Iran’s supreme leader vows to crack down on protesters, blames Trump

BEIRUT — Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei delivered a defiant speech on Friday, castigating protesters as “saboteurs” and insisting the Islamic Republic “will not step back” even as the country faces a complete communications blackout amid growing anti-government demonstrations.

Speaking before a crowd chanting “Death to America” ​​at regular intervals, Khamenei accused the protesters of working on behalf of President Trump and said they were acting “like mercenaries for foreigners.”

“Last night in Tehran, a bunch of vandals came and destroyed buildings that belonged to them to please the US president,” he said, adding that Trump’s hands were “stained with the blood of thousands of Iranians.”

In recent days, Trump has vowed to attack Iran’s government if government personnel kill protesters, and he repeated that threat in an interview with Fox News late Thursday.

“If they do this, there will be hell to pay,” Trump said, adding that “the enthusiasm for overthrowing this regime is incredible.”

Khamenei said that Trump’s statements “emboldened the rebels and elements hostile to the nation” and that Trump “will be overthrown”.

“We [Trump] If Khamenei was truly capable of governing his own country, he said, he would deal with the country’s numerous internal crises.

Kurdish protesters gathered in Erbil, Iraq, on Friday in a powerful show of cross-border solidarity with the besieged Kurdish population in Aleppo, Syria, and those facing repression in Iran.

(via Rashid Sabur Othman / Abaca Press, Sipa USA, Associated Press)

The unrest began a few weeks ago when traders and shopkeepers protested the rapidly falling value of the local currency, the rial.

Protests have since spread to all 31 provinces of the country, amid widespread anger over what many see as government corruption and mismanagement of the economy. According to the Norway-based Iran Human Rights NGO, at least 51 protesters have been killed since the protests began in late December.

According to human rights groups, Khamenei’s aggressive speech followed a tense Thursday evening when demonstrations increased in the country’s major cities; these demonstrations were apparently responding to a call for protest by exiled Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi, whose father, the Shah, was expelled in the 1979 Iranian revolution.

This still, taken from video taken by a person who does not work for The Associated Press and obtained by the AP outside Iran, shows people blocking an intersection during a protest in Tehran on Thursday.

(UGC via Associated Press)

The video, published by the semi-official Tasnim News Agency, depicted burning buildings and scenes of destruction said to have been caused by “terrorists”. Other state-run media showed vehicles, including cars and motorcycles, being set on fire and damage to subway stations.

A resident of central Tehran sent footage of crowds supporting Pahlavi and chanting “death to the dictator” on a street near his home.

“Pahlavi is returning. Death to Khamenei!” people chanted slogans. According to internet watchdog Netblocks, the country suffered an internet blackout shortly after this message was received.

Although the reason for the outage is unclear, Netblocks said it occurred following “increased digital censorship measures” implemented by the government against the protests.

Previous rounds of popular unrest have also seen the government shut down communications, often as a prelude to an all-out crackdown.

Netblocks confirmed early Friday that the internet outage in Iran lasted more than 12 hours. Landline calls to people in Iran also failed to connect. Meanwhile, airline websites show that airlines in Türkiye and the United Arab Emirates have canceled flights to and from Tehran and other cities.

Pahlavi, one of the separatist figures of the Iranian opposition, has been lobbying the United States for years to make regime change in his own country and re-establish the monarchy as its leader. On Friday, he posted another video speech on the X platform, encouraging more people to join the protests to break the “repressive power of the regime.”

“Be assured that victory is yours,” he said.

The protests are the largest anti-government actions since nationwide demonstrations in 2022 following the death in police custody of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, an Iranian Kurdish woman, but have not yet reached an equal scale.

The Human Rights Activists News Agency, a group based in the United States but relying on activists in Iran, reported a spike in arrests as authorities tried to quell public anger.

The government’s rhetoric has oscillated between soothing and angry; Condemning “rioters” while also accepting criticism as legitimate – perhaps one reason observers say authorities have yet to use full force against demonstrators.

Protesters show photos of Iran’s exiled crown prince Reza Pahlavi at a demonstration in Berlin on Friday in support of nationwide mass protests against the government in Iran.

(Ebrahim Noroozi / Associated Press)

But this stance may have already changed. Iran’s Defense Council, formed last June after a 12-day war with Israel and the United States, vowed earlier this week to take tougher action against protesters. It was a phrase repeated by Khamenei on Friday.

“Everyone should know that the Islamic Republic, which came to power with the blood of hundreds of thousands of honorable people, will not step back against those who destroyed the Islamic Republic,” he said. “It has no tolerance for foreigners with money.”