INTERNACIONAL
Motorcycle patrols swarm Iranian cities, checkpoints rise as regime braces for unrest
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Iranian security forces have stepped up their presence in Tehran and other cities, with motorcycle patrols, checkpoints and forces positioned across major urban areas as authorities brace for possible unrest, multiple sources inside Iran told Fox News Digital.
The security buildup comes as university students have returned to the streets in Tehran, protesting compulsory hijab rules, rising education costs and political repression, videos published on Iran International show.
Sources inside Iran confirmed to Fox News Digital that motorcycle units have been operating across Tehran and other cities during events surrounding Iran’s annual «Sacred Defense Week,» while members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Basij and law enforcement have been positioned at major squares and other locations.
IRAN INSTALLS NEW WAR CHIEFS AS TEHRAN SIGNALS ‘PROLONGED CONFRONTATION,’ EXPERT WARNS
Motorcyclists ride during a state-organized motorcycle parade called «Janfada,» meaning «Sacrifice for Iran,» in Tehran, Iran, Friday, Sept. 25, 2026. (Vahid Salemi/AP Photo)
The sources also said security personnel have stopped pedestrians, searched some individuals and examined mobile phones, including material authorities consider «anti-regime.»
One source in Tehran told Fox News Digital that the heightened security presence extends beyond what is visible on the streets.
«Motorcyclists taking photos of shops, and prisoners being threatened and forced to tell their families not to physically participate in any protests that might arise,» the source said.
INSIDE TEHRAN: IRANIANS DESCRIBE IRGC’S BRUTAL RULE, POVERTY — ASK TRUMP TO ‘STAY THE COURSE’
Motorcyclists ride during a state-organized motorcycle parade called «Janfada,» meaning «Sacrifice for Iran,»in Tehran, Iran, Friday, Sept. 25, 2026. (Vahid Salemi/AP)
The source said Basij members who previously received military training have been placed on alert and are being housed or assembled at educational facilities and large properties on the outskirts of Tehran.
The measures were not limited to the capital. «This situation exists in all cities, but the nature of the presence and the way things are organized differ,» the source told Fox News Digital, citing information received from Borujen, Isfahan and other cities.
«In those places, plainclothes agents are more prevalent and try to remain out of public view; however, in Tehran, they appear openly on the streets in military uniforms and gear specifically to instill fear and terror,» the source said, adding that leave had also been canceled in smaller cities and claimed shops, telephone communications and everyday activities were under increased surveillance.
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Military members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in western Tehran, Iran. (Morteza Nikoubazl/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Iranian journalist Mehdi Ghadimi, who lives outside Iran after years of opposition activity, separately told Fox News Digital that he had received similar accounts.
«I’ve received reports of new checkpoints being set up in Tehran, and there have also been reports of military forces being put on alert, as well as civilians who had previously been trained by the regime for urban repression being called up,» Ghadimi added that people are being detained on espionage charges simply because they communicate with people outside of Iran.
Ghadimi also said he had received reports that individuals with serious criminal records had been released from prison in exchange for reporting to local Basij bases and participating in the suppression of demonstrations.
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Members of the Basij paramilitary force stand at a checkpoint in Tehran, Iran, Sunday, March 29, 2026. (Vahid Salemi/AP Photo)
The accounts follow a report from the National Council of Resistance of Iran’s (NCRI’s) Committee on Security and Counterterrorism alleging that Iranian authorities ordered a «100%» state of readiness for the Army, IRGC, Basij and law enforcement and canceled leave through Sept. 27. The NCRI also claimed 51,000 personnel had been deployed across Greater Tehran, including 30,000 IRGC and Basij members and 21,000 law enforcement personnel. The reported preparations are taking place as signs of public unrest have begun resurfacing on university campuses. Fox News Digital has not independently confirmed those claims.
Students at Allameh Tabataba’i University in Tehran held a protest Monday against compulsory hijab, rising tuition and university living conditions, according to videos reported by Iran International on Sept. 28 and 29. Students were recorded chanting against the morality police and political repression.
Iran International reported that the protest began over tuition, dormitory and food costs before expanding into broader political chants. The outlet, citing the student publication Amirkabir, reported that Basij members attempted to disrupt the gathering and threatened students.
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The protests also come amid renewed pressure over compulsory hijab rules on university campuses. On Sept. 8, Iran International reported that a senior official in the office representing Iran’s supreme leader at universities said a new compulsory-hijab directive for universities had been drafted and was expected to be issued by the ministries overseeing higher education.
Separately, the IRGC escalated its rhetoric toward Washington on Tuesday, with spokesman Hossein Mohebbi calling on Americans to pressure President Donald Trump’s administration. «This lying administration must be changed,» Mohebbi said at a Tehran press conference, according to Reuters video distributed Sept. 29.
His remarks came as U.S. and Iranian officials continued indirect contacts through mediators in an effort to end the seven-month conflict, Reuters reported.
The combination of visible security preparations and renewed demonstrations is fueling speculation among Iranians about whether the country could face another broader wave of unrest.
Members of the Iranian police stand guard at a protest in front of the British embassy following anti-government protests in Tehran, Iran, January 14, 2026. (Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via)
«The reality is that nobody knows what’s going to happen,» Ghadimi told Fox News Digital. «Everyone I talk to says that this situation cannot continue and that, somehow, it has to come to an end.»
war with iran, national security, world, iran, world protests
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The embattled French President Emmanuel Macron on Sunday pinned some of the blame on the U.S. war against the terrorist regime in Iran for the widespread riots and looting unfolding across France.
The controversial passage referring to the Iran war from his televised speech triggered criticism from some experts. Macron said that «demonstrators expressed concern about the cost of living and the price of fuel. Both are driven by the conflict launched in the Persian Gulf, a conflict in which France has taken no part but whose consequences we are suffering.»
He added, «I fully understand their concern. It is being expressed in several other European capitals as well. That is why I have taken several initiatives at the international level to secure our fuel and our gas and to act on energy markets.» Macron announced that he would be traveling to the Gulf on a three-nation stop to discuss the energy crisis.
FRANCE’S TEEN RIOTS TAKE EXPLOSIVE NEW TURN AS GOVERNMENT POINTS FINGER AT HARD LEFT
Protests over the rising cost of living brought together students, climate activists, former «Yellow Vests,» and farmers ahead of the presidential election, drawing an estimated 200,000 participants across France, including 40,000 in Paris on October 17, 2026. (Kiran RIDLEY / AFP via Getty Images)
It is unclear which demonstrators Macron signaled out for alleged concerns about fuel prices. Fox News Digital reported on Monday on the inner workings of the large-scale riots with many of the groups named seeking to abolish the free enterprise system.
Macron stressed that those who have tried «to bring down the republic will be held accountable.»
President Donald Trump told reporters on Monday that, «I said the first time I met Macron, I said, you got to close up your borders. You’re going to ruin your country. And they’ve ruined their country. It’s going to be hard to get it back. But hopefully France will come back.»
A spokesman for the French foreign ministry pointed Fox News Digital to President Macron’s televised address on Sunday and referred Fox News Digital to the Elysée press office for other questions. The Élysée press office did not respond by time of publication.
Lisa Daftari, an Iran expert, told Fox News Digital, «Macron is pointing at the Iran war, but fuel is expensive because Iran’s regime closed the Strait of Hormuz and held the world’s energy supply hostage. The bigger question is whether this is really about students and fuel prices at all. Major infrastructures and landmarks have been set on fire, shops were looted across the country and nearly 2,400 people were arrested in a single day.»
According to Daftari, who is the Foreign Desk Editor-in-Chief, «That’s not a protest over the price of diesel. It’s organized lawlessness and Macron’s own government admits it, blaming ultra-left groups and criminals. France has a domestic crisis, and current geopolitics are not the alibi for it.»
WHO’S WHO: INSIDE FRANCE’S ‘CHAOS INC.’ FRANCHISE OF COMMUNIST GROUPS, LABOR UNIONS AND GLOBAL ACTIVISTS
Protesters marched through central Paris amid clashes, fires, and heavy police deployment during nationwide demonstrations against rising living costs. Paris, France Oct. 17, 2026 (Firas Abdullah/Anadolu via Getty Images)
French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu accused the «ultra-left movement» of «orchestrating profound disorder in the country leading up to the presidential election «
Barak Seener, an associate research fellow at the London-based Henry Jackson Society, told Fox News Digital that «Illegal immigration from the Middle East, North Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa as well as from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh to European states serve as Trojan horses to dominate the West. Calls to ‘globalize the intifada’ and ‘Free Gaza’ and ‘Stop the genocide’ are codes to subvert and ultimately dominate Western civilization and impose Sharia law. Macron is still making the mistake of ignoring this.»
VIOLENT FAR-LEFT RIOTS IN FRANCE ARE ‘CHILLING WARNING’ FOR AMERICANS AT HOME, MIKE JOHNSON SAYS
People gathered at Place de la République in Paris to observe the aftermath of the national mobilization day against the high cost of living held the previous day. The October 17 demonstrations were marked by extreme violence, looting, and vandalism by rioters. Paris, France Oct. 18, 2026. (Laurent Caron / Hans Lucas / AFP via Getty Images)
In a social media post Vice President JD Vance criticized France for its porous immigration policy. Vance wrote on X that «Western liberals imported the third world into France and other countries in the name of diversity and compassion.»
He added: «They ignored fundamental questions of assimilation and compatibility. They were told it would lead to this and they didn’t listen.»
Seener said that similarly, the French political establishment’s political correctness and unilateral support of a Palestinian state have come home to roost. Just as Macron ignorantly declared at the 81st United Nations General Assembly that Hamas ‘has never been active’ in the West Bank, it is remarkable how Macron is reframing reality to suit his political agenda.»
Seener, who has written extensively about Iran, added that «He has chosen to address students, teachers, trade unions, lawmakers and business leaders and increased oil prices due to the U.S.-led war against Iran. It is unrelated to this. More fundamentally, Macron is choosing to ignore the Red-Green alliance that has contributed to the riots across France, including 38 radical Left and Muslim organizations and 16 student organizations which includes communist youth groups and a Muslim student association such as the Muslim Students of France.»
france, emmanuel macron, war with iran, donald trump
France is confronting a major intelligence failure after authorities badly underestimated the scale of nationwide protests that descended into riots and looting.
The days of chaos have prompted French President Emmanuel Macron to order a security review as senior officials acknowledged police «lost control» in several major cities and senior government officials have offered to resign after they failed to predict the level of pandemonium.
Some 550,000 people joined 110 marches nationwide Saturday, according to France’s Interior Ministry, far exceeding an intelligence estimate of roughly 200,000 demonstrators. Organizers put turnout even higher, at 800,000.
Cars burned in the streets, more than 1,500 stores were reportedly ransacked or destroyed and public buildings were attacked across the country. In Limoges, rioters broke into and torched a 19th-century city hall that had survived both world wars, causing its roof to collapse.
By Monday, the Louvre remained closed as student protesters blocked its entrances, extending the disruption into another day.
TOP TOURIST DESTINATION IN THE WORLD SHUTS DOWN AMID VIOLENT PROTESTS
The unrest overwhelmed some 60,000 police, gendarmes and other security personnel deployed nationwide. Nearly 1,000 law enforcement officers and firefighters were injured, at least 2,400 people were arrested and French authorities estimate some 3,000 businesses sustained damage.
As crowds swelled, police were stretched across multiple flashpoints while groups of masked rioters smashed storefronts, set fires and clashed with security forces. In some cities, authorities were unable to keep looters from moving through commercial districts even as officers struggled to contain the larger demonstrations.
By Monday, Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez was acknowledging what shopkeepers and residents had already witnessed.
FRENCH NEWSPAPER RIPS MACRON AFTER RIOTS ERUPT ACROSS FRANCE: ‘INDELIBLE STAIN’
«Yes, Saturday, in certain large cities, we lost control,» Nuñez said.
He acknowledged a «lack of anticipation» ahead of the demonstrations and said authorities had underestimated not only the number of protesters but the violent groups that would exploit the unrest.
Nuñez offered his resignation to Macron. The president refused it and instead ordered a review of what the Élysée described as failures in planning and intelligence, demanding an accounting of how authorities had been caught so badly off guard.
Justice Minister Gérald Darmanin was even more direct.
«We unquestionably failed,» Darmanin said, pointing specifically to intelligence and France’s difficulty tracking and confronting the ultra-left.
The failure is particularly striking because the unrest did not emerge without warning.
The warning signs had been building for weeks.
The unrest began in September with high school students protesting teacher shortages, deteriorating school buildings and other conditions in classrooms around Paris. The movement quickly spread nationwide, drawing teachers, labor unions and other groups frustrated by rising living costs and declining public services.
Violence had already begun creeping into the demonstrations. Students set fires at schools, cars were torched and protesters clashed with riot police as authorities made thousands of arrests.
French intelligence services were watching the shift.
At an Oct. 1 government crisis meeting, intelligence officials assessed that the movement had reached a «tipping point» from school blockades toward urban violence and attributed its origins to the hard-left France Unbowed party and its allies, Reuters reported.
Yet little more than two weeks later, authorities were caught off guard by the scale of what hit the streets.
Saturday brought together students, trade unionists, Yellow Vest veterans and other groups under a loose «convergence of struggles.» Hundreds of thousands marched peacefully, while smaller groups of masked rioters broke away, looting stores, setting fires and attacking police.
The violence has since ignited a separate political fight over immigration.
WHERE’S MACRON? FRENCH LEADER BLASTED FOR ATTENDING CONCERT AS RIOTS ESCALATED
President Donald Trump blamed the destruction on France’s migration policies, writing Monday that «the migrants have taken over France» and urging the country to close its borders. Other right-wing political leaders across Europe have made similar arguments.
French authorities, however, have not blamed immigrants for the violence. Macron and his government have instead accused ultra-left militants and criminals of exploiting demonstrations rooted largely in education, living costs and public services.
The unrest is nevertheless intensifying a political battle already reshaping France ahead of its 2027 presidential election, giving the right fresh ammunition on immigration, crime and the government’s ability to maintain public order.
Marine Le Pen’s National Rally has seized on the violence to argue that Macron’s government has lost control of the country, while other figures on the French right have pushed for tougher policing and immigration restrictions.
The images of burning buildings, ransacked stores and overwhelmed police are landing at a particularly vulnerable moment for France’s political establishment. Macron cannot seek a third consecutive term in 2027, leaving an open presidential contest as voters increasingly identify immigration, security and purchasing power among the country’s major political concerns.
The riots have also widened a debate over whether the breakdown reflects a failure of policing, deeper economic and social grievances or years of government policy on immigration and integration — competing explanations that are likely to shape France’s political fight long after the streets are cleared.
For Macron’s government, the immediate question is more concrete: how security services that were already tracking an increasingly volatile protest movement still failed to anticipate the scale of Saturday’s violence.
france, world protests, politics, world, emmanuel macron, europe
INTERNACIONAL
Polémico planteo en la ONU: ¿puede Estados Unidos disolver el Comité de Descolonización?
El inesperado pedido de Estados Unidos para disolver el Comité de Descolonización de la ONU, un espacio clave para la causa Malvinas, causó sorpresa en el mundo diplomático y obligó al gobierno de Javier Milei a minimizar el reclamo de su principal aliado internacional.
El planteo fue expuesto por la representante estadounidense durante la Cuarta Comisión de Naciones Unidas. Se trata de un órgano de la Asamblea General que se ocupa de asuntos políticos especiales y de descolonización.
Para la Argentina es un organismo clave. Cada año, el comité es el encargado de instar al Reino Unido a retomar las negociaciones por la soberanía de las Islas Malvinas. Ahora, el reclamo de Washington abre al menos una grieta geopolítica con su socio argentino.
Sin mencionar al archipiélago austral, la representante del gobierno de Donald Trump dijo simplemente que el comité es un “desperdicio de recursos” y pidió disolver su mandato.
Pero el reclamo, según dijo a TN el exembajador argentino ante la ONU Ricardo Lagorio, no tendrá repercusiones en el organismo.
“No es un comité más. Es uno de los más sensibles de la ONU. Maneja uno de los temas más importantes como la descolonización. Quizás Estados Unidos decida desfinanciarlo o se oponga a partidas presupuestarias. Tienen muchos mecanismos, pero que de ahí a que desaparezca, lo dudo”, afirmó.
¿Por qué Trump busca disolver el organismo de descolonización?
Lagorio fue embajador ante la ONU durante el primer año de mandato de Milei (30 de enero-28 de octubre de 2024).
“No conozco precedentes de que un comité tan sensible desaparezca. Si Trump quiere retirarse (del organismo) se retira. Si no quiere presentar candidatura al comité de derechos humanos, no lo hace. Esas son decisiones de Trump”, indicó.
Para Lagorio, “lo más que puede hacer Trump es decir: ´yo pago mi cuota a la ONU, pero de ahora en más ninguna parte va al mantenimiento de ese comité’. Lo demás son bravuconadas«, sostuvo.
“Disolver un comité no depende de él y menos en algo tan sensible”, afirmó.
El exprpresentante argentino en la ONU y exembajador en Rusia dijo que “el funcionamiento de un comité no depende de la voluntad de ningún pais”.
“En última instancia, si Estados Unidos lo quiere desfinanciar puede maniobrar para eso. Pero no va a tener mucho apoyo, quizás el dealgún que otro pais”, dijo.
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