DUBAI: Iran’s authorities indicated on Saturday they could intensify their crackdown on the biggest anti-government demonstrations in years, with the Revolutionary Guards blaming unrest on terrorists and vowing to safeguard the governing system.
U.S. President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly threatened to intervene in recent days, posted on social media on Saturday: “Iran is looking at FREEDOM, perhaps like never before. The USA stands ready to help!!!”
There were fresh reports of violence across Iran, although an internet blackout made it difficult to assess the full extent of unrest. After nightfall on Saturday, new videos posted online purported to show fresh protests in a number of neighbourhoods in the capital Tehran and several cities, including Rasht in the north, Tabriz in the northwest and Shiraz and Kerman in the south. Reuters could not immediately verify the latest videos.
This came a day after the U.S. president issued a new warning that the United States could intervene, there were fresh reports of violence across the country, although an internet blackout made it difficult to assess the full extent of unrest. “Iran’s in big trouble. It looks to me that the people are taking over certain cities that nobody thought were really possible just a few weeks ago,” Trump said. He had said on Thursday he was not inclined to meet Pahlavi, a sign that he was waiting to see how the crisis plays out before backing an opposition leader.
Trump, who joined Israel to strike Iran’s nuclear sites last summer, warned Tehran last week the U.S. could come to the protesters’ aid. On Friday, he said: “You better not start shooting because we’ll start shooting too. I just hope the protesters in Iran are going to be safe, because that’s a very dangerous place right now.” He has repeatedly included Iran in lists of places where he could intervene next, after sending forces to seize the president of Venezuela a week ago. The exiled son of Iran’s last Shah, who has emerged as a prominent voice in the fragmented opposition, made his strongest call yet for the protests to broaden into a revolt to topple the clerical rulers.
In Tehran’s Saadatabad district, people banged pots and chanted anti-government slogans including “death to Khamenei” as cars honked in support, a video verified by AFP showed.
Other images disseminated on social media and by Persian-language television channels outside Iran showed similarly large protests elsewhere in the capital, as well as in the eastern city of Mashhad, Tabriz in the north and the holy city of Qom. In the western city of Hamedan, a man was shown waving a Shah-era Iranian flag featuring the lion and the sun amid fires and people dancing.
In the Pounak district of northern Iran, people were shown dancing round a fire in the middle of a highway, while in the Vakilabad district of Mashhad, a city home to one of the holiest shrines, people marched down an avenue chanting “death to Khamenei”. A protester briefly replaced the flag of the Islamic Republic of Iran on its London embassy with the former flag during a demonstration Saturday, witnesses told AFP. A video posted to social media showed a man on the balcony of the embassy, near Hyde Park, replace the country’s current flag with the one used during the rule of the ousted Shah to cheers from hundreds of demonstrators below.
On Thursday and Friday, an AFP journalist in Tehran saw streets deserted and plunged into darkness ahead of any protests. On Valiasr avenue, one of Tehran’s main streets, businesses were shutting unusually early. “The area is not safe,” said a cafe manager as he prepared to close at around 4:00 pm. An AFP reporter saw shop windows broken, as well as security forces deploying.
State TV on Saturday broadcast images of funerals for several members of the security forces killed in the protests, including a large gathering in the southern city of Shiraz. It also aired images of buildings, including a mosque, on fire.
State media said a municipal building was set on fire in Karaj, west of Tehran, and blamed “rioters”. State TV broadcast footage of funerals of members of the security forces it said were killed in protests in the cities of Shiraz, Qom and Hamedan. Footage posted on social media showed large crowds gathered in Tehran and fires lit in the street at night. In a video showing a nighttime protest in Tehran’s Saadatabad district, a man is heard saying the crowd had taken over the area. “The crowd is coming. ‘Death to the dictator’, ‘Death to Khamenei’,” he said, referring to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Reuters verified the locations of the videos.
Protests have spread across Iran since December 28, beginning in response to soaring inflation, and quickly turning political with protesters demanding an end to clerical rule. Authorities accuse the U.S. and Israel of fomenting unrest. Iranian rights group HRANA says at least 50 protesters and 15 security personnel have been killed, and some 2,300 arrested.
A witness in western Iran reached by phone said the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) were deployed and opening fire in the area from which the witness was speaking, declining to be identified for safety. The semi-official Tasnim news agency reported the arrest of 100 “armed rioters” in the town of Baharestan near Tehran.
National security council chief Ali Larijani said in comments broadcast late Friday that “we are in the middle of a war”, with “these incidents being directed from outside”.
The Norway-based Hengaw rights group said it had confirmed five Kurdish men had been shot dead by security forces in the western city of Kermanshah on Thursday and another man, a former bodybuilding champion, killed in the northern city of Rasht on Friday. In a statement broadcast by state TV, the IRGC -- an elite force which has suppressed previous bouts of unrest -- accused “terrorists” of targeting military and law enforcement bases over the past two nights. It said several citizens and security personnel had been killed and public and private property set on fire. Safeguarding the achievements of the Islamic revolution and maintaining security was a “red line”, it added. The regular military also issued a statement saying it would “protect and safeguard national interests, the country’s strategic infrastructure, and public property”.
In a video posted on X, U.S.-based Reza Pahlavi, 65, whose father was toppled as Iran’s Shah in the 1979 revolution, said the Islamic Republic would be brought “to its knees”. He called for people to seize the centres of their towns and said he was preparing to return soon to Iran. “Our goal is no longer merely to come into the streets; the goal is to prepare to seize city centres and hold them,” he said. Some protesters on the streets have shouted slogans in support of Pahlavi, such as “Long live the Shah”, although most chants have called for an end to rule by the clerics or demanded action to fix the economy.
A doctor in northwestern Iran said that since Friday large numbers of injured protesters had been brought to hospitals. Some were badly beaten, suffering head injuries and broken legs and arms, as well as deep cuts. At least 20 people in one hospital had been shot with live ammunition, five of whom later died. On Friday, Khamenei accused protesters of acting on behalf of Trump, saying rioters were attacking public properties and warning that Tehran would not tolerate people acting as “mercenaries for foreigners”.
The IRGC’s public relations office said three members of the Basij security force were killed and five wounded during clashes with what it described as “armed rioters” in Gachsaran, in the southwest. Another security officer was stabbed to death in Hamedan, in western Iran. The son of a senior officer, the late Brigadier General Nourali Shoushtari, was killed in the Ahmadabad area of Mashhad, in the northeast. Two other security personnel were killed over the past two nights in Shushtar, in Khuzestan province. Authorities have described protests over the economy as legitimate while condemning what they call violent rioters over the past two weeks.
Rights groups expressed alarm on Saturday that Iranian authorities were intensifying a deadly crackdown under cover of an internet blackout on the biggest demonstrations in the Islamic republic in over three years after another night of mass protests. This was despite an internet shutdown imposed by the authorities, with monitor Netblocks saying early Saturday that “metrics show the nationwide internet blackout remains in place at 36 hours”. Amnesty International said it was analysing “distressing reports that security forces have intensified their unlawful use of lethal force against protesters” since Thursday in an escalation “that has led to further deaths and injuries”. Iranian Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi warned on Friday that security forces could be preparing to commit a “massacre under the cover of a sweeping communications blackout”.
