Alpha News

Trump to Tehran: 'If You Kill Protesters, We Will Intervene'

Published January 2, 2026, 11:26

US President Donald Trump today warned that “if the authorities in Iran shoot peaceful protesters and kill them violently, as they usually do, the US will rush to save them.” “We are ready and armed to intervene,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social. At least six people were killed yesterday, Thursday, in clashes between protesters and security forces in western Iran, according to Iranian news agencies. These are the first deaths reported since protests began five days ago in Iran against the rising cost of living. Among the dead is a member of the Basij, a militia linked to the Revolutionary Guards. In addition, thirty people accused of “disturbing public order” were arrested in Tehran, despite the fact that no incidents had been reported by authorities in the Iranian capital in recent days. The protests began on Sunday in Tehran, where merchants closed their shops to protest rising inflation and economic recession. The movement has since spread to universities and the rest of the country. Clashes were reported yesterday, Thursday, in various cities in Iran. Currently, these protests are not comparable in scale to the movement that shook Iran in 2022 following the death of Mahsa Amini, a young Iranian woman who died after being violently arrested by the morality police for not wearing her headscarf properly. Iranian President Masoud Pezeskian yesterday called on his government to take action. “From an Islamic point of view (…) if we do not solve the problem of people’s livelihood, we will end up in hell,” he stressed in a televised address.