Iran warns Donald Trump against attack as protest death toll reportedly soars

At least 538 people have been killed in the violence surrounding demonstrations, according to the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRNA), including 490 protesters. 

Iran has warned the US not to attack over protests that have rocked the country, as Donald Trump weighed the options for a response from Washington, with the reported death toll from the demonstrations soaring to the hundreds.

At least 538 people have been killed in the violence surrounding demonstrations, according to the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRNA), including 490 protesters. 

The group reported that more than 10,600 people were arrested by Iranian authorities.

Another rights monitor, the US-based Iran Human Rights group said on Sunday that at least 192 protesters had been killed. 

Casualty figures varied between rights groups as they struggled to access people within Iran amid the internet blackout in the country, but all are expected to be undercounts. The regime has not supplied its own figures and it was not possible to independently verify them.

The drastic rise in the reported death toll came as authorities intensified their crackdown on the protests, now in their second week. Rights groups were struggling to reach contacts within Iran due to a complete internet shutdown in the country, and warned that the death toll was likely to climb even further.

The brutal crackdown has raised the likelihood of US intervention, with Mr Trump saying he would “rescue” protesters if the Iranian government killed them. He reiterated his threat to intervene on Saturday night as the protests raged. 

“Iran is looking at FREEDOM, perhaps like never before. The USA stands ready to help!!!,” the US president said on the Truth Social platform.

The Wall Street Journal reported that Mr Trump was to be briefed by his team on Tuesday on options including military strikes, using secret cyber weapons, widening sanctions and providing online help to anti-government sources.Iranian officials bristled at the prospect of a US strike, with the speaker of parliament warning that Israel and US interests in the Middle East would be “legitimate targets” if Washington struck Iran.

“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,” Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf said.

Downfall

The Iranian president, Masoud Pezeshkian, accused the US and Israel of being behind unrest in the country, saying they had brought in “terrorists” who were attacking public property. 

“Families, I ask you: do not allow your young children to join rioters and terrorists who behead people and kill others,” Mr Pezeshkian said in a TV interview, appearing to adopt a harder line against demonstrations.

The protest movement in Iran is the most significant unrest the country has experienced in years. Though triggered initially by a sudden slide in the country’s currency, protesters soon demanded political reform and called for the downfall of the government.

Iran’s regime has weathered mass protest movements before, but analysts say the current unrest is happening because the government has been weakened by an economic crisis and in the aftermath of its summer war with Israel.

Iranian authorities have arrested key members of the protest movement, the national police chief has said. “Last night, significant arrests were made of the main elements in the riots, who, God willing, will be punished after going through legal procedures,” the police chief, Ahmad-Reza Radan, told state TV on Sunday, without specifying the number of those arrested.