US President Donald Trump and senior Iranian officials traded threats on Friday as protests gripped parts of the Islamic Republic, fueling tensions between the countries after the US bombed Iran’s nuclear facilities in June.
At least seven people have died in the violence that sparked protests, fueled by the collapse of Iran’s currency, but which have seen crowds of people chanting anti-government slogans.
The protests, now in their sixth day, have become the largest in Iran since 2022, when the death of Mahsa Amini, 22, in police custody, sparked protests across the country. However, protests have yet to take place across the country and have not yet been as intense as those associated with the death of Amini, who was arrested for not wearing a hijab, or headscarf, as the authorities prefer.
Trump’s post provoked a swift Iranian response
Trump began writing on his Truth Social forum, warning Iran that if it “violently kills peaceful protesters,” the United States will “help them.”
“Locked and loaded and ready to go,” Trump wrote, without elaborating.
Shortly after, Ali Larijani, the former parliament speaker and secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, accused on social media X that Israel and the US were fueling the protests. He did not provide evidence to support the allegations, which Iranian officials have made repeatedly during the years of protests that have gripped the country.
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“Trump should know that US intervention in the domestic crisis is accompanied by unrest in the entire region and the destruction of US interests,” Larijani wrote in X, which the Iranian government banned. “The US people should know that Trump started adventurism. They should take care of their soldiers.”
Larijani’s comments may have referred to the wider US military presence in the region. Iran in June attacked the Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar after the US attacked three nuclear sites during Israel’s 12-day war with the Islamic Republic. No one was injured even though the missile hit the radome there.
Ali Shamkhani, an adviser to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei who has been the council’s secretary for years, separately warned that “any interfering hand that comes too close to Iran’s security will be cut off.”
“Iranians know very well the experience of being ‘rescued’ by Americans: from Iraq and Afghanistan to Gaza,” he added to X.
Iran’s parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf also threatened that all US bases and forces “will be legitimate targets.”
Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei also responded, citing Tehran’s long-standing grievances against the US, including a CIA-backed coup in 1953, the downing of a passenger plane in 1988 and participation in the June war.
Iran’s response came as the protests shook what had been a routine rejection of officials in a democracy – that the country largely supported its government after the war.
Trump’s online message marked a direct sign of support for the protesters, something other US presidents have avoided out of concern that the activists would be accused of collaborating with the West. During Iran’s 2009 Green Movement protests, President Barack Obama withheld support for the protests — something he said in 2022 was “a mistake.”
But such White House support is still risky.
“Although the grievances fueling these protests and the previous ones are due to the policies of the Iranian government, they may use President Trump’s statement as evidence that these conflicts are driven by foreign actors,” said Naysan Rafati, an analyst at the International Crisis Group.
“But using that as an excuse to downplay the potential risk is inviting US involvement that Trump has said,” he added.
Protesters took to the streets on Friday in Zahedan in Iran’s restive province of Sistan and Baluchestan on the border with Pakistan. Many protestors who were killed in these demonstrations were also buried, and a march was started.
An online video purportedly shows mourners chasing away members of the security forces attending the funeral of Amirhessam Khodayari, 21. He was killed Wednesday in Kouhdasht, more than 400 kilometers (250 miles) southwest of Tehran in Iran’s Lorestan province.
The video also showed Khodayari’s father disowning his son from serving in the Basij militia of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, according to authorities. The semiofficial Fars news agency later reported that there are questions about the government’s allegations that he is working.
The Iranian government under revolutionary President Masoud Pezeshkian has been trying to show that it wants to negotiate with the protesters. However, Pezeshkian admitted that there is not much he can do as the Iranian rial has fallen rapidly, as $1 is now worth 1.4 million rials. That sparked the first protests.
The protests, which focused on economic issues, heard protesters chanting against the Iranian regime. Tehran has had little luck improving its economy in the months since the June war.
Iran recently said it is no longer burning uranium anywhere in the country, trying to signal to the West that it is still open to possible talks on its nuclear program to ease sanctions. However, those talks have not materialized as Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have warned Tehran against scaling back its nuclear program.
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