DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — As Iran returned to uneasy calm after a wave of protests that drew a bloody crackdown, a senior hard-line cleric called Friday for the death penalty for detained demonstrators and directly threatened U.S. President Donald Trump — evidence of the rage gripping authorities in the Islamic Republic.
Harsh repression that has left several thousand people dead appears to have succeeded in stifling demonstrations that began Dec. 28 over Iran’s ailing economy and morphed into protests directly challenging the country’s theocracy.
There have been no signs of protests for days in Tehran, where shopping and street life have returned to outward normality, though a week-old continued. Authorities have not reported any unrest elsewhere in the country.
The U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency on Friday put the death toll, at 2,797. The number continues to rise.
Iran's exiled urged the U.S. to make good on its pledge to intervene, calling Trump “a man of his word.â€
Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami's sermon, carried by Iranian state radio, sparked chants from those gathered for prayers, including: “Armed hypocrites should be put to death!†Executions, as well as the killing of peaceful protesters, are for possible military action against Iran.
Khatami, a member of Iran's Assembly of Experts and Guardian Council long known for his hard-line views, described the protesters as the “butlers†of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and “Trump’s soldiers.†He insisted their plans “imagined disintegrating the country.â€
“They should wait for hard revenge from the system,†Khatami said of Netanyahu and Trump. “Americans and Zionists should not expect peace.â€
His fiery speech came as allies of Iran and the United States alike sought to defuse tensions. Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke Friday to both Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and Israel's Netanyahu, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
Peskov said “the situation in the region is quite tense, and the president is continuing his efforts to help de-escalate it.â€
Russia had previously kept largely quiet about the protests. Moscow has watched several key allies suffer blows as its resources and focus are consumed by its 4-year-old war against Ukraine, including the downfall of Syria’s former President in 2024, last year’s U.S. and Israeli and the U.S. seizure of Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro this month.
Exiled Iranian royal calls for fight to continue
Days after Trump pledged “help is on its way†for the protesters, both the demonstrations and the prospect of imminent U.S. retaliation appeared to have receded. One diplomat told The Associated Press that top officials from Egypt, Oman, Saudi Arabia and Qatar had with Trump that a U.S. military intervention would shake the global economy and destabilize an already volatile region.
Yet the Trump administration has warned it will act if Iran executes detained protesters. Pahlavi, whose father was overthrown by Iran's , said he still believes the president's promise of assistance.
“I believe the president is a man of his word," Pahlavi told reporters in Washington. He added that "regardless of whether action is taken or not, we as Iranians have no choice to carry on the fight.“
Despite support by diehard monarchists in the diaspora, Pahlavi has struggled to gain wider appeal within Iran. But that has not stopped him from presenting himself as the transitional leader of Iran if the regime were to fall.
Iran and the U.S. traded angry accusations Thursday at a session of the United Nations Security Council, with U.S. ambassador saying that Trump “has made it clear that all options are on the table to stop the slaughter.â€
Gholam Hossein Darzi, the deputy Iranian ambassador to the U.N., blasted the U.S. for what he said was American “direct involvement in steering unrest in Iran to violence.â€
Iran authorities list protest damage
Khatami, the hard-line cleric, also provided the first overall statistics on damage from the protests, claiming 350 mosques, 126 prayer halls and 20 other holy places had sustained damage. Another 80 homes of Friday prayer leaders — an important position within Iran's theocracy — were also damaged, likely underlining the anger demonstrators felt toward symbols of the government.
He said 400 hospitals, 106 ambulance, 71 fire department vehicles and another 50 emergency vehicles also sustained damage.
Even as protests appeared to have been smothered inside Iran, thousands of exiled Iranians and their supporters have in cities across Europe to shout out their rage at the government of the .
Amid the continuing internet shutdown, some Iranians crossed borders to communicate with the outside world. At a border crossing in Turkey’s eastern province of Van, a trickle of Iranians crossing Friday said they were traveling to get around the communications blackout.
“I will go back to Iran after they open the internet,†said a traveler who gave only his first name, Mehdi, out of security concerns.
Also crossing the border were some Turkish citizens escaping the unrest in Iran.
Mehmet Önder, 47, was in Tehran for his textiles business when the protests erupted. He said laid low in his hotel until it was shut for security reasons, then stayed with one of his customers until he was able to return to Turkey.
Although he did not venture into the streets, Önder said he heard heavy gunfire.
“I understand guns, because I served in the military in the southeast of Turkey,†he said. “The guns they were firing were not simple weapons. They were machine-guns.â€
In a sign of the conflict’s potential to spill over borders, in Iraq said it has launched attacks on Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard in recent days in retaliation for Tehran’s crackdown on protests.
A representative of the Kurdistan Freedom Party, or PAK, said its members have “played a role in the protests through both financial support and armed operations to defend protesters when needed.†The group said the attacks were launched by members of its military wing based inside Iran.
of at least 2,797, provided by the Human Rights Activists News Agency, exceeds that of any other round of protest or unrest in Iran in decades and recalls the chaos surrounding the 1979 revolution.
The agency has been accurate throughout years of demonstrations, relying on a network of activists inside Iran that confirms all reported fatalities. The AP has been unable to independently confirm the toll. Iran's government has not provided casualty figures.
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Amiri reported from New York. Associated Press journalist Serra Yedikardes contributed to this story from Kapikoy Border Crossing, Turkey.
