Iran’s Army Vows To Defend National Interests After US Backs Protesters

The Iranian army has vowed  to safeguard strategic infrastructure and public property as it urged the Iranians to thwart “the enemy’s plots”, after United States President Donald Trump issued a new warning to Iran’s leaders over the escalating antigovernment protests.

In a statement published by semi-official news sites, the military on Saturday accused Israel and “hostile terrorist groups” of seeking to “undermine the country’s public security”, as Tehran stepped up efforts to ‍quell the country’s biggest protests in years over the cost of living, which have left dozens dead.

“The Army, under the command of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, together with other armed forces, in addition to monitoring enemy movements in the region, will resolutely protect and safeguard national interests, the country’s strategic infrastructure, and public property,” the military said.

Iran’s ‍elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) ,  which operates separately from the army  also warned on Saturday that safeguarding ‍the 1979 revolution’s ‍achievements and the country’s security was a “red line”, state ‌TV reported.

Earlier on Saturday, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio once again expressed Washington’s support for the people of Iran after Iranian authorities blacked out the internet, as they sought to curb deadly protests.

“The United States supports the brave people of Iran,” Rubio posted on X.

The post came hours after Trump issued a new warning to Iran’s leaders, saying, “You better not start shooting because we’ll start shooting too.”

Trump said it looked like Iran’s leaders were “in big trouble” and repeated an earlier threat of military attacks if peaceful protesters were killed. “It looks to me that the people are taking over certain cities that nobody thought were really possible just a few weeks ago,” he said.

Protests have taken place across Iran since January 3, in a movement prompted by anger over the rising cost of living, with growing calls for the end of the clerical system that has ruled Iran since the 1979 Islamic revolution, which removed the pro-Western shah ruler.

The unrest continued overnight on Saturday, with state media blaming “rioters” for setting a municipal building on fire in Karaj, west of Tehran, the Reuters news agency reported.

Press TV broadcast footage of funerals of members of the security forces it said were killed in protests in the cities of Shiraz, Qom and Hamedan, Reuters said. Videos published by Persian-language television channels based outside Iran showed large numbers of people taking part in new protests in the eastern city of Mashhad and Tabriz in the north.

In his first comments on the escalating protests, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Friday called the demonstrators “vandals” and “saboteurs”.

In a speech broadcast on Press TV, Khamenei said Trump’s hands “are stained with the blood of more than a thousand Iranians”, in apparent reference to Israel’s attacks on Iran in June, which the US supported and joined with strikes of its own.

Khamenei predicted the “arrogant” US leader would be “overthrown” like the imperial dynasty that ruled Iran up to the 1979 revolution.

“Everyone knows the Islamic republic came to power with the blood of hundreds of thousands of honourable people; it will not back down in the face of saboteurs,” he said

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, on a visit to Lebanon on Friday, accused the US and Israel of “directly intervening” to try to “transform the peaceful protests into divisive and violent ones”, which a US State Department spokesperson called “delusional”.