Iranian students stage protests as Khamenei drafts emergency plans
TEHRAN
Iranian students chanted anti-government slogans and scuffled with counter-protesters on the first day of the new academic term, with Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei reportedly preparing for assassination scenarios and naming multiple layers of successors for key military and political posts.
The gatherings at universities, which were reported by both local and diaspora media outlets, followed a mass protest movement that was met with a government crackdown last month that left thousands of dead.
Videos geolocated by AFP to Tehran's top engineering university showed fights breaking out in a crowd on Saturday as people shouted "bi sharaf,” or "disgraceful" in Farsi.
Footage posted by the Persian-language TV channel Iran International also showed a large crowd chanting anti-government slogans at Sharif University of Technology.
The Fars news agency later said there were reports of injuries in scuffles at the institution.
The unrest first broke out in December 2025 over prolonged financial strain, but exploded into mass anti-government protests that were suppressed in a violent crackdown by security forces.
Ever since the initial wave of protests, the United States and Iran have been trading threats of military action.
U.S. President Donald Trump sent the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln to the region, while a second, the USS Gerald R Ford, is en route via the Mediterranean.
Meanwhile, the New York Times reported that Khamenei has instructed top aides on how to proceed if he is killed in possible strikes by United States or Israel
Khamenei promoted Ali Larijani — a longtime loyalist, former Revolutionary Guards commander and veteran political figure — into a pivotal governing position, effectively putting him in charge of day-to-day state management, the report stated.
Khamenei also designated several backup successors for key political and military roles and granted a close inner circle authority to act if communications collapse or he is assassinated.
Although Larijani is not viewed as a likely future supreme leader because he is not a senior Shiite cleric, he is described as one of Khamenei’s most trusted crisis operators.
Trump questioning why Iran has not 'capitulated'
Meanwhile, U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff said that Trump is questioning why Iran has not "capitulated" in the face of Washington's military build-up aimed at pressuring them into a nuclear deal.
The United States and Iran this week resumed Oman-mediated talks in Geneva aimed at averting the possibility of military action.
In a Fox News interview, Witkoff said the president was "curious" about Iran's position after he had warned them of severe consequences in the event they failed to strike a deal.
"I don't want to use the word 'frustrated,' because he understands he has plenty of alternatives, but he's curious as to why they haven't... I don't want to use the word 'capitulated,' but why they haven't capitulated," he said.
"Why, under this pressure, with the amount of seapower and naval power over there, why haven't they come to us and said, 'We profess we don't want a weapon, so here's what we're prepared to do'? And yet it's sort of hard to get them to that place."