TEHRAN- Qassem’s colleagues at the police force had been searching for him for several agonizing hours. They lost sight of him on the night of January 8th, shortly after they were dispatched to quell potential violence erupting from demonstrations over economic grievances. Until that point, most of the protests across the country had remained peaceful and orderly.

Business owners had been taking to the streets to voice their anger over the precipitous fall of the Iranian Rial—a catastrophic slide that began in 2018 with the launch of the infamous U.S. campaign of “maximum pressure” against the nation. As they began their shift that night, the police officers felt little initial concern. They carried batons, which they had barely needed to use so far, and some were equipped with tear gas, similarly neglected over the preceding days.

But on that specific, fateful night, none of their standard equipment was going to be adequate against the armed, ruthless terrorists they were about to confront. Their gear certainly failed to protect Qassem when he was caught in a surge of rioters. He was brutally stabbed four times in the stomach, twice in the chest, his neck was slashed, and he was then set ablaze while still alive, slowly succumbing to his horrific injuries.

When Qassem’s colleagues finally found him in a secluded area in the southern Iranian city of Marvdasht, only his body armor, a charred head, and part of his mutilated chest remained of the 25-year-old officer. The body camera footage captured by one of the search team members showed the officers reeling—shocked and terrified by the sight. “Does ISIS even do this?” one officer whispered in disbelief. Two others immediately began pouring the scant water from their small bottles onto Qassem’s ashes. Qassem’s closest comrade, who had also become one of his dearest friends, collapsed, weeping openly on the ground. Others rushed to offer condolences, though they themselves visibly required comfort, embracing the distressed friend and sharing his grief. The police station commander later told reporters that the remains of the nearly two-meter-tall Qassem had fitted into a small box. He added that Qassem had only recently become engaged and was planning his wedding and the start of his own family in the coming months.

Western media outlets have entirely censored the story of Qassem, and multitudes of other similar ones. The armed terrorists who appeared on January 8th and 9th were deliberately conflated in the narrative with the legitimate protesters who had been exercising their rights in the preceding days—protesters who had not murdered security forces, killed civilians, or destroyed public and private property. In the space of just two days, millions of dollars in damage were wrought across Iran, and hundreds of people—both citizens and security personnel—were killed.

Western and Israeli officials, including U.S. President Donald Trump, who had attempted to derail the protests from the outset by suggesting their “agents” were active on the ground in Iran, tried repeatedly to re-ignite the deadly riots after they fizzled out. Trump even issued threats to attack Iran in order to aid the armed insurgents. In one social media post, the American leader urged rioters to kill more security personnel, asking them to “take over your institutions”, and promising that “help is on the way”. The Tehran Times understands that the terrorists are now either in detention or gone into hiding. 

Another horrific account that neither Western officials nor their stenographers—the media outlets—wish their public to know concerns a young woman from Isfahan whose life was irrevocably shattered on January 9th. Knowing her police officer husband was deployed to protect the city, she was consumed by worry after the unprecedented violence of the previous night. Around 9 p.m., she joined her parents at their home for comfort and decided to give her husband a call. An unfamiliar male voice answered the phone. “Are you the officer’s wife?” the man asked, his voice sounding like that of a man in his twenties. “Yes, is he there?” she replied. “He is. You can listen to him as he dies.”

 Eight-year-old Anila (R), two-year-old Bahar (C), and three-year-old Melina (L) were killed by terrorist bullets and explosives during the US-backed riots that convulsed Iran in early January 2026.

As his wife listened in helpless horror, the rioters stabbed her husband, beat him, and ultimately strangled him to death. The woman, who was seven months pregnant, passed out from the shock. She was rushed to the hospital where an emergency C-section was immediately performed. When her husband’s funeral ceremony took place, the widow appeared utterly disheveled and still visibly trapped in a state of trauma. Her parents stated that she had lost the ability to speak following that horrifying night. “Doctors say it will take her a while to regain her speech. She requires intensive therapy,” her mother explained, slowly shedding tears. Meanwhile, her newborn grandchild was hospitalized due to complications stemming from the premature birth. Whether the infant will survive remains uncertain. “I just hope she does not have to deal with two losses,” the grandmother murmured, turning away to face the grieving crowd. “Please pray for us.”

Another harrowing tale unfolded in the city of Hamedan. A nurse, just finishing her shift, pulled her car into her driveway. As she waited for the garage door to open, she turned her head and confronted an extremely gruesome sight: the severed head of a man resting atop a car parked near her building complex. A small, blinking siren on the vehicle’s roof identified it as belonging to security forces.

The head was bloodied and belonged to a young man later identified as a 21-year-old police officer who had recently joined the force. His mutilated body was later discovered near a sewage drain. The young officer had been shot twice in the chest, but his killers chose to leave a horrifying “souvenir” for his family and friends, one of the perpetrators confessed after being identified and arrested.

The detainee revealed he had been recruited by a Mossad agent residing in Germany. He and the team he assembled were paid in cryptocurrency, with payments increasing based on the violence inflicted. Burning buildings, the detainee admitted, paid well. “But the largest sum was reserved for those who killed a person. It did not have to be a police officer. The murder of a civilian was awarded too,” he explained. His team had also killed an elderly man who owned a local supermarket and had refused to shut down his business that night. “He began to curse us out. We dragged him into the street and beat him to death. Then shot him a couple times to make sure he was dead. He looked to be in his early 70s.” When asked how killing became so easy, he said drugs were required before going out: “Our handler in Germany made sure we took weed or crystal before leaving; it was an absolute rule.”

There are countless more stories like these, each one a chapter in a tragedy too vast to fit within a single report. An 8-year-old girl in Isfahan was fatally shot by a terrorist’s weapon while riding securely inside a car with her family near a bustling market. In Kermanshah, a three-year-old girl was killed by a terrorist’s bullet as she accompanied her father on a mission to secure baby formula for her younger brother from a nearby pharmacy. In the eastern city of Neyshaboor, a two-year-old girl was struck by a Molotov cocktail while accompanying her teenage brother to dispose of trash at the alley’s entrance. These children, who had done nothing but live their ordinary lives, were deliberately targeted and turned into agonizing symbols of a brutal war not of Iran’s making.

The families of all the mentioned victims demand that authorities bring the murderers to justice. However, merely punishing the detained perpetrators will not be enough, stated the father of Melina, the three-year-old victim. “The true architects are the Western states and Israel. They fund and incite this unrest against our people,” he said. “They impose sanctions while pretending to ‘help’ Iranians gain freedom. These entities, not just the foot soldiers, are the ones who must pay for this spilled blood.”

Adding a cruel final layer to the conspiracy, the U.S. and its European allies have announced plans for more economic sanctions to punish the Iranian government for the very bloodshed they spurred and fueled. They have failed to explain how more debilitating sanctions will punish Iranian politicians while making the every-day lives of ordinary, suffering civilians impossibly harder.