Iranian authorities have signaled they could intensify their crackdown on the largest anti-government demonstrations in years, with the Revolutionary Guard blaming the unrest on terrorists and vowing to protect the government system.
A day after US President Donald Trump issued a new warning that the United States could intervene, there were new reports of violence across the country, although an internet outage made it difficult to gauge the full extent of the unrest.
The exiled son of Iran’s last shah, who has emerged as a prominent voice in the fragmented opposition, made his strongest call yet for the protests to grow into an uprising that would topple clerical rulers.
State media said a municipal building in Karaj, west of Tehran, was set on fire and blamed it on “rioters.”
State television broadcast images of funerals of security force members they say were killed in protests in the cities of Shiraz, Qom and Hamedan.
Footage posted on social media showed large crowds gathering in Tehran and fires being lit in the streets overnight.
In a video of a nighttime protest in Tehran’s Saadatabad neighborhood, a man is heard saying that the crowd has taken over the area.
“The crowd is coming. ‘Death to the dictator,’ ‘Death to Khamenei,'” he said, referring to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Reuters news agency has verified the locations of the videos.
Since December 28, protests have spread across Iran. They began in response to rising inflation and quickly turned political, with demonstrators demanding an end to clerical rule.
Authorities accuse the US and Israel of fomenting unrest.
Iranian rights group HRANA says at least 50 protesters and 15 security personnel have been killed and 2,300 arrested.
A witness in western Iran reached by telephone said the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) had been deployed and opened fire in the area from which the witness was speaking, but declined to be identified for security reasons.
The Tasnim news agency reported the arrest of a hundred “armed rioters” in the city of Baharestan, near Tehran.
The IRGC’s intelligence wing said it had arrested a foreigner suspected of spying for Israel, the news agency reported on Saturday.
In a statement broadcast by state television, the IRGC – an elite force that has suppressed previous attacks of unrest – accused “terrorists” of attacking military and law enforcement bases over the past two nights.
Several civilians and security personnel were said to have been killed and public and private property set on fire.
Securing the achievements of the Islamic Revolution and maintaining security was a “red line”, it added.
The regular army also issued a statement saying it would “protect and safeguard the national interests, the country’s strategic infrastructure and public assets.”
Iran’s rulers have endured repeated periods of unrest, including student protests in 1999, over a disputed election in 2009, against economic hardship in 2019 and in 2022 over the death in custody of a woman accused of violating dress codes.
A doctor in northwestern Iran said large numbers of injured protesters have been taken to hospitals since Friday.
Some were severely beaten, suffered head injuries, had their legs and arms broken and had deep cuts.
At least twenty people in one hospital had been shot with live ammunition, five of whom later died.
The IRGC’s public relations office said three members of the Basij security force were killed and five injured during clashes with what it described as “armed rioters” in Gachsaran, south-west.
Another security officer was stabbed to death in Hamedan, western Iran.
The son of a senior officer, the late Brigadier Nourali Shoushtari, was killed in the Ahmadabad area of Mashhad, in the northeast.
Two other security personnel were killed over the past two nights in Shushtar, Khuzestan province.
Authorities have described the protests over the economy as legitimate while condemning the violent rioters over the past two weeks.
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