Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei accused the US and Israel of supporting the violence, while US President Donald Trump pushed for new leadership in Iran. A file photo. | Photo credit: Stringer/WANA/via REUTERS
Nationwide protests erupted on December 28 over economic hardship and grew over two weeks into widespread demonstrations calling for the end of administrative rule – resulting in the deadliest unrest since Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution.
US President Donald Trump has repeatedly threatened to intervene if protesters were killed or executed in the streets. In a post on social media on Friday, he thanked Tehran’s leaders and said they had called off planned executions of 800 people.
A day later, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei branded Trump a “criminal” in a public speech for the casualties he has inflicted on Iran by supporting protesters.
“We will not drag the country into war, but we will not allow domestic or international criminals to go unpunished,” Khamenei said, acknowledging “several thousand deaths” that he blamed on “terrorists and rioters” linked to the US and Israel.
The Iranian judiciary has indicated that executions can continue.
“A series of actions have been identified as Mohareb, which is one of the harshest Islamic punishments,” Asghar Jahangir, spokesman for Iran’s judiciary, said at a news conference on Sunday.
Mohareb, an Islamic legal term meaning war against God, is punishable by death under Iranian law.
Trump said in an interview with Politico on Saturday: “it is time to look for new leadership in Iran.”
US-based rights group HRANA said on Saturday the death toll had reached 3,308, with another 4,382 cases under investigation. It said it had confirmed more than 24,000 arrests.
The Iranian official said the verified death toll was unlikely to “rise sharply,” adding that “Israel and armed groups abroad” had supported and equipped those who took to the streets.
The clerical establishment regularly blames the unrest on foreign enemies, including the US and Israel, an arch-foe of the Islamic Republic that launched military attacks in June.
According to residents and state media, the violent crackdown appears to have largely suppressed the protests.
A Tehran resident said he witnessed riot police shooting directly at a group of protesters, mostly young men and women. Videos circulating on social media, some of which have been verified by Reuters, show security forces violently suppressing demonstrations across the country.
HIGHEST DEATH TOLL IN KURDISH AREAS
The Iranian official, who declined to be named due to the sensitivity of the issue, also said some of the heaviest clashes and highest number of deaths occurred in Iranian Kurdish areas in the country’s northwest.
Kurdish separatists have been active there and flare-ups have been among the most violent in previous periods of unrest.
Three sources told Reuters on January 14 that armed Kurdish separatist groups were trying to cross the border into Iran from Iraq, in a sign that foreign entities may want to take advantage of the instability.
“I am against this regime and have participated in protests, but I witnessed some armed individuals, disguised as protesters, shooting at civilians. They were not ordinary protesters, they were carrying guns and knives,” an Iranian in a northwestern city told Reuters on condition of anonymity.
Norway-based Iranian Kurdish rights group Hengaw has said some of the worst clashes during the protests that broke out in late December took place in Kurdish areas in the northwest.
Obtaining information from Iran is made more difficult by internet disruptions, which were partially lifted a few hours earlier on Saturday. But internet monitoring group NetBlocks said the blackout appeared to have been reimposed later.
Faizan Ali, a 40-year-old doctor from Lahore, said he had to interrupt his trip to Iran to visit his Iranian wife in the central city of Isfahan because “there was no internet or communication with my family in Pakistan”.
“I saw a violent mob setting fire to buildings, banks and cars. I also witnessed one person stabbing a passer-by,” he told Reuters when he returned to Lahore.
Published on January 18, 2026
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