SARAH MCCAMMON, HOST:
Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has acknowledged that thousands of people have been killed during weeks of unrest, and some human rights groups put the figure at over 15,000. The demonstrations have been sparked by a financial collapse amid sweeping U.S. sanctions. While protests have eased, tensions remain high. NPR's Jane Arraf joins us now from Amman. Jane, just tell us what's happening in Iran now.
JANE ARRAF, BYLINE: Well, it's still kind of difficult to tell because there has been an extreme blackout of both the phone and internet signals. And that's contributed both to information not getting across the borders and people not being able to leave. But what we do know is that Iranian security forces have managed to suffocate the protests late last week. Both Iranian officials and President Trump said by Thursday that violence had stopped. We're expecting more as Iranians are able to trickle out and give us a better picture of what's happened there.
MCCAMMON: Is any news trickling out right now?
ARRAF: Well, people have been coming out - a few people - but they are really scared. NPR spoke to Iranians who are coming by bus over the last few days to Turkey. And our producer there said they'd never seen people so frightened and almost completely unwilling to talk. One man, as our producer spoke to them, was receiving a phone message from Iranian authorities, a text message of a number to report U.S. and Israeli spies. And he said, you see, we're being watched and listened to all the time.
And in Istanbul, you know, there are a lot of small hotels that are normally full of Iranian tourists. Those are empty. And Iranian expats in Turkey and other countries are still unable to call their families to see if they're OK. There have been hundreds of thousands of Iranian pilgrims still coming across to Iraq by bus on religious pilgrimages to Shia Shrines this week, and we've spoken to them there. There are a lot of government supporters, and they, too, were unable to speak openly.
MCCAMMON: There has been speculation about a possible U.S. attack on Iran. That speculation seems to have died down, but where does this seem to be headed at this point?
ARRAF: Well, it certainly doesn't seem to be over, but it has been, in many people's minds, a temporary reprieve. There's been a lot of worry in the region about Iran collapsing if the U.S. does attack and the far-reaching effects that could have. So countries which aren't traditional allies of Iran are believed to have been advising President Trump not to attack.
Now, as you know, the U.S. sent a troop carrier from South Asia Sea to the Middle East after Trump had threatened Iran if it continued to kill protesters. But he said last week that he had been told that government killings in Iran had stopped. So that pressure seems to have eased a bit. And Iranians on the inside, as we know from previous protests and, to some extent, to this one, they're worried not just about the extreme government crackdown but about threats of U.S. action. They're already having an extremely difficult time. These protests, we have to remember, were sparked by a collapsing economy that has left many people literally hungry.
MCCAMMON: Now, the protests in Iran are not the only thing happening in the region. In Syria, government forces have pushed back U.S.-backed Kurdish troops. Just tell us, quickly, what's happening there.
ARRAF: Sure. That conflict has been simmering for a while between Syrian government forces, which include Turkish-backed fighters, and Syria's Kurdish-led forces. Now, these are the forces that fought with U.S. troops and defeated ISIS. But they have been discussing with the Syrian government being integrated into Syrian forces, and those talks haven't been going well. So last week, fighting has centered in northern Syria, near the city of Aleppo, but it has now moved on into, for instance, some of the biggest oil fields in Syria. The U.S. has said it wants that to stop, and there seems to have been a ceasefire reached, but a ceasefire that will result in the Kurds giving up a lot of control that they've had for more than a decade. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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