Flailing Iran launches attacks on citizens, now confiscating cell phones

Iran appears to be following the path of other repressive regimes that find their path into the future clouded and uncertain: Turning to attacks on its own citizens.

A report at Fox News describes the aftermath of the 12-day war between Israel and Iran, in which the rogue Islamic regime “appears to be turning inward – escalation repression with chilling speed.”

It is Kasra Aarabi, director of IRGC research at United Against Nuclear Iran, who confirmed the Islamic Republic is accelerating toward a “North Korea-style model of isolation and control.”

Iran, where its nuclear weapons facilities were decimated by the recent bombings from Israel and the U.S., long has insisted on obtaining nuclear weapons in order to “wipe” Israel off the map.

That, President Donald Trump and Israeli officials both said could not be allowed.

Now, Aarabi said, “We’re witnessing a kind of domestic isolation that will have major consequences for the Iranian people. The regime has always been totalitarian, but the level of suppression now is unprecedented. It’s unlike anything we’ve seen before.”

A Fox source inside Iran said the repression now is “terrifying” and Aarabi described a population under siege from its own Islamic leaders.

“He described how citizens are stopped at random, their phones confiscated and searched,” the report said.

“If you have content deemed pro-Israel or mocking the regime, you disappear. People are now leaving their phones at home or deleting everything before they step outside.”

The circumstances are not unlike what exists in North Korea, long known as one of the most repressive regimes on earth.

“During the recent conflict, Iran’s leadership imposed a total internet blackout to isolate the population, blocking Israeli evacuation alerts, and pushed propaganda that framed Israel as targeting civilians indiscriminately,” the report said.

Aarabi described how the government there “deliberately cut communications to instill fear and manipulate public perception. For four days, not a single message went through. Even Israeli evacuation alerts didn’t reach their targets.”

Israeli, in its conflicts, warns civilians around the military installations it targets so they can evacuate.

Aarabi noted the regime is terrified of a development: “The surprising bond that had formed between Iranians and Israelis.”

“At the start of the war, many Iranians welcomed the strikes. They knew Israel was targeting the IRGC — the very forces responsible for suppressing and killing their own people. But once the internet was cut and fear set in, some began to question what was happening,” Aarabi said.

“That might be the only way they see to preserve the regime: by really tightening the screws on the Iranian people, to ensure that the Iranian population doesn’t try to rise up and topple the regime,” he told Fox News Digital.

Another factor that could develop, which has been used in North Korea, is a purge of officers and military, the report said.

And terrorism.

“The regime’s three pillars — militias, ballistic missiles, and its nuclear program — have all been decapitated or severely degraded,” Aarabi said. “That leaves only asymmetric warfare: soft-target terrorism with plausible deniability.”