Iranian protesters burn their identification cards as unrest continues despite security crackdown

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Iranian protesters have been seen burning their identification cards as unrest continues in the country despite government claims protests have ended.      

Iran's Revolutionary Guard said on Sunday the nation and its security forces have ended the wave of unrest linked to anti-government protests that erupted last month.

But videos of civilians burning government documents and bills suggest the violence, which has already killed 21, is far from over with Iranians refusing to pay for their utilities.  

Clips were uploaded to social media with captions stating, 'We do not pay any bills' and 'This corrupt system is doomed to end'. 

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A government document is torched by an Iranian as anti-government unrest continues in the country

Iranian protesters have been seen burning their identification cards as unrest continues in the country despite government claims protests have ended. Iran's Revolutionary Guard said on Sunday the nation and its security forces have ended the wave of unrest linked to anti-government protests that erupted last month

A university student attends a protest inside Tehran University while a smoke grenade is thrown by Iranian police, in Tehran, Iran, back in December

 In a statement on the Revolutionary Guard's website, the force blamed the unrest on the United States, Israel and Saudi Arabia, as well as an exiled opposition group known as the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq, and supporters of the monarchy that was overthrown in the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Price hikes sparked protests in a number of cities and towns late last month, and at least 21 people were killed in scattered clashes.

The protests, which vented anger at high unemployment and official corruption, were the largest seen in Iran since the disputed 2009 presidential election, and some demonstrators called for the overthrow of the government.  

Authorities have said in the past few days that the protests are waning, though these reports remained unverified. 

The Revolutionary Guard is a powerful paramilitary force loyal to the country's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (pictured)

The Revolutionary Guard is a powerful paramilitary force loyal to the country's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. 

Many of the demonstrators protested against the Guard's massive budget, its costly interventions across the region, and against the supreme leader himself.

Hundreds of people have been detained since the protests began. 

They include around 90 university students, reformist lawmaker Mahmoud Sadeghi was quoted as saying by the semi-official ISNA news agency.

Later on Sunday, Tehran prosecutor, Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi, said that 70 of the detained protesters have been released on bail during the last 48 hours. 

He added that there would be more releases from detention, except for the main instigators of the riots who will be 'dealt with seriously.'

Iranian lawmakers held a closed session on Sunday in which senior security officials briefed them on the protests and the conditions of the detainees, the state-run IRNA news agency reported.

'It was emphasized that foreign elements, and in particular the United States, played a basic role in forming and manipulating the recent unrest,' IRNA quoted lawmaker Jalal Mirzaei as saying.

The United States and Israel have expressed support for the protests, which began on December 28 in Iran's second largest city, Mashhad, but deny allegations of fomenting them.

In recent days, government supporters have held several mass rallies across the country to protest the unrest.

A protester with covered face holds a sign as others hold Iranian flags of the constitutional monarchy era as they protest near Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, Germany on Saturday

The head of the CIA on Sunday denied his agency had any role in fomenting the recent anti-government protests in Iran but predicted the violent unrest 'is not behind us'.

Mike Pompeo, named a year ago by President Donald Trump to head the intelligence agency, told Fox News Sunday that economic conditions in Iran 'are not good.'

'That's what caused the people to take to the streets,' he said. 

He blamed what he called Tehran's 'backward-looking' regime for turning a deaf ear to the voices of the people.

Asked about a claim by Iran's prosecutor general, Mohammad Javad Montazeri, that a CIA official had coordinated with Israel and Saudi Arabia - Iran's regional rivals - to work with exiled Iranian groups to stir dissent in Iran, Pompeo replied simply: 'It's false.'

'This was the Iranian people - started by them, created by them, continued by them, demanding a better set of living conditions and a break from the theocratic regime.'

Trump has repeatedly tweeted his support for Iranian protesters while castigating the Tehran regime, seizing on the recent unrest to again slam the multiparty nuclear deal with Iran as deeply flawed.

Trump faces deadlines around mid-month on whether to renew temporary waivers or restore US sanctions on Iran. 

In October, Trump refused to certify that Iran was respecting its commitments under the 2015 nuclear accord, but did not reimpose sanctions or abandon the deal itself.

The administration has not revealed its intentions, but the Iran unrest is seen as a possible pretext for blowing up the nuclear accord.

The US Congress has been working on legislation aimed at tightening terms of the agreement in ways that might satisfy Trump's demands, and Pompeo expressed careful optimism that it might succeed.

'They could do something,' he said. 

'They could take some of the weaknesses from the agreement... extend deadlines and snap back sanctions into place where they could really happen.'

But Bob Corker, head of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, said last week that while talks on Iran were continuing with the White House and its European partners, no new bill was imminent.

Any agreement, Corker said, would take several more weeks to work out.