At least 29 protesters have been killed as major anti-government demonstrations spread across Iran for a 10th day, a U.S.-based rights group says. The Iranian government is trying to quell the unrest, and reacted angrily to President Trump’s veiled threat of a U.S. armed intervention.
The Human Rights Activists News Agency, which gave the death toll based on its network of contacts in the country, said in its daily report on Monday that more than 1,200 people had been detained by Iranian security forces since the protests started more than a week ago. HRANA shared video on Tuesday that it said showed clashes between protesters and security forces at Tehran’s Grand Bazaar — a center of commerce in the capital where shop owners have long backed the regime.
The protests began more than a week ago in Tehran as business owners took to the streets to vent their frustration over soaring inflation in the nation, whose economy has been crippled by U.S. and international sanctions for years. But the anger spread quickly to more than 250 locations in at least 27 of Iran’s 31 provinces, according to the Washington-based HRANA, with social media videos showing violent clashes between protesters chanting anti-government slogans and security forces every night since.
Reuters
People who spoke with CBS News from inside the country on Tuesday said the latest demonstrations in the capital were relatively small, corroborating other reports that efforts by the Iranian authorities to placate the protesters have likely had some effect in reducing numbers in recent days.
President Trump said Friday — a day before American forces attacked Venezuela and captured the country’s longtime leader Nicolas Maduro — that the U.S. was “locked and loaded and ready,” warning that if Iran “violently kills protesters, which is their custom, the United States of America will come to their rescue.”
Mr. Trump hasn’t offered any further detail on his threat, but he’s been ratcheting up pressure on Tehran since taking office for his second term, including with unprecedented U.S. strikes on the country’s nuclear facilities in June as Israel and Iran fought a 12-day war.
“I think many Iranian people will be inspired by that,” Maziar Bahari, editor of the independent Iranian news website IranWire, told CBS News on Saturday, referring to Mr. Trump’s remarks. “The message has made the Iranian regime more careful about its actions and using violence against people.”
Iranian officials have not confirmed the deaths of any protesters, and while acknowledging the demonstrations and economic pain felt in the country, they make little mention of the violence seen on the streets and accuse the U.S. and Israel of fomenting the unrest. The Islamic Republic’s semiofficial Fars news agency claimed Monday that about 250 police officers and 45 members of the feared Basij security force had been injured amid the unrest.
Fars News Agency via AP 
The U.S. State Department has issued statements condemning specific incidents in Iran since Mr. Trump leveled his ambiguous threat, but the chances of an American intervention remained unclear on Tuesday.
As has long been the case with Iran, the uncertainty left space for rumors to swirl. There were unconfirmed reports that the country’s 86-year-old Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was considering escaping into exile in Russia if the protests escalated out of control.
Other reports have speculated that the government could even launch a new attack on Israel — something the regime has said it is ready for since the 12-day war in June — in a bid to divert attention away from domestic problems and refocus the population’s anger at Iran’s biggest foreign adversary, which would likely respond quickly and harshly.
But Iran’s intelligence services have a history of leaking false information to the media, especially foreign outlets, to create an exaggerated narrative that the country’s leaders can then deny and portray as deliberate Western disinformation.
In the meantime, the government has tried to quash the unrest on the streets not only with security forces, but with a series of measures aimed at showing sympathy with the protesters, including freezing some commodity prices and taxes on businesses, and even a dramatic move Monday to announce cash subsidies for essential goods for all households.
The government does appear to have been bracing for unrest in the wake of the summer war with Israel, which constrained its sanctions-squeezed budgets even further and forced slashes to subsidies and social services.
So far, however, even if the protests haven’t continued escalating — which is difficult to gauge as Iran’s government tightly controls the flow of information inside the country — the efforts to quell the unrest haven’t fully succeeded.
In the meantime, the demonstrations continue, as people wait for any further signals from Mr. Trump that he might be willing to try to take advantage of a vulnerable moment for the Islamic Republic’s rulers.