BRAVE Iranian rebels have broken through the regime’s internet blackout to tell The Sun: “We are ready to finally take our country back”.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s grisly downfall that saw him wind up dead in a pile of rubble has left the rogue nation’s repressed public wanting more.
One defiant Iranian told me: “The endgame feels real in a way it hasn’t before.”
Donald Trump hailed the chief mullah’s pathetic demise after his compound was blitzed as “the single greatest chance for the Iranian people to take back their country”.
In a rallying cry to Iran’s population, the US president urged them to seize the opportunity to put the final nail in the nation’s bloodthirsty regime.
“Make Iran Great Again (MIGA!),” Trump declared yesterday – playing on his famed MAGA slogan.
Since pulling the trigger on Operation Epic Fury one week ago, Trump has continued to blitz Iran alongside Israel.
He has doubled down on a warning to the Islamic regime’s top brass to surrender – or face certain death.
Trump has vowed he will not stop until they are obliterated, with “uninterrupted” strikes targeting top clerics and nuclear sites.
Courageous Iranians – whose identities we have concealed to protect them – say they are waiting for their moment to finally topple the regime as Khamenei’s inner circle desperately tries to cling to power.
Internet blackouts have made it extremely difficult to communicate but, with limited VPN connection, they have managed to share accounts.
During January’s deadly protests, when ruthless Khamenei ordered his revolutionary guards to show no mercy, critics told me they would rather die than see his regime survive.
But now, almost two months on, the Supreme Leader is dead, and protesters are more certain than ever they could be on the brink of freedom.
One 27-year-old rebel living in Tehran told The Sun: “Many of us believed it was possible before, but those uprisings were never meant to be the final chapter by themselves.
“The regime survived by hiding behind proxies, money networks, and foreign lobbying.
“Now that mask is cracking and their hand is exposed, the endgame feels real in a way it hasn’t before.
“It’s a strange mix of relief and iron focus. People are glad to see operations striking terrorists – but the deeper feeling is impatience and readiness.
“Everyone is waiting for the moment it becomes our turn to reclaim Iran, and people talk about it out loud now. No more whispers.”
It comes as…
Khamenei, 86, was wiped out last Saturday after his compound in the capital was blitzed by Israeli forces after months of planning.
Iran’s chief mullah since 1989, was killed alongside his daughter, grandchild, daughter-in-law and son-in-law.
In a historic message, Trump said: “This is not only justice for the people of Iran, but for all Great Americans.”
Dozens of the Islamic state’s senior henchmen have since been picked off – and it remains unclear whether the Ayatollah’s potential successors, including his son Mojtaba, are still alive.
Trump joined Israel in bombing Iran in the so-called 12-day war last June – but in the months since has warned Tehran to cut a deal with Washington over its nuclear empire, or face his wrath.
After talks in recent weeks failed to reach a breakthrough, the president’s patience wore thin and he ordered his military to begin an unprecedented blitz.
One insider in the capital said: “It’s about time the world treated the regime like what it is.
“I’m thankful President Trump kept his promise to the Iranian people and acted against the terrorist Islamic regime occupying Iran.
“Whatever happens next, history will remember who chose action instead of speeches.”
US and Israeli forces are working in tandem to unleash strikes on government, military and nuclear facilities.
With a lack of internet making it near impossible to communicate, those with family in Iran have feared for their safety not only because of blitzes, but because of the merciless nature of the vengeful IRGC.
A British-Iranian citizen living in the UK told The Sun on Thursday: “I have not been able to speak with my family since Saturday [Feb 28] morning because of the near-total internet blackout.
“Like many in the Iranian diaspora, I am waiting anxiously for even a fragment of news.
“When communication was still possible, relatives and friends described the current moment as a potential turning point. Many welcomed it.”
Follow The Sun’s live blog for the latest updates on Iran
By yesterday, one man living in Mazandaran province – two hours outside of Tehran – reassured The Sun that “everything is fine”.
The source added: “We are all safe and well, and the city is calm and secure.
“Their strikes on targets are extremely precise and calculated, and unlike the previous war, civilian casualties are very, very low.
“There’s no sign of panic or the chaos you normally associate with war.
“It almost feels as if they want everything to remain intact, as though they intend to take over the country in a clean and orderly condition.”
When clashes between IRGC enforcers and protesters broke out in January, thousands of Iranians were brutally slaughtered as Khamenei frantically tried to crush dissent
Up to 40,000 were killed, human rights groups say – while witnesses told The Sun how they saw children gunned down, bodies burnt with acid, and protester’s limbs broken.
But with the regime’s power crumbling as the hours pass and commanders are killed, the IRGC’s reign of terror on the streets is diminishing.
One insider in Tehran said: “They [the IRGC] try [to stop people celebrating].
“They threaten. They intimidate. But they can’t seal a nation’s pulse back into silence.
“What’s changed is that fear is no longer controlling the room the way it used to.”
Before Khamenei’s barbaric 36-year rule, his predecessor Ruhollah Khomeini served as Iran’s first supreme leader after the Islamic Revolution in 1979.
In almost half a century of iron-fist ruling, Iranians have suffered economic hardship, repeated crackdowns – and untold bloodshed, including relentless executions of anyone who dared speak out against the regime.
Describing themselves as “walking shadows”, they live in fear – and now see a flicker of hope to finally be free from the shackles of the Islamic state.
Chants of “marg bar dictator” – which translates to “death to the dictator” – are ringing out on the streets, insiders say, as rebels now feel empowered to push for change.
It comes as The Sun this week told how Iran’s terror chiefs and rival opposition figures vying for control in the wake of Khamenei’s death.
His assassination has thrown the Islamic Republic’s future into turmoil – exposing the first legitimate opening to pivot away from repressive rule in decades.
Khamenei’s second-eldest son Mojtaba, who effectively served as a “mini-Supreme leader” within his father’s office, is tipped to be his most likely heir.
Despite being a behind-the-scenes figures, Mojtaba, 56, has long been an influential actor in Iran’s ruling mechanism – and has close ties with the IRGC.
Ayatollah Alireza Arafi, a senior cleric and long-time insider of Iran’s religious and political hierarchy, is another strong contender.
Khamenei’s remaining henchmen have this week been plotting who will become the third supreme leader – much to Trump’s fury.
He has vowed to handpick the regime’s new ruler, and branded Mojtaba at the same time.
But waiting in the wings to form new governments are rival opposition figures – Maryam Rajavi of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) and exiled crown prince Reza Pahlavi.
Paralleled in their visions for Iran, Rajavi and Pahlavi – the son of ousted final Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi – are both trying to drum up support.
The Pahlavi dynasty was overthrown in the Islamic Revolution in 1979 – with Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini ruling until his death a decade later before Khamenei took the reins.
The self-styled crown prince, 65, told The Sun last year how he wants to make Iran a democratic, secular country – presenting himself as an option to “lead my compatriots down this road of peace”.
After initial strikes last weekend, Pahlavi – whose family was forced to leave Iran after the Islamic Revolution in 1979 – declared: “We are very close to final victory.
“I hope to be with you as soon as possible so that together we many reclaim Iran and rebuild it.”
Opinion appears to be divided among Iranians on which direction they want to see the country go – should the regime collapse.
But one critic living in the war-torn nation said: “We want the man whose name the nation has chanted in the streets, the man whose call was answered from province to province, the name some shouted as their last words.
“The one we wrote in blood on walls during the previous uprising. Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi.”
But insiders and experts have warned The Sun that total regime change in Iran will be incredibly difficult to achieve.
Kasra Aarabi, director of IRGC research at United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI), said while downfall is “realistic – and in many way inevitable”, the road to complete conversion will the lengthy.
He said: “The cycle of protests and suppression will continue until you change the balance of power between unarmed protesters and the fully armed and fully radicalised IRGC suppressive apparatus,
“The only way to do that is for a targeted military operation, an external targeted military operation. This isn’t a case of days.
“That is going to take time because they have created an extensive suppressive apparatus and the only way to give the Iranian people the real space is to target and start to dismantle that.
“So I think we’re not talking a case of days, we’re talking months – perhaps longer.“
