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Iran would target US military and shipping interests if the United States launched a new attack amid the ongoing protests, the Parliament speaker said on Sunday.
“In the event of a military attack by the United States, both the occupied territory and centres of the US military and shipping will be our legitimate targets,” Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf told parliament in comments broadcast by state TV, apparently also referring to Israel, which the Islamic republic does not recognise and considers occupied Palestinian territory.
Earlier on Saturday, President Donald Trump said the United States was “ready to help” as authorities in the Islamic republic intensified their crackdown on protesters in Iran.
“Iran is looking at FREEDOM, perhaps like never before. The USA stands ready to help!!!” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social, offering no further details. His remarks came a day after he said Iran was in “big trouble” and repeated his warning that he could order military strikes.
Unrest in Iran
Widespread internet shutdowns and disrupted phone services in Iran have made it harder to gauge the extent of the protests. However, in a release on Saturday, the US-based Iranian human rights group HRNA said that at least 116 have died in the protests in total, including 38 security personnel. The group noted that at least seven of the protesters killed were under the age of 18. The group also reported that at least 2,638 people had been arrested while conducting demonstrations across the country.
“Based on aggregated data up to the end of the fourteenth day, 574 protest locations have been identified in 185 cities across all 31 provinces of the country,” the group said in a statement on Saturday. The number of locations is cumulative, starting from the date the protests began on December 28.
“Examination of the causes of death shows that most victims were killed by live ammunition or pellet gunfire, predominantly from close range,” the HRANA news release said.
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