President Donald Trump on Friday warned the Iranian regime against killing peaceful protesters, saying that the U.S. was “Locked and loaded and ready to go.” If the regime “kills peaceful protesters,” the U.S. will “come to their rescue,” he wrote on his Truth Social.
The warning comes as several demonstrators were reported killed by the regime forces as protests entered their sixth day. Protests, which began in Tehran, have spread to cities across Iran.
The BBC, on Friday, reported of “running battles between protesters and security forces,” as the Mullah regime faces the biggest public unrest in three years.
“At least seven people have been killed so far in violence surrounding the demonstrations, which were sparked in part by the collapse of Iran’s rial currency but have increasingly seen crowds chanting anti-government slogans,” the Associated Press noted.
Reuters reported President Trump’s remarks:
U.S. President Donald Trump threatened on Friday to come to the aid of protesters in Iran if security forces fire on them, days into unrest that has left several dead and posed the biggest internal threat to Iranian authorities in years.
“We are locked and loaded and ready to go,” he said in a social media post. The United States struck Iranian nuclear facilities in June, joining an Israeli air campaign that targeted Tehran’s atomic programme and military leadership. (…)
The comments came as a local official in western Iran where several deaths were reported was cited by state media as warning that any unrest or illegal gatherings would be met “decisively and without leniency”, raising the likelihood of escalation.
This week’s protests over soaring inflation have spread across Iran, with deadly confrontations between demonstrators and security forces focused in western provinces.
The Iranian regime responded to President Trump’s remarks with open threats.
Ali Larijani, a close confidant of Iran’s so-called ‘Supreme Leader’ Ayatollah Khamenei, accused the U.S. President of “adventurism” and told him to “take care of their own soldiers,” in an apparent reference to the regime’s growing ballistic and long-range missile arsenal.
Another top adviser to Iran’s Ayatollah, Ali Shamkhani, vowed to “cut … any interventionist hand that gets too close to the security” of the Shia-Islamic regime.
Protests began after the Iranian currency collapsed against the dollar last weekend, a direct result of President Trump’s policy of ‘Maximum Pressure’ on the regime. “The unrest began with a merchants’ strike in Tehran on December 28 against the severe economic crisis gripping the country, which has seen the value of its currency plummet to an all-time low, while inflation soared to over 40% in December,” German state-TV Deutsche Welle reported Friday. “The Iranian economy has struggled for years due to Western sanctions over Iran’s nuclear program.”
Protests, which were first triggered by the crashing currency, have turned into a nationwide anti-regime unrest, with demonstrators calling for an end to the 46-year-long Islamist rule and restoration of the monarchy. “Although protests took root in economic issues, demonstrator chants against Iran’s theocracy have been heard,” France24 TV channel reported.
The Iranian regime is well advised to take the U.S. warning seriously. President Trump recently ordered airstrikes against the Islamic State terrorist group in Syria and Nigeria.
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