Iran protests abate after deadly crackdown, residents and rights group say

Iran's deadly crackdown appears to have broadly quelled protests for now, according to a rights group and residents, as state media reported more arrests on Friday in the shadow of repeated U.S. threats to intervene if the killing continues.

The prospect of a U.S. attack has retreated since Wednesday, when President Donald Trump said he'd been told killings in Iran were easing, but more U.S. military assets were expected to arrive in the region, showing the continued tensions.

U.S. allies, including Saudi Arabia and Qatar, conducted intense diplomacy with Washington this week to prevent a U.S. strike, warning of repercussions for the wider region that would ultimately impact the United States, a Gulf official said.

Israel's intelligence chief David Barnea was also in the U.S. on Friday for talks on Iran, according to a source familiar with the matter, and an Israeli military official said the country's forces were on "peak readiness".

The White House said on Thursday that Trump and his team have warned Tehran there would be “grave consequences” if there was further bloodshed and added that the president was keeping "all of his options on the table".

The protests erupted on December 28 over soaring inflation in Iran, where the economy has been crippled by sanctions, before spiralling into one of the biggest challenges yet to the clerical establishment that has run Iran since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

As an internet blackout eased this week, more accounts of the violence have trickled out.

One woman in Tehran told Reuters by phone that her daughter was killed on Friday after joining a demonstration near their home. "She was 15 years old. She was not a terrorist, not a rioter. Basij forces followed her as she was trying to return home," she said, referring to a branch of the security forces often used to quell unrest.

The U.S. is expected to send additional offensive and defensive capabilities to the region, but the exact makeup of those forces and the timing of their arrival was still unclear, a U.S. official said speaking on condition of anonymity.

The U.S. military's Central Command declined to comment, saying it does not discuss ship movements.

RIGHTS GROUP REPORTS HEAVY SECURITY DEPLOYMENTS

Several residents of Tehran said the capital had been quiet since Sunday. They said drones were flying over the city, where they'd seen no sign of protests on Thursday or Friday.

Iranian-Kurdish rights group Hengaw said that there had been no protest gatherings since Sunday, but "the security environment remains highly restrictive".

"Our independent sources confirm a heavy military and security presence in cities and towns where protests previously took place, as well as in several locations that did not experience major demonstrations," Norway-based Hengaw said in comments to Reuters.

Another resident in a northern city on the Caspian Sea said the streets also appeared calm.

REPORTS OF SPORADIC UNREST

Hengaw reported that a female nurse was killed by direct gunfire from government forces during protests in Karaj, west of Tehran. Reuters was not able to independently verify the report.

The state-affiliated Tasnim news outlet reported that rioters set fire to a local education office in Falavarjan County, in central Isfahan Province, on Thursday.

An elderly resident of a town in Iran's northwestern region, where many Kurdish Iranians live and which has been the focus for many of the biggest flare-ups, said sporadic protests had continued, though not as intensely.

Describing violence earlier in the protests, she said: "I have not seen scenes like that before."

Video circulating online, which Reuters was able to verify as having been recorded in a forensic medical center in Tehran, showed dozens of bodies lying on floors and stretchers, most in bags but some uncovered. Reuters could not verify the date of the video.

The state-owned Press TV cited Iran's police chief as saying calm had been restored across the country.

A death toll reported by U.S.-based rights group HRANA has increased little since Wednesday, currently at 2,677 people, including 2,478 protesters and 163 people identified as affiliated with the government.

Reuters has not been able to independently verify the HRANA death toll. An Iranian official told the news agency earlier this week that about 2,000 people had been killed.

The casualty numbers dwarf the death toll from previous bouts of unrest that have been suppressed by the state.

PUTIN CALLS NETANYAHU, PEZESHKIAN

Russian President Vladimir Putin discussed the situation in Iran in separate calls on Friday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, and said that Moscow was willing to mediate in the region, the Kremlin said.

Pezeshkian told Putin that the U.S. and Israel had played a direct role in the unrest, Iranian state media reported.

Iranian authorities have accused foreign enemies of fomenting protests and arming people they have identified as terrorists for targeting security forces and carrying out attacks.

HRANA has reported that more than 19,000 people have been arrested, but the state-affiliated Tasnim news outlet said 3,000 people had been detained.

Tasnim also reported what it described as the arrest of a large number of leaders of recent riots in the western province of Kermanshah, and the arrest of five people accused of vandalising a gas station and a base belonging to the Basij in the southeastern city of Kerman.