Trump considering ‘very strong’ military options against Iran as protest death toll climbs to 538
In this frame grab from footage circulating on social media shows protesters dancing and cheering around a bonfire as they take to the streets despite an intensifying crackdown as the Islamic Republic remains cut off from the rest of the world, in Tehran, Iran, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026. Picture: UGC via AP
Donald Trump has claimed Iran has reached out and proposed negotiations, as he considers “very strong” military action against the regime over a deadly crackdown on protesters that has reportedly killed hundreds.
Asked on Sunday by reporters aboard Air Force One if Iran had crossed his previously stated red line of protesters being killed, Mr Trump said, “They’re starting to, it looks like.” “We’re looking at it very seriously,” the US president said. “The military is looking at it, and we’re looking at some very strong options. We’ll make a determination.”
As tensions rise, and against a backdrop of the US plucking Nicolás Maduro out of Venezuela, Trump said Iran had proposed negotiations. “I think they’re tired of being beat up by the United States,” he said. “Iran wants to negotiate.”
At least 538 people have been killed in the violence surrounding demonstrations, according to the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency, including 490 protesters. The group reported that more than 10,600 people were arrested by Iranian authorities.
Another rights monitor, the Norway-based Iran Human Rights group, said on Sunday 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 brutal crackdown has raised the likelihood of US intervention, with Trump saying he would “rescue” protesters if the Iranian government killed them. He reiterated his threat to intervene on Saturday night. “Iran is looking at FREEDOM, perhaps like never before. The USA stands ready to help!!!” he said on Truth Social.
In response, the Iranian parliament speaker, Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, warned Washington against “a miscalculation”, saying that Israel and US interests in the Middle East would be “legitimate targets”.
“Let us be clear: in the case of an attack on Iran, the occupied territories as well as all US bases and ships will be our legitimate target,” said Mr Qalibaf, a former commander in Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards.
Mr Trump is reportedly weighing a range of options, including military strikes, secret cyber weapons, widening sanctions and providing online help to anti-government sources.
Meanwhile, Reza Pahlavi, the US-based son of Iran’s ousted shah, on Sunday urged Iranian security forces and government employees to join the swelling protest movement.
“Employees of state institutions, as well as members of the armed and security forces, have a choice: stand with the people and become allies of the nation, or choose complicity with the murderers of the people,” Mr Pahlavi posted on social media.
Iran’s president, Masoud Pezeshkian, accused arch-foes of Iran of “trying to escalate this unrest” and bringing “terrorists from abroad into the country”, in an interview broadcast on Sunday by state media.
Mr Pezeshkian urged people to join a “national resistance march” on Monday to denounce the violence, state television reported.
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.
Iranian authorities had arrested key members of the protest movement, the national police chief said on Sunday. “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, without specifying the number of those arrested.
Iran’s attorney general had said earlier that those who were caught protesting, or even helping protesters, could be charged with being “an enemy of God” – which is punished with the death penalty.
Israeli officials said they were on high alert for any US intervention in Iran, with Israeli media reporting that they are remaining silent on the issue to avoid allowing Iranian authorities to cast the protest movement as foreign-backed.
Authorities cut off internet access in the country on Thursday, imposing a nearly impenetrable nationwide blackout. Human rights groups said Iranian authorities had used the cover of the internet shutdown to expand their crackdown against protesters, using deadly force and live ammunition to disperse demonstrations.
Messages and videos trickle out of Iran sporadically, mainly ferried by activists who have Starlink satellite internet services.
A protester in the central Iranian city of Sari, according to messages forwarded via the US-based Abdorrahman Boroumand Foundation, said security forces had placed the city under complete martial law.
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