah battled a blaze at fuel storage tanks there, according to the Oman News Agency.

“The international community is resolute in rejecting these Iranian attacks against sovereign countries that are threatening the stability of the peoples, especially in a region of strategic importance to global economy, energy, security and security of global trade,” said Bahrain’s U.N. ambassador, Jamal Alrowaiei.

The 13-0 vote in the U.N.’s most powerful body reflects Iran’s isolated position as it has aggressively responded to Israeli and U.S. strikes. China and Russia — two Iranian allies — abstained from the vote.

Their U.N. ambassadors called the proposal “extremely unbalanced” in not mentioning the strikes against Tehran that began the war.

Russia’s U.N. ambassador, Vassily Nebenzia, said it might leave the impression that Iran, “on its own volition and out of malice, conducted an unprovoked attack on Arab states.” Iranian U.N. Ambassador Amir Saeid Iravani said the resolution “deliberately ignores the root causes of the current crisis.”

Meanwhile, more attacks in Gulf countries were reported.

Drones were launched toward the cities of Irbil and Sulaymaniyah in Iraq’s Kurdistan region, while in the southern part of the country, an oil vessel flying the Australian flag was struck near Khor Al-Zubair Port, according to two Iraqi navy officials who also spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly.

The official said 25 members of the crew were rescued. It was not immediately clear whether any others were missing.

On Thursday, sirens wailed and loud explosions were heard shortly after midnight in Jerusalem and other parts of Israel. The Israeli military said it was responding with another “wide-scale wave of strikes” in Tehran.

The fallout across the Middle East widened as Israel also struck what it said were targets connected to Iran-backed Hezbollah militants in Lebanon.

An Israeli strike hit a car Thursday in Ramlet al-Bayda, a major seaside tourist area on the eastern side of Beirut where dozens of displaced people have been sheltering. Seven people were killed and 21 others were wounded, the Lebanese Health Ministry said. Israel’s military did not immediately respond to a request for information.

Blasts shook Beirut’s southern suburbs Wednesday, producing fires and plumes of smoke. Israel's military said the strikes were in response to Hezbollah firing dozens of rockets fired simultaneously across northern Israel. It marked some of the heaviest fighting between the two since the war began.

One rocket hit a house near the Israeli town of Karmiel, lightly injuring two people, according to Israeli rescue services.

At least 634 people have been killed in Lebanon since the latest fighting began, the Lebanese Health Ministry said Wednesday.

The U.N. refugee agency said at least 759,000 people have been internally displaced in Lebanon.

Iranian authorities say more than 1,300 people have been killed there, and Israel has reported 12 people dead. The U.S. has lost seven soldiers while another eight have suffered severe injuries.

The United States has pledged to keep the strait open and has led intense airstrikes targeting Iran's navy and the port city of Bandar Abbas. The U.S. military said Tuesday it destroyed 16 Iranian minelayers near the strait.

At least 12 incidents involving vessels around the strait have been confirmed since fighting began, according to two global trackers, and at least seven mariners have been killed.

A projectile hit a Thai cargo ship off the coast of Oman in the strait, setting it ablaze. Authorities are searching for three missing crew members from the Mayuree Naree after 20 were rescued by the Omani navy, according to Thailand’s Marine Department.

This story has been corrected to fix a misspelling of the first name of Bahrain's U.N. ambassador.

Abou AlJoud reported from Beirut. Mascaro reported from Washington. Associated Press writer Sam Mednick in Tel Aviv, Israel, also contributed to this report, along with AP journalists around the world.

A man, left, carries the body of his son, Kassem Younis, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike, during his funeral procession in the southern village of Chehabiyeh, Lebanon, Wednesday, March 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)

Flames rise from an Israeli airstrike in Dahiyeh, Beirut's southern suburbs, Wednesday, March 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)

Children and adults play on swings on the beach as oil tankers and cargo ships line up in the Strait of Hormuz near Khor Fakkan, United Arab Emirates, Wednesday, March 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Altaf Qadri)

A man holds a picture of late Defense Minister Aziz Nasirzadeh beside his coffin as mourners attend the funeral procession for senior Iranian military officials and civilians killed during the U.S.-Israel campaign in Tehran, Iran, Wednesday, March 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)

A mourner holds a poster depicting Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, right, the successor to his late father Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, left, as supreme leader, during the funeral procession for senior Iranian military officials and civilians killed during the U.S.-Israel campaign in Tehran, Iran, Wednesday, March 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)

Smoke rises from a building following an Israeli airstrike in Dahiyeh, Beirut's southern suburb, Wednesday, March 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)

Mourners attend the funeral procession for senior Iranian military officials and some civilians killed during the U.S.-Israel campaign, in Tehran, Iran, Wednesday, March 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)

FILE - A plume of smoke rises after a strike in Tehran, Iran, Monday, March 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Mohsen Ganji, File)

Rescue workers gather at the site where Israeli airstrikes hit apartments in Beirut, Lebanon, Wednesday, March 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)

People take shelter in an underground metro station as air raid sirens warn of incoming Iranian missile strike, in Ramat Gan, Israel, Tuesday, March 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)

A man passes in front of a destroyed building that housed a branch of Al-Qard Al-Hassan, a non-bank financial institution run by Hezbollah, which was hit by an Israeli airstrike in Dahiyeh, Beirut's southern suburbs, Lebanon, Tuesday, March 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)

People walk past closed shops at the nearly empty traditional main bazaar in Tehran, Iran, Tuesday, March 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)

Motorbikes drive past a billboard depicting Iran’s late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, center, handing the country’s flag to his son and successor Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, right, as the late revolutionary founder Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini stands at left, in a square in downtown Tehran, Iran, Tuesday, March 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)

Smoke rises from an Israeli airstrike in Dahiyeh, Beirut's southern suburbs, Lebanon, Tuesday, March 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)