US Smuggles Thousands Of Starlink Terminals Into Iran To Support Protesters

• 13.02.2026, 11:43

The WSJ revealed the details.

The administration of US President Donald Trump has secretly sent thousands of Starlink terminals to Iran. This came after Tehran's brutal crackdown on large-scale anti-government protests.

This was the White House's attempt to provide protesters with access to the network after Iranian authorities blocked the Internet. Citing U.S. officials, The Wall Street Journal reported.

What is known

In January, the ayatollah regime brutally suppressed large-scale anti-government protests in Iran. Human rights activists estimate that thousands of protesters were killed. The staggering scale of the massacre took place against the backdrop of authorities blocking people's access to the internet.

Afterward, according to the WSJ, the US smuggled about six thousand satellite internet kits into the country: the first time a Starlink system had been directly shipped to Iran.

The State Department had previously purchased nearly seven thousand Starlink terminals, most of them in January, WSJ sources said. The goal was to provide protesters with a connection to the outside world amid the authorities' blocking of the Internet.

The sources noted that President Trump was aware of the supplies, but they could not answer whether he himself had directly approved the plan.

"Tehran has repeatedly and without evidence accused Washington of involvement in stoking popular discontent and organizing last month's nationwide demonstrations in the country of 90 million people. Iranians have been protesting years of economic mismanagement, a weakened currency and harsh rule. The U.S. denies any connection to the uprising, although Operation Starlink shows that the Trump administration has done more to support anti-regime protests than previously thought," the material says.