Trump says Ayatollah looking to flee Iran amid unrest as US warns it will ‘hit hard’ if protesters killed
Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is looking to flee the country according to US President Donald Trump, as nationwide protests broke out demanding regime change.
At least 40 protesters and several police officers have been killed in the clashes according to rights groups and local media, with 2,200 arrests and counting.
Iranians have demonstrated in more than 100 cities and towns across the country, according to human rights groups.
Protesters swarmed the streets in their thousands shouting anti regime slogans, while other footage showed cars and piles of motorbikes set on fire.
Trump said the head of the Islamic Republic is “looking to go someplace” to escape, adding that Iran was on the “verge of collapse”.
And he warned that the US would hit the country hard if protesters were killed, saying he had “put Iran on notice”.
“There’s so many people protesting,” he said in an interview with Sean Hannity for Fox News. Nobody’s ever seen anything like what’s happening right now, but I have put Iran on notice that if they start shooting at them — these people are totally unarmed people, and they love their country.
“They want something to happen. Look at their country. They’ve gone back 150 years. But I’ve warned them that if they do anything bad to these people, we’re going to hit them very hard. I’ve said it very loud and very clear, that’s what we’re going to do.”
Iran and its population are cut off from the outside world as nationwide blackouts were imposed on Thursday and Friday. Footage that did leak out of the country showed buildings and shops in flames and vehicles overturned. The protests were expected to continue despite the media crackdown.
Khamenei blamed Trump for the demonstrations, accusing protesters of being “saboteurs” and “terrorist agents” working for the US and Israel in his first public address since the unrest on Friday.
He said demonstrators were “ruining their own streets to make the president of another country happy” and that “the Islamic Republic will not tolerate mercenaries working for foreign powers”.
The supreme leader has been serving as head of state since 1989 and is only the second in the position since the 1979 Islamic Revolution overthrew the monarchy of Shah Reza Pahlavi and ushered in the theocratic state structure.
Khamenei insisted that the country would not back down, saying: “Everyone should know that the Islamic Republic came to power with the blood of hundreds of thousands of honourable people, and it will not back down in the face of saboteurs.”
Protests began a fortnight ago when Reza Pahlavi, the exiled son of the late shah, told Iranians on social media: “The eyes of the world are upon you. Take to the streets.”
