Tehran, 9 January 2026 (dpa/MIA)  - Iranian authorities shut down nationwide internet access on Thursday as protests driven by anger over crippling economic conditions spread in major cities, monitoring groups and residents said.

The country was experiencing an "internet blackout," according to NetBlocks, which said the outage followed a series of "digital censorship measures."

Data from internet firm Cloudflare showed a drop of around 90% in web traffic on Thursday evening. Limited access appeared to remain available to parts of the government and the security apparatus.

The blackout was widely seen as a response to renewed calls for protests on Thursday and Friday issued by Reza Pahlavi, the son of Iran's last shah, who was overthrown in the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Protests intensified in the north-eastern city of Mashhad, Iran's second-largest, on Thursday. Security forces used tear gas against protesters, residents said, with witnesses describing the scenes as being "like a war."

Some of the largest protests in recent days had been reported in the western provinces such as Kermanshah.

With internet access now strictly restricted, little information has been able to leave the country.

Iranian authorities have previously imposed internet shutdowns during periods of unrest in 2019 and 2022 to prevent the spread of images, videos and other protested-related information.

A wave of protests has roiled Iran for 12 days, triggered by a deepening economic crisis and a sharp plunge in the national currency, the rial. In Tehran, it was angry merchants that first took to the streets, with demonstrations since spreading across the country.

The demonstrations quickly turned into political protests against the authoritarian government of the Islamic Republic, with security forces cracking down on demonstrators with full force.

At least 45 people have been killed in clashes with the authorities since the protests broke out, according to the Oslo-based human rights organization Iran Human Rights.

"The evidence shows that the scope of crackdown is becoming more violent and more extensive every day," the group's director, Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, said in a statement.

"The United Nations and the international community have a responsibility to act decisively, within the framework of international law, to prevent the mass killing of protesters."

Trump threatens Iran

US President Donald Trump meanwhile said he has warned the Iranian leadership against killing protesters.

"I have let them know that if they start killing people, which they tend to do during their riots, they have lots of riots, if they do it we're going to hit them very hard," Trump said in an episode of "The Hugh Hewitt Show" podcast released on Thursday.

Trump had earlier pledged his support to the protesters against the authoritarian leadership in Iran.

If Iran kills peaceful protesters, "the United States of America will come to their rescue," the Republican wrote on his online platform Truth Social on Friday.

Trump left open then, as he does now, what he specifically intends to do.