Dubai, United Arab Emirates. US President Donald Trump and top Iranian officials exchanged dueling threats Friday as widening protests swept across parts of the Islamic Republic, escalating tensions between the countries after America bombed Iranian nuclear sites in June.

At least seven people have been killed so far in violence surrounding the demonstrations, which were sparked in part by the collapse of Iran’s rial currency but have increasingly featured crowds chanting anti-government slogans.

The protests, now in their sixth day, are the biggest in Iran since 2022, when the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in police custody triggered nationwide demonstrations. However, they have not yet spread nationwide and remain less intense than those following Amini’s death, after she was detained for not wearing her hijab, or headscarf, to the satisfaction of authorities.

Trump post sparks quick Iranian response

Trump initially wrote on his Truth Social platform that if Iran “violently kills peaceful protesters,” the United States “will come to their rescue.”

“We are locked and loaded and ready to go,” Trump wrote, without elaborating.

Shortly afterward, Ali Larijani, a former parliament speaker who serves as secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, alleged on the social platform X that Israel and the US were stoking the demonstrations. He offered no evidence, repeating a claim Iranian officials have made during years of unrest.

“Trump should know that intervention by the US in domestic problems corresponds to chaos in the entire region and the destruction of US interests,” Larijani wrote on X, which is blocked in Iran. “The people of the US should know that Trump began the adventurism. They should take care of their own soldiers.”

Larijani’s remarks likely referred to the US military footprint in the region. Iran in June attacked Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar after US strikes on three nuclear sites during Israel’s 12-day war with Iran. No one was injured, though a missile hit a radome at the base.

Ali Shamkhani, an adviser to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and former council secretary, separately warned that “any interventionist hand that gets too close to the security of Iran will be cut.”

“The people of Iran properly know the experience of ‘being rescued’ by Americans: from Iraq and Afghanistan to Gaza,” he wrote on X.

Hard-line parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf also warned that all US bases and forces would be “legitimate targets.”

Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei echoed those responses, citing Tehran’s long list of grievances against Washington, including a CIA-backed coup in 1953, the downing of a passenger jet in 1988 and US involvement in the June war.

The Iranian reaction came as protests challenged a common refrain from officials that the country broadly backed its government after the war.

Trump’s post marked a direct sign of support for demonstrators — something past US presidents have avoided over concerns activists could be accused of working with the West. During Iran’s 2009 Green Movement, President Barack Obama held back from public support, later saying in 2022 that it “was a mistake.”

Still, such support carries risks.

“Though the grievances that fuel these and past protests are due to the Iranian government’s own policies, they are likely to use President Trump’s statement as proof that the unrest is driven by external actors,” said Naysan Rafati, an analyst at the International Crisis Group.

“But using that as a justification to crack down more violently risks inviting the very US involvement Trump has hinted at,” he added.

Protests Continue Friday

Demonstrators took to the streets Friday in Zahedan, in Iran’s restive Sistan and Baluchestan province bordering Pakistan. Burials for several demonstrators killed in the unrest also took place, sparking marches.

Online video purportedly showed mourners chasing away security forces who attended the funeral of 21-year-old Amirhessam Khodayari, killed Wednesday in Kouhdasht, about 400 kilometers (250 miles) southwest of Tehran in Lorestan province.

Footage also showed Khodayari’s father denying that his son served in the all-volunteer Basij force of Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, as authorities had claimed. The semiofficial Fars news agency later reported questions had emerged about those claims.

Iran’s civilian government under reformist President Masoud Pezeshkian has tried to signal openness to dialogue with protesters. However, Pezeshkian has acknowledged his limited ability to address the crisis as the rial continues to slide, with $1 now costing about 1.4 million rials — the trigger for the initial demonstrations.

While rooted in economic grievances, protests have increasingly included chants against Iran’s theocratic system. Tehran has struggled to stabilize the economy in the months since the June war.

Iran recently said it was no longer enriching uranium at any site, signaling to the West a willingness to resume talks over its nuclear program to ease sanctions. Those negotiations have yet to begin, as Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have warned Tehran against reconstituting its atomic program.