Tehran [Iran], January 11 (ANI): Iran’s parliamentary speaker, Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, warned that Tehran would view US military and commercial bases as “legitimate targets” for retaliation if Washington intervenes militarily amid continuing unrest in the country.
“If the US takes military action towards Iran or the occupied territories, the US military and shipping centres will be considered legitimate targets,” Qalibaf said. “We do not limit ourselves to only reacting after an action has been taken,” he added.
Qalibaf’s remarks came after United States President Donald Trump reiterated his threat to attack Iran if authorities used force to suppress a growing wave of nationwide protests triggered by public frustration against the government.
Trump said on Friday (local time) that the situation in Iran is being monitored very closely and expressed hope that protestors remain safe, warning that if protestors were killed, the US would get involved and would hit the country where it hurts.
Trump made the remarks while responding to media questions during a meeting with top oil and gas executives at the White House.
“Iran’s in big trouble. It looks to me that the people are taking over certain cities that nobody thought were really possible. We’re watching the situation very carefully. I made the statement very strongly that if they start killing people as they have in the past, we will get involved. We will be hitting them very hard where it hurts, and that doesn’t mean boots on the ground, but it means hitting them very hard where it hurts, so we don’t want that to happen,” Trump said.
He further described the developments as “pretty incredible” and said the authorities had “treated their people very badly,” adding, “But this is something pretty incredible that is happening in Iran. It’s an amazing thing to watch. They’ve done a bad job; they have treated their people very badly, and now they are being paid back, so let’s see what happens. We are watching it very closely”.
On the protestors, Trump said, “I just hope the protestors in Iran are going to be safe because it is a very dangerous place right now, and again I tell the Iranian leaders you better not start shooting because we’ll start shooting too”.
As the protests intensified, policy research organisation Institute for the Study of War said protest activity in Iran has expanded dramatically in both rate and magnitude since January 7, including in major cities like Tehran and in northwestern Iran.
The think tank said the regime has also intensified its crackdown, including by taking the rare step of using the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) Ground Forces to suppress protests in at least one province.
Against this backdrop, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei accused the US administration of being behind the large-scale protests in Iran.
Speaking at a public event on January 9, Khamenei said the protesters were acting to please the President of America.
“There are also those whose work is destruction. Last night in Tehran, and in some other places, a bunch of vandals came and destroyed a building belonging to their own country. For example, suppose they destroyed a certain building or a wall, just to please the President of America. Because he said… some irrelevant nonsense… that “if the government of Iran does such and such, I will come to the side… I will take your side. The side of these rioters and individuals who are harmful to the country. These people have their hopes pinned on him. If he can, let him manage his own country! In his own country, various incidents are occurring,” Khamenei was reported as saying by Iranian state media.
Accusing Trump of arrogance, Khamenei said despots are deposed at the peak of their pride.
“Our nation does not tolerate mercenaryism for foreigners. Whoever you may be, once you become a mercenary for a foreigner, once you work for a foreigner, the nation considers you rejected. As for that fellow (Trump) who sits there with arrogance and pride, passing judgment on the whole world, he should also know that usually, the despots and arrogant powers of the world–such as Pharaoh, Nimrod, Reza Khan, Mohammad Reza, and the likes of them–were overthrown exactly when they were at the peak of their pride. This one will be overthrown as well,” Khamenei said, as quoted by Iranian state media.
Protests have spread across Iran since late December, with increasing calls for ending the clerical system in place since the 1979 Islamic revolution.
Human rights groups urged restraint amid reports of deaths and mass arrests, with Iran Human Rights stating that at least 51 protesters, including nine children, were killed by security forces and hundreds more were injured, Al Jazeera reported.
Iran’s Tasnim news agency reported on Saturday that at least 200 “riot” leaders were arrested.
Amnesty International criticised a “blanket internet shutdown” imposed by Iranian authorities, saying it was aimed at “hide the true extent of the grave human rights violations and crimes under international law they are carrying out to crush” the protests.
On Saturday, Iran’s attorney general Mohammad Movahedi Azad warned that anyone joining the protests would be considered an “enemy of God”, a charge that carries the death penalty, state television reported.
Al Jazeera reported that Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) also warned that safeguarding the 1979 revolution’s achievements and the country’s security was a “red line”, according to state TV.
As political voices outside Iran also weighed in, Reza Pahlavi, the US-based son of Iran’s deposed Shah, urged Iranians to organise more targeted protests aimed at taking and holding city centres.
“Our goal is no longer just to take to the streets. The goal is to prepare to seize and hold city centres,” he said in a video message on social media, calling for protests on Saturday and Sunday.
Iranian authorities, however, continued to describe demonstrators as disruptive, with Khamenei describing demonstrators as “vandals”.
In a speech broadcast on Press TV, Khamenei said Trump’s hands “are stained with the blood of more than a thousand Iranians”, in an apparent reference to Israel’s attacks on Iran in June, which the US supported and joined with strikes of its own.
“Everyone knows the Islamic Republic came to power with the blood of hundreds of thousands of honourable people; it will not back down in the face of saboteurs,” he said.
Iranian Minister of Foreign Affairs Abbas Araghchi accused the US and Israel of “directly intervening” to try to “transform the peaceful protests into divisive and violent ones”, claims a US Department of State spokesperson called “delusional”.
Al Jazeera reported that the demonstrations are the largest in Iran since the 2022-2023 protest movement triggered by the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, who was arrested for allegedly violating Iran’s strict dress code for women.
It added that while the demonstrations have been sporadic, they have expanded in recent days, particularly in Tehran.
“The state response started by recognising the right of people to peacefully protest, but as the situation started to escalate, the state has been trying to draw a line between protesters and what the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei called ‘saboteurs’ – against whom, he said, the Islamic Republic will not give in,” it reported.
“Public dissatisfaction exists – whether or not people take to the streets. Many here are now watching to see how the government responds, not just to the protests, but to the economic hardships that they are facing in their daily lives,” it added.
The government has sought to control the situation by tightening security measures and introducing a monthly subsidy of about USD 7 for low-income people struggling to cover daily essentials. (ANI)