Hmm yeah, those just look like clogged pores to me. I think since they haven't gone away on their own yet, Retin A would do the trick. Try Tretinoin or a drugstore product. I also wonder if even a simple weekly exfoliation or a visit to a specialist for an extraction would work?

Clog Pores ^.^ , just use a facial cleanser night and day they'll go bye bye

Use retin-a or salicyclic acid peels. The skin needs to be shed. They could be extracted, but your skin could possibly scar due to the longevity of your enclosed whiteheads.

thanks for all the advice so far, what strength of peel would you recommend? what would i do for a weekly exfoliation?

Have you used peels before?

When they first appeared, I tried this product:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000PNVSBW

a 20% roll on peel, but there didn't seem to be any results, perhaps i did not use it for long enough. With this in mind, should I go for a stronger peel? I don't want to scar my skin

No, be conservative. Make sure to do a ton of research on how to do a peel. Can you get your hands on retin-a?

yeah i can! but i heard it takes months for results to happen? and the skin is dry and flaky for a long time? would it not be easier just to get peels?

I think doing both would be better than doing either and yeah, I would expect it to take a long time since they've been in your skin for a long time . just use moisturizer often then I guess if your skin is dry/flaky.

They look like they have come up from being aggravated from something? have you used any new products?

I wouldn't advise using SA, it would just dry the skin out, these looks like the type of spots I got when my skin was really dried out from BP, it look me a long time to recover from it, but the way I did, was literally by washing my face with a cleanser and just moisturizing and leaving it.

Clogged pores as others have said - use a gentle cleanser and apply salicylic acid

I noticed simply moisturizing with jojoba oil has cleared up my clogged pores.

These are the kinds of things that make it difficult to determine if it's better to moisturize and leave it be, or take some dry/shedding action. I don't think you need any form of a chemical peel, but i'm just against those. While they just look like clogged pores, you also don't know how deep they are, and you wouldn't want to irriate them. I feel like a gentle exfoliating face wash, and salicylic acid applied at night would help in a few weeks. If your skin is easily-susceptible to drying, you'll have to moisturize during the day.

yeah, most of the people are right, get a chemical peel or go get a low strength retin-a Rx.