The protests in Iran are continuing, and more than 20 people have been killed in the week since they began, according to official figures. Hundreds more have been injured and arrested.
However, the protesters are determined to persist, and are threatening to step up their efforts.
Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has spoken up for the first time since the protests began, voicing harsh criticism of the young people who are facing off against security forces.
"Iran's enemies are supplying the protesters with intelligence assistance, money and weapons," Khamenei said. The Iranian regime believes Saudi Arabia, the U.S. and Israel are behind the protests.
Senior Iranian leaders, including Supreme National Security Council head Ali Shamkhani, say Iranian intelligence has managed to get its hands on "solid proof that Israel, the U.S. and Saudi Arabia have put together an orderly plan to bring down the Iranian government through direct intervention and support for the rioters."
In a briefing for foreign journalists in Tehran, Shamkhani laid out the role each of the three countries is allegedly playing in encouraging the protests and the violence, and threatened to strike back at Saudi Arabia.
"Israel and the U.S. are behind the intelligence supplied to the rioters, and Saudi Arabia is the one supplying cash to fund the raging violence, including providing the demonstrators with weapons," he said. "The blow Saudi Arabia will sustain if it keeps up these actions will be painful, and the Saudis know how hard a blow they will receive."
Senior Saudi intelligence officials denied the Iranian claims that Saudi Arabia is underwriting the protests in Iran, and waved off the comments by Khamenei and his associates that the protests are the result of Saudi-Israeli-U.S. cooperation.
However, they said that they were not dismissing the threats from Tehran. Saudi intelligence officials believe that if the protests continue to spread to the point of posing a real threat to the ayatollahs, Iran could order a massive strike or take other offensive action against "actors and targets in the region."
The objective of such a strike would be clear: an attempt to suppress the protests and draw attention away from the events in the country by creating a security crisis.
The claims from the regime in Tehran, which blame the riots on foreign entities and agents, are of no interest to the young people protesting in cities throughout Iran.
Even Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, who on Tuesday made a conciliatory speech intended to calm tensions, could not reach the hearts of the protesting public.
"Rouhani wanted to exploit the events to create a healthier society. For years, he has been promising reforms, and not keeping his promises. The president doesn't have the power to create change, and he should resign along with the rest of the government," one student marcher said.
On Tuesday evening, protesters in Tehran were preparing for another night of clashes with the Basij forces sent by the regime to quell the unrest. The Basij, one of the five forces of the Revolutionary Guard Corps, is known to strike without mercy.
Even the announcement by the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Court in Iran that protesters considered harmful to homeland security will be tried and possibly sentenced to death did not deter the thousands of protesters who have been taking to the streets every evening.
"Tell the families of the protesters who were killed overnight in Isfahan about the death penalty," a young demonstrator told journalists, holding up a sign bearing the names of all the protesters who have been killed since the riots began last Thursday.
"We aren't afraid of the sentence, or of a war. We are fighting for our homeland and our future. I love Iran no less than the Basij. Iran is important to us, so we won't let this go on. Iranian society is sick and no one will cure it because the leadership is disconnected from the people," the protester declared.
The protesters say this coming weekend will be a turning point.
"The hope is that people will take to the streets en masse this weekend. We won't quit," said one protester. "The protest was born in the periphery and reached the big cities. Now we're all about to be tested. Anyone who has sacrificed their life, their blood has not been spilled in vain."
Ghassem Abdul Hadi A-Shami is an independent Jordanian journalist who is covering the events in Iran for foreign outlets.
