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Middle East crisis live: Houthis carry out ‘second military operation’ against Israel and vow to continue in coming days

Iran’s Revolutionary Guard threatened to target US universities in the Middle East after saying US-Israeli strikes had deliberately targeted two Iranian universities (see the post from 21.30). “If the US government wants its universities in the region to be free from retaliation... it must condemn the bombing of the universities in an official statement by 12 noon on Monday, March 30, Tehran time,” said the statement published by Iranian media. The statement added: “We advise all employees, professors, and students of American universities in the region and residents of their surrounding areas” stay a kilometre away from campuses. Several US universities have campuses scattered throughout the Gulf region, such as Texas A+M and Northwestern universities in Qatar and New York University in the United Arab Emirates. Strikes overnight Friday to Saturday hit Tehran, including the university of science and technology in the northeast of the capital, damaging buildings but not causing any casualties, according to media reports.

Sugar high(st): more than twelve tons of KitKat’s ‘new chocolate range’ stolen in Italy

A large shipment of KitKat candy bars was stolen while in transit to distributors, a major candy crime right before the Easter holiday that could cause shortages for customers. The truck carrying 413,793 units of a “new chocolate range”, about 12 tons of chocolate bars, was pilfered while driving through Europe on 26 March, Agence France-Presse reported. A spokesperson for Nestlé, KitKat’s parent company, confirmed the theft to the Guardian, adding that the company is investigating the theft with local authorities and supply chain partners. The stolen truck left a factory in central Italy and was en-route to Poland when the robbery occurred, according to a statement from Nestlé. The vehicle and the carried-off chocolate have not been located. No one was hurt during the heist, a Nestlé spokesperson told the Athletic. “We’ve always encouraged people to have a break with KitKat,” said Nestlé in a statement, riffing off the KitKat slogan. “But it seems thieves have taken the message too literally and made a break with more than 12 tons of our chocolate.” The statement continued: “Whilst we appreciate the criminals’ exceptional taste, the fact remains that cargo theft is an escalating issue for businesses of all sizes. With more sophisticated schemes being deployed on a regular basis, we have chosen to go public with our own experience in the hope that it raises awareness of an increasingly common criminal trend.” The stolen bars were from KiKat’s new Formula One line, a result of KitKat’s becoming the official F1 chocolate bar last year, the Athletic reported. The candy bars were molded after race cars, still featuring KitKat’s iconic chocolate-covered wafers. Due to the theft, the stolen KitKat bars could make their way into unofficial markets, Nestlé warned. Company officials said that if that does occur, law enforcement can trace stolen products through batch codes assigned to individual bars.

Two Sudanese men face court in Greece after at least 22 people die off Crete coast

Two Sudanese men, believed by Greek authorities to have been behind a smuggling operation in which 22 people were “systematically” thrown overboard after succumbing to days without food or water at sea, have been ordered to appear before a local court on Crete. Accused of illegally trafficking scores of would-be migrants into the south-eastern European country from Libya, the duo were given 48 hours to prepare to testify before an investigating magistrate on Monday. “They will appear before a prosecutor on charges of involuntary manslaughter after attempting to facilitate the illegal entry into Greece of scores of people,” an official said. “A grave tragedy has occurred.” Greece’s state-run broadcaster ERT reported the two alleged smugglers, aged 19 and 21, appeared on Saturday before a magistrate in the Cretan capital Heraklion. Greek police said 26 people, including a woman and a child who survived the harrowing 200-nautical-mile journey from Tobruk in eastern Libya, described 22 of their fellow passengers being thrown into the Mediterranean sea. A source said: “The smugglers appear to have lost their way with the result that the boat was adrift for six days in very bad weather conditions. And during that time they ran out of water and food. From the testimony of survivors, those who died were systematically thrown overboard.” Two survivors were taken to hospital in Heraklion, the coastguard said. Based on survivor statements, the coastguard said the boat had left Tobruk, a port city in eastern Libya, on 21 March. The boat was bound for Greece, the gateway for many people hoping for asylum in the EU. The coastguard said: “During the journey, the passengers lost their bearings and remained at sea for six days without food or water.” The bodies of those who died “were thrown into the sea on the orders of one of the smugglers”, it said. The Greek authorities arrested two South Sudanese men believed to be the smugglers. They are under investigation for “illegal entry into the country” and “negligent homicide”. The vessel carrying the group was 53 nautical miles south of Ierapetra, a town on southern Crete. A coastguard spokesperson told AFP that the craft had endured “unfavourable meteorological conditions” during their journey. That, coupled with a shortage of food and water, had “led to the deaths through exhaustion of 22 people,” they said. The number of people who have died trying to reach European soil by crossing the Mediterranean from north Africa more than doubled in the first two months of 2026 compared with last year, the EU border agency Frontex said earlier this month. According to data from the International Organization for Migration, 559 people died during January and February, compared with 287 for the same period last year. In December, 17 people were found dead inside their boat, which was taking on water and had partly deflated, to the south-west of Crete. Greek authorities found only two survivors, stating that a further 15 people had drowned. Their bodies were never recovered. In an attempt to stem the crossings, European parliament on Thursday endorsed a major tightening of EU migration policy and approved the concept of “return hubs”, designed to send those trying to reach Europe to non EU third countries. Rights groups have criticised the proposals as inhumane.

Lebanon condemns ‘blatant war crime’ after Israel kills three journalists

Israel killed three journalists in south Lebanon on Saturday, their TV channels and authorities said, prompting condemnation from the Lebanese government who called the killings a “blatant war crime”. Ali Shoeib, from the Hezbollah-owned al-Manar television station, Fatima Ftouni and her brother and cameraman Mohammed Ftouni from the pro-Hezbollah outlet al-Mayadeen, were killed in the strike targeting their car. Israel claimed the attack shortly afterwards, saying the target was Shoeib, whom it accused of being a Hezbollah “terrorist” in an intelligence unit who had reported on the locations of Israeli soldiers in southern Lebanon. The Israeli military provided no further evidence to support the claim and made no comment on the killing of the other journalists. Shoeib was a well known war correspondent in Lebanon, where he reported for al-Manar for nearly three decades. His death was met with a wave of condolences from audiences and journalists in Lebanon, many of whom said he was considered a mentor figure in Lebanese journalism. Ftouni had also been reporting from the frontlines of the Israel-Hezbollah war in recent days, filming in front of battles in the town of Taybeh, south Lebanon. Her own family had been killed in Israeli strikes weeks earlier. Eighteen months earlier, she and her colleagues were struck by an Israeli bomb while they were sleeping in a hotel in south Lebanon; Ftouni survived but two of her colleagues did not. Commenting on the deaths of her colleagues at the time, Ftouni said that “it is the silence of the international community that let this happen”. The three journalists were struck as they were driving in Jezzine, a district in south Lebanon far from the frontlines. Local television showed at least four missiles were shot at the car and footage appeared to show a missile being fired between the journalists’ car and bystanders as the latter tried to approach and help. Video of the aftermath showed singed press jackets and helmets, as well as tripods and microphones that had been pulled from the car. The Israeli military said the strike was aimed at Shoeib, who it claimed was a member of Hezbollah’s Radwan force: the most elite unit of the pro-Iran armed group which specialises in cross-border raids. It said that Shoeib’s contact with senior members of Hezbollah, and his work documenting the location of Israeli forces, was evidence he was a military member of the group. International law says that regardless of political affiliation, journalists are considered civilians and targeting them is a war crime. Eight out of the nine journalists killed by Israel in Lebanon since 13 October 2023 worked for Hezbollah-affiliated outlets, and analysts have suggested the killings come as a part of Israel’s strategy of attacking the civilian wings of the group. Lebanon’s president, Joseph Aoun, described the journalists as “civilians doing their professional duty”. Writing on X, he said: “It is a brazen crime that violates all treaties and norms through which journalists enjoy international protection in war.” The Israeli military has made similar claims about several journalists it killed in Gaza, whom it said also worked as Hamas operatives, including Anas al-Sharif, a correspondent for Al Jazeera. Israel has killed more than 220 journalists since 2023, according to Reporters Without Borders. Lebanon’s minister of information, Paul Morcos, said the killing of the three journalists on Saturday “constitutes a deliberate and blatant war crime against the media and the mission of journalism”. He also said the Lebanese government had compiled a list of Israeli attacks against healthcare workers and media personnel, which it will submit to the UN and the EU. The fighting in Lebanon started when Hezbollah launched missiles at Israel on 2 March after the US-Israeli assault on Iran, triggering an Israeli aerial campaign and invasion. Israeli attacks have killed 1,189 people and wounded 3,427 in Lebanon, including 48 healthcare workers, according to the Lebanese ministry of health. Three Israeli soldiers in South Lebanon and one person in northern Israel have been killed by Hezbollah fire.

Houthi forces enter Iran conflict with missile attacks on Israeli military sites

The US-Israeli war with Iran has expanded with the entry of Houthi forces in Yemen, representing a dangerous spread of the conflict and bringing with it the threat of more damage to the global economy. Pakistan has said it would host a meeting of Middle Eastern powers on Monday in an effort to find a regional approach to ending the conflict. But the talks, which bring together the foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Egypt, did not appear to include any of the warring parties, casting further doubt on persistent US claims of diplomatic progress. Houthi forces, close allies of Iran, said on Saturday they had fired a salvo of ballistic missiles at “sensitive Israeli military sites” and that they would continue military operations until the “aggression” came to an end on all fronts. Israel said it had intercepted one missile originating in Yemen. Despite US claims to have devastated Iran’s military, Reuters cited intelligence sources as saying Washington could only be certain it had destroyed a third of Iran’s missile and drone arsenal. US media reported that a missile and drone attack on Prince Sultan airbase in Saudi Arabia wounded at least 12 US soldiers, two of them seriously. Drones also struck Kuwait international airport on Saturday, causing significant damage to its radar system. The entry of the Houthis, who control Yemen’s most populous areas, poses a direct threat to the Bab al-Mandab strait at the southern end of the Red Sea, a second major choke point in the supply chain of energy supplies and other trade in and out of the Middle East. With Iran’s near total closure of the strait of Hormuz, a shutdown of the Bab al-Mandab, located between Yemen and the Horn of Africa, would amplify the already grave impact of the war on the global economy, and could also reignite a Saudi-Yemen conflict that caused huge humanitarian suffering for seven years before a 2022 truce. Since the US-Israeli attack on Iran on 28 February, Saudi Arabia has been able to divert some of its oil exports by pipeline to the Red Sea. Saudi commentators have said that if this route was also threatened, Riyadh could also enter the war directly. On Saturday evening, Pakistan’s foreign minister, Ishaq Dar, said Iran had agreed to allow an additional 20 Pakistani-flagged vessels to pass through the strait, with two permitted to transit daily. Farea Al-Muslimi, a research fellow in Middle East and north Africa programme at the Chatham House thinktank, said: “The decision by the Houthis to join the broader Middle East conflict marks a serious and deeply concerning escalation. “The potential impact on key commercial maritime routes, especially in the Red Sea and the Bab al-Mandab strait, cannot be overstated. At the same time, vital economic and military infrastructure across the Gulf region may become increasingly exposed.” In a further sign of the war’s potential to spread, Iran’s central operational command said it had targeted a Ukrainian anti-drone system depot in Dubai, which it said was assisting US forces. There was no immediate confirmation of the strike from Dubai authorities. Ukraine has been providing anti-drone technology and expertise to the Gulf states since the war began, drawing on years of experience of being attacked by Russia with Iranian-designed fixed-wing unpiloted aircraft. The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, announced on Saturday that his country had signed defence agreements with the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, after a similar pact with Saudi Arabia last week. In the early hours of Sunday local time, air defences shot down a drone near the residence of the leader of the Iraqi Kurdish ruling party, Masoud Barzani, in Erbil, security sources told Reuters, in an incident that comes as tensions continue to rise across northern Iraq. There was also evidence of escalation in the array of weapons being used in the conflict with reports that the US has dropped cluster munitions. Experts cited by Bellingcat said that mines photographed in an Iranian village near a missile base in Shiraz were Gator anti-tank mines, a cluster munition that has been banned by more than 100 countries because of its indiscriminate nature. The US is the only party in the Iran conflict to possess the weapon, though Tehran has been using ballistic missiles carrying cluster warheads in its strikes on Israel. Condemning those strikes on 16 March, the head of US Central Command, Adm Brad Cooper, described cluster bombs as “an inherently indiscriminate type of munition”. As the war entered its second month, Pakistan has sought to act as a peace broker. The country’s prime minister, Shehbaz Sharif, and army commander, Field Marshal Asim Munir, had hoped to encourage US-Iran talks. Donald Trump has claimed, without evidence, that such contacts had already started and were “going very well”, while Tehran denied there had been any talks at all. Sharif said on Sunday that he had held “extensive discussions” with Iran’s president Masoud Pezeshkian, briefing him on Pakistan’s diplomatic efforts. It is unclear how much a regional meeting without any of the protagonists can achieve. Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, has privately been urging Trump to escalate the offensive against Iran, apparently anxious that a wounded but undefeated regime in Tehran could be one of the worst possible outcomes for Riyadh. Trump suggested on Friday night that he had hoped Bin-Salman would join four other Arab countries in normalising relations with Israel in return for the attack on Iran, Saudi Arabia’s longstanding rival in the region. The US president said: “Mohammed would say: ‘Oh yes. As soon as we do this. As soon as we do that.’ It’s now time. We’ve now taken them out, and they are out bigly. We’ve got to get into the Abraham Accords.” Trump was speaking at a Saudi-sponsored investors meeting in Miami, where he sought to talk up the US economy’s prospects in the face of the oil price shock caused by the war and a consequent sell-off of stocks. The survival of the Islamic Republic’s regime after a month of bombing has left Trump with the choice of looking for a way to extricate the US from the costly war or intensifying the campaign, possibly including ground troops. Thousands of US marines and airborne forces have been deployed in the region in recent days, raising speculation of a land incursion on Kharg Island, Iran’s main oil export hub, or on islands in the Hormuz strait. Tehran has warned that, if that happened, it would completely shut down the strait and escalate its attacks on regional infrastructure, including desalination plants essential for the water supply in several Gulf countries. Such an escalation, possibly combined with renewed direct confrontation between Saudi Arabia and the Houthis, could lead to a major regional conflagration, Al-Muslimi said. “Any such war would likely be more intense, more destructive, and even more devastating than previous rounds of fighting.”

US has destroyed only a third of Iran’s missiles, intelligence suggests

The US has only destroyed about a third of Iran’s missile and drone arsenal after a month of its war against Iran which aimed to degrade the country’s ballistic missile capabilities, according to a report by Reuters. About a third of Tehran’s missiles have been destroyed, and another third was likely to be damaged or buried in underground tunnels and bunkers, the report suggested. A similar assessment was made about the country’s drone arsenal. The report, based on five people familiar with US intelligence, suggests that while most of Iran’s missiles are immediately inaccessible, the country still has a sizeable stockpile. That contradicts Donald Trump’s statement on Thursday that Tehran had “very few rockets left” and statements from other US officials that the war has eliminated its ballistic missile capabilities. Iranian officials see its ballistic missile programme as a key deterrent, particularly given the vast military superiority of the US and Israel, which is within reach of its arsenal and views it as a direct threat. Iran has used ballistic missiles and drones to devastating effect over the last month, continuing to pound Israel and key energy and public infrastructure in the Gulf, and inflicting huge damage on the global economy. The US and Israel have said degrading Iran’s ballistic missile capacity is one of the chief aims of the war. IWashington has deployed thousands of more troops to the Middle East in recent days as the administration reportedly mulls a ground operation in Kharg island with the aim of reopening the strait of Hormuz. Trump said on Thursday: “The problem with the strait is this: Let’s say we do a great job. We say we got 99% [of their missiles]. 1% is unacceptable, because 1% is a missile going into the hull of a ship that cost a billion dollars.” Israel has made ballistic missile caches and launchers one of the primary targets of its aerial campaign in Iran. It says it has “neutralised” 335 or 70% of Tehran’s missile launchers. Iran has distributed its launchers across the country in an effort to evade Israeli detection and airstrikes. The number of launches has declined as Israel and the US continue to their bombing campaign, but missiles have still managed to hit Israel and the Gulf as interceptors also run out. Israel, the US and Gulf states have spent billions and expended critical interceptor stocks to block Iranian missile barrages. A US official, speaking anonymously, suggested that it would be impossible to assess Iran’s missile stockpile as much of it was stored underground. “I don’t know if we’ll ever have an accurate number,” they said. Iran fired 15 missiles and 11 drones at the United Arab Emirates on Thursday, according to the UAE defence ministry. The US defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, said the vast tunnel network created an extra challenge in destroying Iran’s missile stockpile, but said the US military would continue regardless. “We are hunting them down methodically, ruthlessly and overwhelmingly, like no other military in the world can do, and the results speak for themselves,” he said earlier this month.

Young voters shake Italy’s political calm as referendum exposes tensions for Giorgia Meloni

Filippo Michelini was having a drink at San Calisto, a popular bar in Rome’s Trastevere neighbourhood on Wednesday night. As he chatted to his friends, Giorgia Meloni’s far-right government was reeling from a failed referendum, and her beleaguered tourism minister, Daniela Santanchè, had just resigned. Michelini, a 29-year-old computer scientist who lives in Brussels, was spending a few days in the Italian capital after returning home last weekend to cast his ballot in the plebiscite on judicial changes. Ordinarily, such a topic might not be expected to appeal to many young people, often dismissed as politically apathetic. Yet younger Italians turned out in droves, with the largest share of the vote against the overhauls – 68.4% – coming from 18- to 29-year-olds, according to figures from Cise, a centre for electoral studies at Luiss University in Rome. The measures would have required amendments to Italy’s post-fascism constitution that would have ushered in fundamental changes to the judicial system’s structure. Meloni said the proposed measures were essential for impartiality, while critics argued they would give too much power to the government. The striking turnout among the younger generation was all the more notable given that students and workers living away from their registered home towns were unable to vote by proxy or post, forcing many, like Michelini, to travel back. In the 2022 general election that brought Meloni’s government to power, he said he spoiled his ballot paper, put off by the country’s “closed list” system, in which voters choose parties rather than individual candidates, giving party leaders the power to pick who represents them in parliament. But referendums are important, Michelini said, and on this occasion he felt the judicial proposals would have tampered with the constitution in a way he could not ignore. “The constitution is a fundamental element of our society,” he said. “These reforms would have given more power to people who are already powerful.” His friend, Sibillia, 29, who did not want to give her surname, also voted “No” over suspicions about the government’s motives. “Italy’s justice system does need to change, it is slow and inefficient,” she added. “If this was a government I trusted, I might have voted in favour, but from what I could understand, it was not about improving the system.” The consequences of the referendum on Meloni’s government, which for more than three years has overseen an unusual period of calm in Italian politics, cannot be underestimated. Michelini and his friends noted the irony over the prime minister scrambling to clean up the “illegality” in her own house amid the fallout. Before Santanchè, a member of Meloni’s Brothers of Italy who since 2023 has been embroiled in legal wranglings related to her business activities and denies wrongdoing, two justice ministry officials and fellow party members fell on their swords – one of whom was revealed to have held shares in a restaurant with links to the mafia. However, Meloni and the justice minister, Carlo Nordio, who drafted the overhauls – and who during the campaign referred to the judiciary’s supreme council as a “para-mafia system” – have rejected opposition calls to step down. “The resignations show how shrewd Meloni can be,” said Cecilia Sottilotta, an associate politics professor at the University for Foreigners in Perugia. “She’s kicking the [others] out in order to avoid bringing the focus on herself and Nordio.” The fallout has also shaken coalition partner Forza Italia, which backed the changes in honour of its late founder, Silvio Berlusconi, the former prime minister who faced dozens of criminal trials, as his daughter Marina reportedly pushes to oust the old guard and renew the party. Maurizio Gasparri, a longtime Berlusconi loyalist, has resigned as the party’s senate chief while the leader, Antonio Tajani, reportedly faces the chop. Meanwhile, Matteo Salvini, the leader of the League, Meloni’s third main alliance partner, sought refuge in Budapest, where he met European far-right allies to bolster support for Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán, before elections there. In public, Meloni has kept calm and carried on. She flew to Algeria for talks on boosting gas supplies from the north African country, and on Thursday praised the European parliament’s approval of sending refused asylum seekers to offshore hubs, crediting Italy’s contribution to the measure. But pressure is mounting. On Saturday, thousands are expected to march in Rome calling for an end to wars – but also for Meloni’s resignation. The high turnout among young Italians in the referendum can be explained partly by the consistent mobilisation in recent years on issues that are important to them, be it the climate crisis, Gaza, or domestic issues including civil rights, jobs and the cost of living, despite sometimes violent repression of protests owing to the government’s tough security measures. Italy’s Last Generation climate activist group campaigned against the judicial changes over fears they would “further aggravate the possibility of expressing dissent in a non-violent way”, said Bruno Cappelli, a 33-year-old activist in Puglia. All eyes are now on the next general election, which needs to take place before October 2027. While Meloni could be tempted to cut her losses and seek a new mandate through an early ballot, she is unlikely to do so given the war in the Middle East and economic pressures. “The international juncture is bad for everyone, but especially for her,” said Sottilotta. Italy’s fragmented opposition parties are seizing on the government turmoil as they strive to build a credible alternative to Meloni. But they should not mistake young voters’ snub in the referendum as a sign of support for them. Matteo Ferrario, 22, a student in Rome, said: “There is great sensitivity on issues such as the climate and what is going on in the world and Italy. But there is also discomfort because there seems to be no alternative.” Like many of his counterparts, Ferrario is unconvinced by Elly Schlein, the Democratic party leader. “A bit like Meloni, she’s part of the shouty politics – all slogans and no solutions, as if they’re speaking at a fish market.”

Hundreds of organised protests show resilience of Iranian regime, experts say

Iran’s regime has organised more than 850 public demonstrations of support of the government since the beginning of the war and launched a continuing crackdown on unrest that has led to at least 1,400 detentions, research reveals. The high number of pro-regime gatherings and the increasing number of detentions underlines the resilience of the Islamic Republic despite a month-long campaign of intensive airstrikes by the US and Israel, experts said. The war began with a surprise Israeli strike, which killed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, and many senior officials. Israel has since continued to assassinate senior commanders, most recently Alireza Tangsiri, the naval commander of the Revolutionary Guards, who died in an attack on the port city of Bandar Abbas on Thursday. “The US-Israeli decapitation strategy could not have been more successful and continues to be so … but the regime has not fragmented and there are no defections. The messaging within Iran is how they are winning, and that is constant and consistent,” said Clionadh Raleigh, the president of Acled, an independent conflict monitor, which has built up a database of protest incidents and violence in the month-long conflict. The Acled research also shows that the number of US and Israeli strikes on Iran has remained steady at between 47 and 102 attacks daily that have caused “significant” civilian casualties. Tehran’s retaliation has been largely ineffective, Acled said in a research note shared with the Guardian, causing only 70 fatalities during the war, compared with 1,157 killed inside Iran, of whom 341 have been identified as civilians. Acled uses multiple sources among Iranian, regional and international media and social media, as well as its own sources on the ground, to cross-check and verify reports of violence, which it then logs and sorts into categories. Donald Trump said earlier this week that the US had already achieved “regime change” in Iran, while Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, has made repeated calls for the Iranian public to rise up and oust their leaders. Many experts and officials in the US and Israel believe early forecasts of a mass revolt were misguided, however. The third week of the conflict had the most sustained waves of mass public demonstrations in Iran in support of the regime. Acled counted 195 pro-regime demonstrations from 28 February to 6 March, focused on mourning for Khamenei and condemning Israel and the US, then 158 in the following week and nearly 300 from 13-19 March, with celebrations of the succession of Mojtaba Khamenei prominent. Most took place in Tehran, though some were recorded in the north-east and south-west. “The protest wave [in Iran] is regime-managed – [of] 845 protests, 99.2% [are] pro-regime. The transition from mourning to succession endorsement appears orchestrated. The single anti-regime protest on 25 March met with lethal force [with] 10 killed [and] demonstrates the cost of dissent,” said Acled. The researchers noted that 99.2% of protests were pro-regime. “The near total absence of anti-regime protests suggests either genuine nationalist consolidation under external attack, heavy self-censorship, or effective pre-emptive suppression through the arrest campaign,” they wrote. “The arrest campaign is the regime’s primary domestic tool – [with approximately] 1,465-plus detained in 27 days. Charges escalated from ‘filming damage’ to ‘espionage’ and ‘mercenary’ as the conflict progressed.” Details of such repression are difficult to obtain, but recent incidents include the deaths of 10 people when Revolutionary Guards fired on anti-regime demonstrators and shot at apartment windows in Tehran on 25 March, and three killed on 18 March in Chabahar when detainees protested over food ration cuts inside a prison. On 17 March, security forces intervened against gatherings in Fardis and four Tehran districts when demonstrators chanted anti-government slogans, Acled said. “It was only really on the first night of the death of Ali Khamenei that you saw any small level of anti-regime activism. Since, there has been a coordinated effort to have pro-Iran or anti-war protests,” said Raleigh. Alia Brahimi, a regional expert with the Atlantic Council thinktank, said none of the pro-regime protests would have been spontaneous and showed how leadership structures in Iran had withstood the joint US-Israeli offensive. “That leaders will be killed has long been accepted, and there has been decades of ideological conditioning to prepare Iranians to absorb the death of senior commanders,” Brahimi said. “That moral effort has an organisational counterpart which has built resilience by making sure there are multiple replacements for anyone who holds a senior post, and by, more recently, decentralising decision-making. This is part of the Islamic Republic’s unique system and worldview.” Estimates of civilian casualties vary. More than 1,900 people have been killed and at least 20,000 injured in Iran since the start of US and Israeli attacks, said María Martinez of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) on Friday, citing figures provided by the Iranian Red Crescent. The US-based Human Rights Activists news agency (HRANA) said ‌on Wednesday that 3,300 people had been killed since the war began. It said 1,464 of those were civilians, including at least 217 children. In January, large protests across Iran were bloodily put down, with 7,000 killed by security forces, according to HRANA. Three men accused of killing police officers during the protests were hanged in public earlier this month. The unrest was the most serious internal threat to the radical clerical regime in Iran for more than 45 years. Since war broke out a month ago, security forces have set up checkpoints throughout major cities and cut off the internet, one of the longest and largest outages recorded. Senior officials said on 16 March that 500 “spies” had been arrested. “If anyone comes forward in line with the wishes of the enemy, we will no longer see them as merely a protester, we will see them as an enemy … And we will do to them what we do to an enemy,” said Ahmad-Reza Radan, the national police commander.