President Donald Trump threatened that the United States is ‘locked and loaded’ if Iran kills protesters, after cost-of-living demonstrations in the country turned deadly.
Protesters and security forces clashed in several Iranian cities on Thursday with six reported killed in the first deaths since the unrest escalated.
Shopkeepers in the capital Tehran went on strike on Sunday over high prices and economic stagnation, actions that have since spread to other parts of the country.
Trump said on his Truth Social platform that ‘if Iran [shoots] and violently kills peaceful protesters, which is their custom, the United States of America will come to their rescue.’
‘We are locked and loaded and ready to go,’ the Republican leader added.
The senior adviser to Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Larijani, responding to Trump’s warning on Friday, said that US interference in Iranian protests would lead to chaos across the Middle East.
An Iranian official also said US intervention in the country would ‘destabilise [the] entire region’.
Iran’s biggest protests in three years over economic hardship have turned violent across several provinces, leaving multiple people dead.
Riot squads opened fire and carried out mass arrests on protesters, who have vowed not to back down.
More cities joined the protests as night fell on Thursday and clashes intensified in several locations, prompting officials to send reinforcements.
Iran’s Fars news agency reported yesterday that two people were killed in clashes between security forces and protesters in the city of Lordegan, in the province of Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari, and three in Azna, in neighbouring Lorestan province.
State television reported earlier that a member of Iran’s security forces was killed overnight during protests in the western city of Kouhdasht.
However, human rights groups have contradicted these reports, insisting he was in fact amongst the protestors and killed by security forces.
Crowds on the streets chanted anti-government slogans, such as ‘this year is a year of blood, Seyyed Ali will be overthrown’ and ‘death to the dictator’.
Dozens of people were arrested by riot police and plainclothes agents.
Security forces also reportedly blocked roads, deployed a heavy armed presence to the streets, and engaged with the protesters.
The unrest comes at a critical moment for Iran’s Islamic clerical rulers as Western sanctions hammer an economy hit by 40 per cent inflation and after Israeli and US airstrikes in June targeted the country’s nuclear infrastructure and military leadership.
Iran’s civilian government under reformist president Masoud Pezeshkian has been trying to signal it wants to negotiate with protesters.
But Mr Pezeshkian has acknowledged there is not much he can do as Iran’s rial currency has rapidly depreciated, with one US dollar now costing some 1.4 million rials.
Meanwhile, state television separately reported on the arrests of seven people, including five it described as monarchists and two others it said had links to European-based groups.
State TV also claimed another operation saw security forces confiscate 100 smuggled pistols, without elaborating.
On Wednesday, a photo of a lone demonstrator defiantly sitting on the road in front of armed security forces drew parallels to the ‘Tank Man’ snap taken during the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests.
The photograph, shared widely by local media including broadcaster Iran International, shows a brave protester sitting on a Tehran street in an attempt to block armed police from riding their motorbikes down the road.
The demonstrations are smaller than the last major incident in 2022, triggered by the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, who was arrested for allegedly violating Iran’s strict dress code for women.
Her death sparked a nationwide wave of anger that left several hundred people dead including dozens of members of the security forces.
