Credit: Vahid/X
Donald Trump has been warned that the US military needs more time to prepare for strikes against Iran as another night of protests rocked the country.
The US president is said to be considering military action and has been presented with a number of targets, including elements of the security services responsible for the bloody crackdown on the demonstrations.
But commanders in the region told officials they needed to “consolidate US military positions and prepare defenses” before carrying out any strikes that could trigger retaliation.
Trump has threatened to “get involved” in the unrest that threatens to topple the Iranian regime, warning that he will hit Iran “very, very hard where it hurts” if security forces continue to kill protesters.
He was briefed on options that included hitting non-military targets in Tehran or elements of the regime’s security apparatus.
The protests continued overnight and are now said to be more intense and widespread than the hijab demonstrations of 2022. Some 192 people have now been killed, rights groups said on Sunday morning, although the true toll is obscured by an internet outage.
Protesters block a street in Tehran – MAHSA / Middle East Images / AFP via Getty Images
Footage emerged on Sunday morning purporting to show live ammunition being used against protesters in the city of Abyek, northwest of Tehran.
Senior regime officials suggested the protesters should face the death penalty, while another compared them to terrorists.
On Sunday, Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, Iran’s parliamentary speaker, warned the White House against a “miscalculation.”
“Let’s be clear: in case of an attack on Iran, the occupied territories [Israel] as well as all American bases and ships will be our legitimate targets,” said the former commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
Two US C-17A military transport planes left Germany and appeared to be heading for the Middle East on Saturday night, amid speculation of a potential strike.
The New York Times quoted US officials as saying that any military action should be carefully weighed to avoid galvanizing public support for the regime.
Credit: @IHRights/X
The Israeli military is reportedly on high alert in the event of an American attack. Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly warned in recent weeks that he will not allow Iran to rebuild its nuclear or ballistic missile programs.
The IDF could support US airstrikes as an opportunity to destroy its own target list. However, even if Israel chose not to take offensive action alongside the US, Iran could still fire missiles at the Jewish state.
Iran and its international backers claimed the protests were incited as part of a “Zionist” plot.
Demonstrations again defied the crackdown on Saturday night, with thousands taking to the streets despite reports that hundreds have been killed by security forces over the past three days. Hospitals are said to be overwhelmed with patients suffering from gunshot wounds.
Videos posted on social media showed large crowds in several cities, including Tehran and Mashhad in the east, where vehicles were torched.
The footage emerged despite a near-total internet shutdown that made communication with the outside world largely impossible.
Credit: Vahid/X
The blackout “has now passed 60 hours… The censorship measure poses a direct threat to the safety and well-being of Iranians at a key time for the country’s future,” monitoring group NetBlocks said early Sunday.
Iran’s attorney general said anyone protesting would be considered an “enemy of God,” a crime punishable by death.
Ahmad-Reza Radan, the national police chief, said authorities had made “significant” arrests late Saturday, without giving details.
Ali Larijani, Iran’s security chief, distinguished between protests over economic hardship – which he called “completely understandable” – and “riots”, accusing the latter of using methods “very similar to terrorist groups”, according to the Tasnim news agency.
The protests, initially sparked by rampant inflation, are believed to have spread to more than 100 cities in all of Iran’s provinces.
Israeli intelligence officials told Hebrew-language media that the unrest has now surpassed the 2022 hijab protests in both scale and intensity.
Protesters are now openly calling for an end to the clerical rule of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader.
Kemi Badenoch suggested on Sunday that she might support Western military intervention to help protesters against Iranian leaders.
In an interview with the BBC, she said: “Iran would quite happily wipe out Britain if they thought they could get away with it. They tried to kill people on our soil, they are the enemy.
“He calls us Little Satan, so no, I have no problem with removing a regime that is trying to harm us. It has its terrorist outpost with Hezbollah all over the world.”
Asked about the possibility of Western intervention, she said the situation was hypothetical, but “the calculation must always be of our national interest.”
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