People gather at Enghelab Square after a government call to rally against recent protests across the country, chanting anti-US and anti-Israel slogans, in Tehran, Iran. Photo / Getty Images
US President Donald Trump has told Iranian protesters that “help is on its way” as he considers strikes against the Islamic Republic.
Writing on his Truth Social page, Trump warned that the regime’s “killers and abusers” would “pay a big price” for their actions.
“Iranian patriots, keep protesting – take over your institutions!!!... Help is on its way,” he said.
Asked later what he had meant by “help is on its way”, Trump told reporters: “You’re going to have to figure that one out. I’m sorry.”
Senior national security and military officials met in Washington on Tuesday to discuss the Iranian regime’s violent crackdown. It has led to the deaths of an estimated 2000 civilians, according to an Iranian official speaking to Reuters.
It is understood that airstrikes on targets including military bases, nuclear sites and even Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, remain on the table.
Other options include cyber attacks to disrupt regime communications, restoring internet connectivity for protesters via Elon Musk’s Starlink, placing further sanctions on the country’s oil industry and those who do business with Tehran, and boosting anti-government sources online.
The US has deployed F-35s, bombers, and tankers to Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar amid the rising tensions.
Amid fears of an imminent attack, US citizens in Iran were told to consider leaving Iran “by land to Armenia or Turkey”.
Yvette Cooper, the UK Foreign Secretary, said she had summoned the Iranian ambassador over the “horrific reports”, with hospitals turning into “rivers of blood”, and further sanctions would be enforced on the country.
After his online comments, Trump later told a rally in Detroit that the leaders of Iran were “monsters”, and warned the regime would “pay a very big price” for firing at civilians.
Ali Larijani, the secretary of Iran’s supreme national security council, responded to the US President’s Truth Social post by claiming that the “main killers of the people of Iran are: one, Trump, two, Netanyahu”.
Tens of thousands of people have been arrested so far during the unrest, which is now in its third week. Iran’s security police said 297 “thugs and hooligans” had been detained on Tuesday, with authorities claiming that two were killed and 17 wounded.
Regime officials also claimed that protesters killed security forces using “war weapons, hunting rifles, knives, axes, and blades” in violence so extreme that some bodies could not be identified.
Ahmad Mousavi, the head of Iran’s Martyrs Foundation, a government body that provides benefits to the families of those killed serving the Islamic Republic, said: “The level of violence from terrorist and armed groups was so high that the country sacrificed many martyrs.”
Medics inside Iran told the Telegraph that hospitals, clinics, and pharmacies had been overwhelmed, with injured protesters and dead bodies arriving “around the clock”.
Doctors are working for days without sleep, and some have collapsed from overwork as the healthcare system buckles amid mass casualties and chronic understaffing.
One doctor from a city near Tehran said: “Dead bodies and injured people – men, women and children – are arriving in trucks, ambulances and private cars. We cannot help everyone. Many died because we could not even visit them.
“People are bringing bloodied loved ones on their shoulders. Our staff are exhausted. I have not slept for days. Some of my colleagues have collapsed. We have shortages of everything. There are rivers of blood in hospitals here.”
Graphic footage obtained by the Telegraph showed overcrowded wards, pellet-riddled female corpses and medics performing CPR in hospital corridors because wards and operating theatres were full.
Human rights groups have warned that a protester will be executed on Wednesday after joining anti-regime protests.
Erfan Soltani, 26, was detained last Thursday and sentenced to death. His family has been told that he will be executed, although the relatives have been given no information about where it will take place and under what charges.
The Islamic Republic, shaken by the scale of the protests and Trump’s threats to intervene, is expected to make a clear example of protesters.
The regime has accused foreign powers, particularly the US and Israel, of fomenting unrest, and has warned both countries against military action.
The UK Government has warned against all travel to Iran and urged British nationals already in the country to “carefully consider your presence there and the risks you take by staying”.
Speaking in the Commons on Tuesday, Cooper said she had spoken to Abbas Araghchi, Iran’s foreign minister, on Monday and voiced the UK’s “total abhorrence of the killings, the violence and the repression”.
New restrictions would be brought in on “full and further sanctions” in Iran’s oil, energy, nuclear and financial sectors, she added.
Writing for the Telegraph, Sir Ben Wallace, the former Defence Secretary, said: “Now is the time for Britain to act. I don’t mean with boots on the ground, but we do have powerful capabilities.
“We can ensure that information flows. We can use our offensive cyber capabilities to shatter the information shield the mullahs and their lackeys are trying to wrap around the Iranian people. We can cripple the communications of the oppressors.”
Meanwhile, Russia’s foreign ministry described Trump’s threats to intervene as “categorically unacceptable”.
In a statement, it warned that any strikes on Iran would have “disastrous consequences” for the situation in the Middle East and global security. The ministry also criticised what it called “brazen attempts to blackmail Iran’s foreign partners by raising trade tariffs”.
Trump’s warning triggered a surge in the oil price, with Brent crude rising 2.9% to nearly US$66 (NZ$115) a barrel – the highest level since October – and the US-produced West Texas Intermediate hovering above US$61 a barrel.
BP and Shell, the London oil giants, were among the FTSE 100’s biggest winners, up 2.9% and 1.6% respectively, amid hopes of a profit boom.
Gold also remained above the US$4600 threshold after reaching a new record on Monday, as investors took shelter in “safe haven” investments.
European gas prices have also risen by 14% over the past three days following shortage fears.
Iran is the world’s third-largest producer of natural gas, according to the International Energy Agency, behind only Russia and China.
Trump has limited options to strike Iran. They include symbolic strikes on Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps bases or government buildings in Tehran, a sustained bombing campaign targeting domestic security apparatus, communications nodes, and militia facilities throughout Iran, or assassinating Khamenei in the hope of regime change.
A fourth option involves cyber warfare to break Iran’s internet blackout and undermine state propaganda without any kinetic military action.
The US military also faces a fundamental dilemma over any potential air strikes on Iran, with the risk that they could backfire.
Any action designed to weaken the regime could paradoxically strengthen it by validating Tehran’s narrative that protests are foreign-orchestrated, triggering nationalist sentiment.
Iran has a long history of uniting against foreign invasion, and the Islamic Republic has repeatedly exploited that dynamic to legitimise its rule.
A bombing campaign could also spark a civil war, similar to those in Iraq and Libya following previous US interventions.
Sign up to Herald Premium Editor’s Picks, delivered straight to your inbox every Friday. Editor-in-Chief Murray Kirkness picks the week’s best features, interviews and investigations. Sign up for Herald Premium here.