All the Supreme Leader's dogs

Iran is in a total communications blackout, with internet and mobile networks heavily disrupted, which makes independent verification extremely hard and lets the worst violence happen out of sight.

As fragments of footage, hospital accounts, and eyewitness reports leak out, a grim picture is emerging of a nationwide crackdown with mass arrests and a rising death toll. Estimates vary wildly, partly because of the blackout, and because different groups count differently. Some tracking groups and major outlets report totals in the low thousands, while other opposition aligned sources, and reporting citing internal and medical networks, claim the real number could be far higher, including claims of at least 12,000 deaths.

Whatever the final verified number becomes, what is happening is no longer a normal wave of demonstrations. It is escalating into a revolutionary confrontation, a society trying to break the grip of a theocratic security state, while the state tries to cut the country off from the world and crush the movement in the dark.