Iran on Tuesday warned Donald Trump not to take any action against the country’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, days after the US president called for an end to Khamenei’s nearly 40-year reign.

“Trump knows that if any hand of aggression is extended toward our leader, we not only cut that hand but also we will set fire to their world,” Gen. Abolfazl Shekarchi, a spokesman for Iran’s armed forces, said.

The comments came after Trump described Khamenei in an interview with Politico on Saturday as “a sick man who should run his country properly and stop killing people,” adding that “it’s time to look for new leadership in Iran.”

Tension between the United States and Iran has been high since a violent crackdown by authorities on protests that began over Iran’s ailing economy on Dec. 28. Trump has drawn two red lines for the Islamic Republic — the killing of peaceful protesters and Tehran conducting mass executions in the wake of the demonstrations.

The USS Abraham Lincoln, which had been in the South China Sea in recent days, had passed through the Strait of Malacca, a key waterway connecting the South China Sea and the Indian Ocean, by Tuesday, ship-tracking data showed.

A US Navy official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the aircraft carrier and three accompanying destroyers were heading west.

While naval and other defense officials stopped short of saying the carrier strike group was headed to the Middle East, its current heading and location in the Indian Ocean means its only days away from moving into the region.

It would not be the first time in recent years that a carrier strike group deployed to the Pacific was moved to the Middle East to address instability in the region. The Abraham Lincoln was rerouted to the Middle East in 2024. Last June, the USS Nimitz strike group was ordered to the region.

The death toll from the protests has reached at least 4,484 people, the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency said Tuesday. The agency has been accurate throughout the years of demonstrations and unrest in Iran, relying on a network of activists inside the country that confirms all reported fatalities. 

The death toll exceeds that of any other round of protest or unrest in Iran in decades, and recalls the chaos surrounding the 1979 revolution that brought the Islamic Republic into being. Although there have been no protests for days, there are fears the number could increase significantly as information gradually emerges from a country still under a government-imposed shutdown of the internet since Jan. 8.

Khamenei said on Saturday that the protests had left “several thousand” people dead and blamed the United States. It was the first indication from an Iranian leader of the extent of the casualties.

A further 26,127 people have been arrested, according to the Human Rights Activists News Agency. Comments from officials have led to fears of some of those detained being put to death in Iran, one of the world’s top executioners.

National police chief Gen. Ahmad Reza Radan has said those turning themselves in would receive more lenient treatment than those who don’t.

“Those who were deceived by foreign intelligence services, and became their soldiers in practice, have a chance to turn themselves in,” Radan said in an interview carried by Iran’s state television on Monday. “In case of surrender, definitely there will be a reduction in punishment. They have three days to turn themselves in.”

He did not elaborate on what would happen after the three days.

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