Trump warns US will intervene if Iran kills protesters

US PresidentDonald Trump has warned Iran’s authorities against killing peaceful demonstrators, saying Washington “will come to their rescue”.

In a short post on social media, he wrote: “We are locked and loaded and ready to go.” He gave no further details.

A senior adviser to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei responded by saying Trump should “be cautious” if he intervened, warning of potential chaos across the Middle East.

At least eight people are reported to have been killed in Iran after almost a week of mass protests sparked by deteriorating economic conditions.

In Friday’s post on Truth Social, Trump wrote: “If Iran shoots [sic] and violently kills peaceful demonstrators, which is their custom, the United States of America will come to their rescue.”

In his post, the US President did not specify what action Washington could take against the Iranian authorities.

In June, the US conducted strikes against Iran’s nuclear sites on Trump’s orders.

American officials later argued that the strikes had significantly set back the prospect of Tehran building a nuclear weapon—a claim disputed by Iran.

In retaliation, Iran launched a missile attack on a major US military base in Qatar.

Shortly after Trump’s latest social media post, Khamenei adviser Ali Larijani issued a warning of his own.

“Trump should know that US intervention in this internal matter would mean destabilizing the entire region and destroying America’s interests,” he wrote.

In Iran, six people were reported to have been killed on a fifth day of demonstrations on Thursday.

Two people died in clashes between demonstrators and security forces in the south-western city of Lordegan, according to the semi-official Fars news agency and the human rights group Hengaw.

Three people were killed in Azna and another in Kooohdasht, all in the west of the country, Fars reports.

Fars did not specify whether those killed were protesters or members of the security forces.

Hengaw said the two killed in Lordegan were protesters, naming them as Ahmad Jalil and Sajjad Valamanesh.

One death was reported in Fuladshahr, central Iraq, and another victim in Marvdasht, in the south.

BBC hasn’t been able to independently verify the deaths.

Footage posted on social media showed cars set on fire during running battles between protesters and security forces.

BBC Persian has verified videos showing Thursday’s protests in Lordegan, Tehran and Marvdasht.

Iranian officials previously said a young member of the country’s securities forces had been killed on Wednesday in the western city of Kouhdasht.

But demonstrators say the man was, instead, from their ranks and had been shot dead by the security forces.

On Friday, clashes were reported during the man’s funeral ceremony attended by thousand of mourners. Uniformed members of the security forces had tried to carry his coffin – but the crowds wrestled it from them and chased them away.

The protests started on Sunday in Tehran among shopkeepers angry by another sharp fall in the value of the Iranian currency, the rial, against the US dollar on the open market.

By Tuesday, university students were involved and they had spread to several cities, with people chanting against the nation’s clerical rulers.

Many protesters have since been calling for the end of Khamenei’s rule. Some have said they wanted a return to the monarchy.

The protests have been the most widespread since an rebellion in 2022 sparked by the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, a young woman accused by morality police of not wearing her veil properly, but they have not been on the same scale.

President Masoud Pezeshkian has said he will listen to the “legitimate demands” of the protesters.

But the country’s Prosecutor-General, Mohammad Movahedi-Azad, warned that any attempt to create instability would be met with a “decisive response”.

Donald Trump has threatened to intervene in Iran if its government kills protesters, prompting warnings from senior Iranian officials that any American intervention would cross a “red line”.

In a social media post on Friday, Trump said that if Iran were to shoot and kill protesters, the US would “come to their rescue”. He added “we are locked and loaded, and ready to go”, without explaining what that might mean in practice.

Protests in Iran are now in their sixth day, and are the largest since 2022, when the death in police custody of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini triggered protests across the country. The current unrest was triggered by an unprecedented decline in the national currency on Sunday, with the Iranian rial dropping to about 1.4m to the US dollar, further exacerbating an already beleaguered economy.

Seven people have been killed, including a volunteer for the Basij security force, and videos have showed security forces carrying shotguns, with the sound of shooting in the background.

‘We want the mullahs gone’: economic crisis sparks biggest protests in Iran since 2022

In response to Trump’s threat of intervention, Ali Shamkhani, adviser to the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, warned that Iran’s national security was a “red line, not material for adventurist tweets”.

“Any intervening hand approaching Iran security on pretexts will be cut off with a regret-inducing response,” Shamkhani said in a post on

The threats come just days after Trump said that the US could strike Iran if it were found to be rebuilding its nuclear programme, further escalating tensions between the two countries.

Another senior Iranian official, Ali Larijani, the secretary of Iran’s supreme national security council, accused the US and Israel of having a hand in the demonstrations in Iran, a common refrain by officials in response to protests.

“Trump must realize that US intervention in this domestic matter will lead to destabilization of the whole region and the destruction of American interests,” Larijani wrote on

Iran has threatened to target American troops stationed in the Middle East in the past, and in June it attacked Al-Udeid airbase in Qatar after the US struck Iranian nuclear enrichment sites.

The current protests have taken place in Tehran but have also spread to other cities, such as Isfahan in central Iran. Shopkeepers have closed their stores in protest and students have taken over campuses to express their griefs. Though economic conditions are the central grievance, demonstrators have also chanted anti-government slogans and decried what they said was corruption and mismanagement by the government.

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