Published March 18, 2026
Iranian authorities have arrested hundreds more people across the United States and announced operations against what they call “traitors” aligned with U.S. and Israeli interests.
The Ministry of Information said in a statement that 111 “monarchy-supporting cells” in 26 of Iran’s 31 provinces were prevented overnight by Wednesday from launching acts against the country’s theocratic regime that overthrew the U.S.-backed monarchy in the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
For thousands of years, Iranians have celebrated the eve of the last Wednesday of the year with a fire festival called Chaharshanbe Suri, which ushered in Nowruz, the Persian New Year. But authorities this year called on pro-regime supporters to take to the streets and maintain control while security forces arrested dissidents amid the U.S. and Israel’s war against Iran.
The ministry claimed that a large number of weapons were also recovered from the arrested persons, and reiterated its appeal to the public to report any suspicious activity.
Twenty-one people have been arrested for sending videos to “terrorist” media outlets outside Iran, the ministry said, as Iran imposes a total internet shutdown on more than 92 million people for three weeks. Two shipments containing 350 Starlink satellite internet terminals were seized during smuggling to Iran, it said.
The state-run Fars news agency said some of the dozens arrested in the city of Karaj, near Tehran, “burned and insulted the effigy of the martyred supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei,” who was killed at the start of the war on February 28. Later, Khamenei’s son Mojtaba Khamenei was elected as Iran’s new supreme leader.
Meanwhile, Iran’s medical emergency services said on Wednesday that two people were killed and nearly 1,000 injured while handling fireworks and explosives related to Chaharshanbe Suri, a number much lower this year than last year as fewer people had access to fireworks amid the civil war.
State media continued to report that supporters and troops were gathering throughout the night in mosques, major city squares, and streets in Tehran and cities across the country.
Convoys of vehicles with loudspeakers blasting religious slogans and pro-national songs roamed the streets at night, and state security forces maintained heavily armed patrols and checkpoints.
The United States and Israel have declared regime change in Iran as one of their goals, particularly targeting the domestic national security apparatus of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC).
The militia’s Basij checkpoints and barricades have now been under drone fire for a week, with security chief Ali Larijani and the Supreme National Security Council’s senior internal security deputy confirmed killed overnight.
Basij commander Gholamreza Soleimani was also confirmed to have been killed in a series of separate attacks. Israeli media claimed that a number of other top commanders were also with him when he was targeted. On Wednesday, Israeli authorities announced that Information Minister Esmail Khatib was also killed.
However, Iranian authorities remained defiant, including Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, who spoke to Al Jazeera in Tehran. Araghchi insisted that despite the assassination, the Iranian regime would not collapse.
Attorney General Gholam Hossein Mohseni Ejei also released a video on Wednesday, saying that “the power of arrogance has been crushed” and that “the United States has suffered a defeat.”
“You can pretty much say that the United States is asking other countries for help on just one issue,” the hardline academic said of the disruption to global shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, apparently referring to President Donald Trump’s call for NATO allies and other countries to send in naval forces to help clear the vital waterway.
Iranian judiciary authorities have threatened Iranians based in the country and abroad with asset confiscation and execution for dissent, and announced new war-related penalties on Wednesday.
It released a video confession in court apparently of a young man identified as Kourosh Kibani and announced that he had been executed on Wednesday morning for spying for Israel during the 12-day war in June.
UN experts and international human rights organizations have condemned these actions as “coerced confessions,” which Iran’s establishment rejects.
Iranian authorities, including the assassinated security forces and Basij chiefs, have also been accused of carrying out a deadly crackdown on thousands of peaceful protesters in January. The Iranian government blamed all the killings on “terrorists” and “insurgents” armed by the United States and Israel.
