With no missile alerts and a regime's internet blackout, app offers lifeline to Iranian civilians

As the U.S. and Israel round out a fifth week of war with Iran, some 93 million civilians living inside Iran are stuck in a conflict zone without a missile alert system or access to the internet. Another 4 million people of Iranian origin worldwide are cut off from their friends and family still in Iran. 

While the Islamic Republic has left its own people in the dark, Holistic Resilience, a group of engineers focused on internet freedom, is using an app called Mahsa Alert to light the way.

The app is named after Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian woman who died in 2022 after an arrest by Iran’s "morality police." This group regularly detains women it believes do not comply with the country’s mandatory hair-covering laws. Her death became the impetus for widespread protests after decades of oppression. Amini’s image is now a symbol of what has become known as the Woman, Life, Freedom movement.

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Holistic Resilience said it first recognized the lack of civilian protections during the 12-day war between Israel and Iran in June 2025.

"They're checking on the surroundings of their loved ones' neighborhoods to make sure there is no location that could be potentially a target of these strikes and inform them to stay away from them," said Ahmad Ahmadian, the executive director of Holistic Resilience.

Using crowdsourcing and open-source intelligence, volunteers analyze about 100 tips a day for validity and accuracy. These reports can come in the form of social media videos or photos or messages on Telegram. They also pore through footage from some 18,000 CCTV cameras around the country.

As the 17th-largest country in the world by area, Iran presents a significant mapping challenge.

"We have to be up to be able to immediately push out that notification. The last one was, I guess, in the middle of the night," said Ahmadian. "I have colleagues that are working near 16 hours on this project. We have been self-funding this project from the beginning, and we never stopped doing that despite all of the challenges. The reason for that is it's something that people need to have, and it saves lives."

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The Israel Defense Forces occasionally posts evacuation notices on its Farsi-language X account. A previous post from the account shows warnings like: "In the coming hours, the IDF will operate in the area, as it has in recent days across Tehran, to strike military infrastructure of the Iranian regime. For your safety and well-being, we ask that you immediately leave the area indicated on the map."

With internet connectivity in Iran estimated at less than 1%, Israeli evacuation notices often fail to reach the civilians they are intended to aid.

Civilians who evacuate to towns or cities they are unfamiliar with can use the Mahsa Alert app as a critical lifeline, identifying hospitals, blood banks, government checkpoints or shelters while offline.

"We've realized, OK, if people start to move around and get displaced, they need to see the essentials, the essential locations," said Ahmadian.

The Iranian government is prioritizing its objectives beyond its borders over its own people, according to Holistic Resilience.

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"Instead of the sirens, sending crisis alerts to the mass population, every day they're sending text messages by the Ministry of Intelligence threatening people, [saying] if you share information with others, we will know about it and we'll come after you," said Ahmadian.

The government has accused those volunteering information to the platform of acting as Israeli spies or gathering intelligence for the U.S. military. The group has come under attack from the Iranian government, both from hacking and from deliberately sending misinformation to undermine the group’s credibility. Palo Alto Networks' Unit 42 has reported a widespread increase in cyberthreat activity by Iranian actors since the conflict began in late February.

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In one instance, Ahmadian said a tip alleged missiles were being launched from a specific building, which the group later identified as a girls' dormitory at a university. He said the group believed the tip may have been intended to mislead targeting, giving the Iranian government ammunition for its anti-Israel and anti-U.S. media campaign, though this could not be independently verified by FOX Business.

"By increasing the number of civilian casualties, they pump up their propaganda war," Ahmadian said. "This is not our war. This has never been our war."