544 people reportedly killed in clashes between demonstrators and security forcesUS president has threatened to strike Iran if its regime continues brutal crackdown on demonstrators
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said that airstrikes are among the “many, many options” that the US president is considering but that “diplomacy is always the first option for the president”.
Monitoring groups say at least 544 people have been killed in clashes between demonstrators and security forces.
“We are ready for war but also for dialogue,” Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi responded.
He said that warnings of military action against Tehran from Trump, if the protests turned bloody, would motivate “terrorists” to target protesters and security forces to provoke foreign intervention.
Trump and his national security team have been weighing a range of potential responses against Iran including cyber-attacks and direct strikes by the US or Israel, according to two people familiar with internal White House discussions.
But the US president also said Tehran had been in touch and “they want to negotiate” to prevent such action.
The US-based rights group HRANA reported yesterday evening that the death toll had surpassed 500, and that more than 10,000 people had been arrested.
Iran, which has not given an official death toll from the protests, blames the bloodshed on US interference and what it calls Israeli and US-backed terrorists. State-run media has focused attention on the deaths of security forces.
The flow of information from the Islamic Republic has been hampered by an internet blackout since Thursday, although some Iranians still have access to the internet via Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite service, three people inside the country said.
Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence said today it had detained “terrorist” teams responsible for acts including killing paramilitary volunteers loyal to the clerical establishment, torching mosques and attacking military sites, according to a statement carried by state media.
Addressing a large crowd in Tehran’s Enqelab Square, parliament speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf said Iranians were fighting a war on four fronts – “economic war, psychological warfare, military war against the U.S. and Israel, and today a war against terrorism.”
Declaring the situation “under total control”, Araqchi said that 53 mosques and 180 ambulances had been set on fire since the protests erupted.
Despite the massive scale of the protests, there are no signs of splits in the Shi’ite clerical leadership, military or security forces, and demonstrators have no clear central leadership. The opposition is fragmented.
Trump said on Sunday that Iran had called to negotiate about its disputed nuclear programme. Israel and the US bombed Iranian nuclear sites in a 12-day war in June.
“A meeting is being set up, but we may have to act because of what is happening before the meeting,” he told reporters on Air Force One.
Trump was to meet with senior advisers to discuss options for Iran.
The Wall Street Journal reported that those included military strikes, using secret cyber weapons, widening sanctions and providing online help to anti-government sources.
Striking military installations could be highly risky, as some may be located in heavily populated areas.
In an interview with CBS News, Reza Pahlavi, son of Iran’s last shah who lives in exile in the US urged Trump to intervene “sooner”.
“I think the president has a decision to make fairly soon,” said Pahlavi, who has urged Iranians to protest and has positioned himself as a transitional leader for the country.
In an interview with Britain’s Sky News, US ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, said that he did not think the US or Israel were “making plans to engage” militarily in Iran at this time.
Qalibaf warned Washington against “a miscalculation”.
“Let us be clear: in the case of an attack on Iran, the occupied territories (Israel) as well as all U.S. bases and ships will be our legitimate target,” he said.
However, Tehran is still recovering from last year’s war, and its regional clout has been weakened by blows to allies such as Lebanon’s Hezbollah since the October 7, 2023, attack on Israel. Israel also killed top Iranian military commanders in the June war.
World oil prices hit seven-week highs on Monday on worries that Iran’s exports could fall due to political turmoil and a potential US response.
