President Donald Trump has warned that the United States is ‘locked and loaded’ if Iran suppresses protesters, after cost-of-living demonstrations in the country turned deadly.
Protesters and security forces clashed in several Iranian cities on Thursday with six reported killed in the first deaths since the economic unrest escalated.
Shopkeepers in the capital Tehran went on strike on Sunday over high prices and economic stagnation, actions that have since spread to other parts of the country.
Trump said on his Truth Social platform that ‘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 Republican leader added.The senior adviser to Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Larijani, responding to Trump’s warning on Friday, said that US interference in Iranian protests would lead to chaos across the Middle East.
An Iranian official also said US intervention in the country would ‘destabilise [the] entire region’.
Iran’s biggest protests in three years over economic hardship have turned violent across several provinces, leaving multiple people dead.
