US military warns Trump against Iran strikes

The nationwide protests started in Tehran's Grand Bazaar against the failing economic policies in late December, which spread to universities and other cities, and included economic slogans, to political and anti-government ones. Photo / Mahsa, Middle East Images, AFP

Donald Trump has been warned that the US military needs more time to prepare for strikes against Iran, as another night of protests rocked the country.

The US President is said to be contemplating military action and has been presented with a range of targets, including elements of the security services responsible for the bloody crackdown on demonstrations.

But commanders in the region have told officials that they need to “consolidate US military positions and prepare defences” before carrying out any strikes that could trigger retaliation.

Trump has threatened to “get involved” in the unrest threatening to topple the Iranian regime, warning that he would hit Iran “very, very hard, where it hurts” if security forces continued killing protesters.

He has been briefed on options that include striking non-military targets in Tehran or elements of the regime’s security apparatus.

Protests continued overnight and are now said to be more intense and widespread than the 2022 hijab demonstrations. Around 192 people have now been killed, rights groups said on Sunday morning, though the true toll is obscured by an internet blackout.

Footage emerged on Sunday morning purporting to show live ammunition being used against protesters in the town of Abyek, northwest of Tehran.

Senior regime officials suggested that protesters should face the death penalty, while another likened them to terrorists.

On Sunday, Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, Iran’s parliamentary speaker, warned the White House against a “miscalculation”.

“Let us be clear: in the case of an attack on Iran, the occupied territories [Israel] as well as all US bases and ships will be our legitimate targets,” said the former commander in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

Two American C-17A military transport planes departed Germany and appeared to be heading for the Middle East on Saturday evening, as speculation mounted about a potential strike.

The New York Times quoted US officials as saying that any military action would need to be carefully weighed to avoid galvanising public support for the regime.

Israel’s military is reportedly on high alert in the event of a US strike. Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly warned in recent weeks that he would not allow Iran to rebuild its nuclear or ballistic missile programmes.

The IDF could support US airstrikes as an opportunity to destroy its own list of targets. However, even if Israel chose not to take offensive action alongside the US, Iran would still be likely to fire missiles at the Jewish state.

Iran and its international supporters have claimed that the protests were incited as part of a “Zionist” plot.

On Saturday night, demonstrations again defied the crackdown, with thousands taking to the streets despite reports that hundreds have been killed by security forces in the past three days. Hospitals are said to be overwhelmed with patients suffering gunshot wounds.

Videos posted on social media showed large crowds in several cities, including Tehran and Mashhad in the east, where vehicles were set ablaze.

The footage emerged despite a near-total internet shutdown, which has rendered communication with the outside world largely impossible.

The blackout “is now past the 60-hour mark ... The censorship measure presents a direct threat to the safety and wellbeing of Iranians at a key moment for the country’s future”, monitoring group NetBlocks said early on Sunday.

Iran’s Attorney-General said anyone protesting would be considered an “enemy of God”, an offence punishable by death.

Ahmad-Reza Radan, the national police chief, said authorities made “significant” arrests on Saturday night, without giving details.

Ali Larijani, Iran’s security chief, distinguished between protests over economic hardship – which he called “completely understandable” – and “riots”, accusing the latter of using methods “very similar to terrorist groups”, according to Tasnim news agency.

The protests, initially triggered by rampant inflation, are thought to have spread to more than 100 cities and towns across all of Iran’s provinces.

Israeli intelligence officials told Hebrew-language media that the unrest has now surpassed the 2022 hijab protests in both scale and intensity.

Protesters are now openly calling for an end to the clerical rule of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader.

Kemi Badenoch suggested on Sunday that she could support Western military intervention to help the protesters against Iran’s leaders.

In an interview with the BBC, she said: “Iran would very happily wipe out the UK if it thought it could get away with it. It’s tried to kill people on our soil, it is an enemy.

“It calls us the Little Satan, so no, I don’t have an issue with removing a regime that is trying to harm us. It has its terrorist outpost with Hezbollah all across the world.”

Asked about the possibility of a Western intervention, she said the situation was hypothetical but “the calculation always has to be about our national interest”.

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