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Iran’s security apparatus is still pursuing participants in last winter’s protests, an indication that the regime continues to regard the unrest as an unresolved threat. On October 17, the Ilam Intelligence Directorate announced the arrest of 11 people in Malekshahi, accusing them of operating in three groups, firing at security forces and a police station, directing protesters, damaging government property and possessing weapons. It branded them American-Israeli “mercenaries” and described the December protests as a “coup.” ISNA and Tasnim carried the accusations, but neither report provided evidence establishing foreign direction, and authorities did not disclose the detainees’ identities, detention locations or access to lawyers.
The terminology is politically revealing because Malekshahi and nearby Abdanan were among the places where the regime briefly lost effective street control during the January 2026 uprising. That precedent helps explain the security apparatus’s continuing fixation months later. By recasting the unrest as a foreign-backed “coup,” arresting alleged participants, and expanding neighborhood surveillance, the regime appears intent on preventing those towns from becoming a rallying precedent for future uprisings elsewhere.
Fear of pressure from below is coinciding with increasingly bitter conflict at the top. Kayhan editor Hossein Shariatmadari, Khamenei’s representative at the newspaper, attacked Mohammad-Javad Zarif and Mohammad Khatami in unusually accusatory terms, writing that although the United States has no embassy in Iran it has “dozens of ambassadors” among Iranians advancing positions favorable to Washington. He accused Zarif of presenting “surrender” as “honorable peace.”
Two more security personnel killed in Sistan-Baluchestan as Iran’s working-class subsistence basket hits 91.3 million tomans. Minimum wage now covers only ~8 days of household expenses—down from 15 in March. Regime calls the #economy “resilient.”
By @MansoreGolestan…
— NCRI-FAC (@iran_policy) October 14, 2026
Saeed Jalili has pushed the same confrontation from within the political establishment, saying figures who spent years arguing that negotiations would solve Iran’s problems should now “be ashamed.” The significance is not simply disagreement over foreign policy. Advocates of negotiation are increasingly being portrayed as politically suspect or aligned with the enemy at precisely the moment when other senior officials argue that talks remain unavoidable. The regime is therefore under fierce external pressure while becoming less able to contain disagreement over how to respond to it.
Pezeshkian on October 17 again promoted mosque- and neighborhood-centered organization, arguing that local institutions should take greater responsibility for identifying and addressing problems instead of relying on the central government. He coupled that appeal with warnings that opponents are trying to deepen social divisions. In the current context, the initiative is less notable as welfare policy than as an attempt to keep grievances contained locally: officials are increasingly concerned that unresolved economic hardship could spill into broader unrest, and mosque-based structures give the regime another mechanism to monitor, absorb and compartmentalize that pressure before it becomes politically explosive.
Economic conditions explain much of that anxiety. Budget and Planning Organization chief Hamid Pourmohammadi said on October 17 that verification has begun for 44 million people identified as the initial target population for increased electronic food credits, with further applicants to be assessed separately. Tasnim claimed that the government is still determining eligibility and staging the process because of the scale involved.
Pezeshkian lists Iran’s fault lines—power, water, gas, fuel, banking, budget, pensions—as a cleric is stabbed to death in Sari. Central Bank’s goal: just slow the #inflation rate. By @MansoreGolestan https://t.co/eBARBew5k6
— NCRI-FAC (@iran_policy) October 15, 2026
The number is striking in itself: roughly half the population is being screened for additional food support. Previous government figures show why. The expanded credit of 1.5 million tomans per person covers only about 36% of an officially defined 11-item food basket estimated at roughly 4.1 million tomans per person. For a four-person household, the basket costs around 16.5 million tomans, while total food-credit support reaches only six million—leaving more than ten million tomans to be found before rent, transport, medicine or education are considered.
That is not a welfare system solving subsistence pressure; it is a government trying to prevent deteriorating purchasing power from becoming an even broader political grievance. Earlier official reporting put year-on-year food inflation above 121%, while the government simultaneously admits it lacks the resources to make assistance universal. The gap between need and support helps explain why the leadership is increasingly treating livelihood policy as a matter of political stability rather than ordinary economic management.
Pezeshkian is warning that economic hardship could trigger #IranProtests even as regime factions turn on one another over war and negotiations. In Rasht, a state-staged “unity” rally ended in a fight, while the #IRGC handed out 400,000 relief packages amid deepening food…
— NCRI-FAC (@iran_policy) October 16, 2026
Even the armed forces are not insulated from the strain. Parliament’s National Security Committee on October 17 overwhelmingly backed defense-minister nominee Mehrdad Akhlaghi after questioning him on missiles, drones, radar and wartime readiness. But the discussion also included housing, salaries and livelihood support for personnel in the IRGC, army, SSF and Defense Ministry. Committee spokesman Hassan Qashqavi explicitly said Iran remains “in the middle of war.” The fact that personnel welfare is being discussed alongside weapons production underscores how far the economic crisis penetrates institutions on which the regime depends for coercive capacity.
The broader picture is therefore of a regime increasingly afraid that pressures it can still suppress individually may begin to reinforce one another. It is still hunting alleged participants months after protests, redefining unrest as a foreign “coup,” urging citizens to report one another, screening 44 million people for additional food assistance, and watching senior factions accuse rivals of effectively serving Washington. These are not signs that the underlying problems have been contained. They show a leadership preoccupied with preventing economic hardship, political dissent and elite conflict from converging into another social explosion.
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