Iranians defy intensifying crackdown as Donald Trump weighs options

Iranians defied an intensifying crackdown to take to the streets as the death toll from two weeks of nationwide protests rose and US President Donald Trump weighed whether to intervene in the Islamic republic.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian on Sunday said the government would “sit and listen” to people’s concerns, but also blamed “rioters” and the US and Israel for stoking the protests.

“It is our responsibility to solve their concerns. But the higher responsibility is to not allow a group of rioters to come and destroy the entire society,” he said in an interview on Iranian television. “These are not people. They are not from this country.”  

Estimates by activist groups for the number of those killed varied from almost 200 to more than 500, including dozens of security forces, since the protests erupted in late December. Thousands have also been detained, they said. Videos posted online purported to show protesters continuing to take to the streets on Sunday.

It was not possible to verify the information. Iran has been cut off from the outside world since Thursday after the regime imposed a near-total internet blackout.

The unrest poses the greatest domestic threat to the Islamic regime in years, while US media reported that the Trump administration was considering military options in response to the protests.

Karoline Leavitt, White House press secretary, told the FT on Sunday that Trump had been “considering many options for days” regarding Iran and a meeting had been “scheduled” for Tuesday with senior advisers. 

The US president has repeatedly said Washington was ready to come to the “rescue” of Iranians if the authorities there kill protesters. “Iran is looking at FREEDOM, perhaps like never before,” Trump said on Saturday on social media. “The USA stands ready to help!!!”

Washington has not deployed additional troops or jets to the region so far, according to a US defence official. The US is also without an aircraft carrier in the region, according to the defence official and a Navy official.

The USS Gerald R Ford, the largest and most advanced American aircraft carrier, left the Mediterranean Sea in November for the Caribbean Sea to focus on Venezuela.

The US had six warships, including three guided-missile destroyers, in the Gulf as of January 5, according to a tracker from the US Naval Institute.

Iran’s speaker of parliament, Mohammad Baqer Ghalibaf, on Sunday warned the US against “a miscalculation”.

“Let us be clear: in the case of an attack on Iran, the occupied territories [Israel] as well as all US bases and ships will be our legitimate target,” he told parliament.

The US has multiple bases in the region. In June, Tehran fired missiles at an American base in Qatar to retaliate for Trump’s decision to bomb the republic’s main nuclear plants after he briefly joined Israel’s 12-day war against Iran.

The unrest comes as the Islamic republic is at its most vulnerable in years, with leaders facing intensifying internal and domestic pressures and a desperate and angry population.

Tehran’s state prosecutor has warned that people who attack public buildings and security forces with weapons will face the charge of waging war against God, which can carry a death penalty.

Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Eje’i, chief justice of Iran, said on Sunday that “special branches” were being set up across the country with judges to deal with cases rapidly. 

State-affiliated media has said hundreds of people have been arrested in the unrest, which escalated on Thursday, the start of the Iranian weekend.

The governor of Isfahan said on Sunday that 30 security personnel had been killed in that province since the protests erupted, Iranian state TV reported.

The authorities have accused “armed groups” of attacking “public and private property in several provinces, causing extensive damage”, including at mosques.

The demonstrations were triggered by economic grievances as shopkeepers in Tehran shuttered their stores to protest against soaring prices. Those protests have since swollen into nationwide anti-regime demonstrations.

Pezeshkian, who came to power 18 months ago vowing to reform the economy, initially sought to placate the demonstrators. But as the protests intensified, the authorities have stepped up their warnings.

“This is uncharted territory for the Islamic republic as they have organic, bottom-up pressure, with segments of the society that were historically the backbone of the republic protesting, which has mushroomed into something much bigger,” said Ellie Geranmayeh at the European Council on Foreign Relations.

The protests are the most serious domestic threat to the regime since 2022, when Mahsa Amini was arrested for allegedly improperly wearing a hijab and died in custody. More than 300 people were killed in a backlash against those demonstrations, according to Amnesty International.

During the 12-day war in June, Israeli forces assassinated Iran’s top military commanders and nuclear scientists, destroyed its air defences and — along with the US — bombed its nuclear facilities.

Iranians rallied around the flag during Israel’s attack, as the foreign assault triggered a sense of nationalism that overcame people’s disillusionment with their leaders. But social and economic grievances have continued to fester as the rial has lost more than 40 per cent of its value since the war, exacerbating runaway inflation.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has issued various calls for the Iranian people to rise up against the regime over the past two years, said on Sunday that Israel was “closely following what is happening in Iran”.

Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, on Sunday condemned what she described as “the violent repression of these legitimate demonstrations”.

“Those responsible will be remembered on the wrong side of history,” she added. “As the repression intensifies, and the loss of innocent lives continues, we are monitoring the situation carefully.”

Additional reporting by James Shotter in Jerusalem and Henry Foy in Brussels