Trump warns Iran will get ‘hit very hard’ if security forces continue killing protesters

At least 16 people have been killed in the protests, said human rights groups and state media.

Earlier, Trump had threatened to intervene in Iran, warning against killing peaceful protesters, stating that Washington “will come to their rescue”.

“If Iran shoots and violently kills peaceful protesters, which is their custom, the United States of America will come to their rescue. We are locked and loaded and ready to go,” the US president wrote in a post on Truth Social.

‘Red line, not material for adventurist tweets,’ says Iran

In response to Trump’s threat of intervention, Ali Shamkhani, an 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 nearing Iran security on pretexts will be cut off with a regret-inducing response,” Shamkhani said in a post on X.

The threats come just days after Trump said that the US could strike Iran if it was 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 destabilisation of the whole region and the destruction of American interests,” Larijani wrote on X. “The American people must know that Trump is the one that started this adventure, and they should pay attention to the safety of their soldiers.”

Protests in Iran widened over soaring inflation as a rights group said on Sunday that at least 16 people were killed across the country.

The protests, which are the biggest in the past three years, come at a time when Tehran is still reeling under the after-effects of a 12-day war launched by Israel in June last year that saw the United States join in to bomb nuclear sites in Iran.