Iran warns US troops and Israel will be targets if America strikes over protests
Violence surrounding the demonstrations has killed at least 116 people, while 2,600 have been detained, according to activists.
Nationwide protests challenging Iran’s theocracy saw protesters flood the streets in the country’s capital and its second-largest city into Sunday, crossing the two-week mark as violence surrounding the demonstrations has killed at least 116 people, activists said.
With the internet down in Iran and phone lines cut off, gauging the demonstrations from abroad has grown more difficult. But the death toll in the protests has grown, while 2,600 others have been detained, according to the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency.
Meanwhile, Iran’s parliament speaker warned that the US military and Israel would be “legitimate targets” if America strikes the Islamic Republic, as threatened by US president Donald Trump.
Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf made the threat as politicians rushed the dais in the Iranian parliament, shouting: “Death to America!”
Those abroad fear the information blackout will embolden hardliners within Iran’s security services to launch a bloody crackdown, despite warnings from Mr Trump that he is willing to strike the Islamic Republic to protect peaceful demonstrators.
Mr Trump offered support for the protesters, saying on social media that “Iran is looking at FREEDOM, perhaps like never before. The USA stands ready to help!!!”
The New York Times and Wall Street Journal, citing anonymous US officials, said on Saturday night that Mr Trump had been given military options for a strike on Iran, but had not made a final decision.
The US state department separately warned: “Do not play games with President Trump. When he says he’ll do something, he means it.”
Iranian state television broadcast the parliament session live.
Mr Qalibaf, a hardliner who has run for the presidency in the past, gave a speech applauding police and Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, particularly its all-volunteer Basij, for having “stood firm” during the protests.
“The people of Iran should know that we will deal with them in the most severe way and punish those who are arrested,” Mr Qalibaf said.
He went on to directly threaten Israel, “the occupied territory” as he referred to it, and the US military, possibly with a pre-emptive strike.
“In the event of an attack on Iran, both the occupied territory and all American military centres, bases and ships in the region will be our legitimate targets,” Mr Qalibaf said.
“We do not consider ourselves limited to reacting after the action and will act based on any objective signs of a threat.”
It remains unclear just how serious Iran is about launching a strike, particularly after seeing its air defences destroyed during the 12-day war in June with Israel.
Any decision to go to war would rest with Iran’s 86-year-old Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
The US military has said in the Middle East it is “postured with forces that span the full range of combat capability to defend our forces, our partners and allies and US interests”.
Meanwhile, an Israeli official said the country was watching the situation between the US and Iran “closely”. And Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke with US secretary of state Marco Rubio overnight on topics including Iran, the official added.
Online videos sent out of Iran, likely using Starlink satellite transmitters, purportedly showed demonstrators gathering in northern Tehran’s Punak district.
There, it appeared authorities shut off streets, with protesters waving their lit mobile phones. Others banged metal while fireworks went off.
Other footage purportedly showed demonstrators peacefully marching down a street and others honking their car horns in the street.
In Mashhad, Iran’s second-largest city, some 450 miles (725km) north-east of Tehran, footage purported to show protesters confronting security forces.
Flaming debris and large rubbish bins could be seen in the street, blocking the road.
Mashhad is home to the Imam Reza shrine, the holiest in Shiite Islam, meaning the protests there carry heavy significance for the country’s theocracy.
Protests also appeared to take place in Kerman, 500 miles (800km) south-east of Tehran.
Iranian state television on Sunday morning took a leaf from the demonstrators, with their correspondents appearing on streets in several cities to show calm areas, with a date stamp shown on screen. Tehran and Mashhad were not included. They also showed pro-government demonstrations in Qom and Qazvin.
Ali Larijani, a top security official, went on state TV to accuse some demonstrators of “killing people or burning some people, which is very similar to what Isis does”, referring to the so-called Islamic State group by an acronym.
State TV aired funerals of dead security force members while reporting another six had been killed in Kermanshah. It also showed a pickup truck full of bodies in body bags and later a morgue.
Even Iran’s reformist president Masoud Pezeshkian, who had been trying to ease anger before the demonstrations exploded in recent days, offered a hardening tone in an interview aired on Sunday.
“People have concerns, we should sit with them and if it is our duty, we should resolve their concerns,” Mr Pezeshkian said.
“But the higher duty is not to allow a group of rioters to come and destroy the entire society.”
Iran’s exiled Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi, who called for protests on Thursday and Friday, asked in his latest message for demonstrators to take to the streets on Saturday and Sunday.
He urged protesters to carry Iran’s old lion-and-sun flag and other national symbols used during the time of the shah to “claim public spaces as your own”.
Mr Pahlavi’s support of and from Israel has drawn criticism in the past — particularly after the 12-day war.
Demonstrators have shouted in support of the shah in some protests, but it is not clear whether that is support for Mr Pahlavi himself or a desire to return to a time before the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
The demonstrations began on December 28 over the collapse of the Iranian rial currency, which trades at over 1.4 million to one US dollar, as the country’s economy is squeezed by international sanctions in part levied over its nuclear programme.
The protests intensified and grew into calls directly challenging Iran’s theocracy.
