Donald Trump threatened Iran that the US will intervene if the Tehran regime violently suppresses protests against the country’s growing economic crisis.
Peaceful protests are being staged in the sanctions-hit country including by sellers in Tehran’s Grand Bazaar.
They staged a strike after the Iranian rial plunged in value, hitting a record low against the US dollar on the open market.
Police were reported to have attempted to disperse protestors by using tear gas as the hardline regime responded to days of unrest that have left several dead and pose the biggest internal threat to the Iranian authorities in years.
Amid fears that Tehran may intensify the crackdown, President Trump warned that if the situation should escalate further and Iran "violently kills peaceful protesters," the United States "will come to their rescue".
"We are locked and loaded and ready to go," the US president messaged on social media.
The US has long taken a hard line against the Iranian regime.
Last June, America bombed Iranian nuclear sites, and Trump pulled out of an international nuclear agreement during his first term as president.
In 2018, the US reimposed sanctions on Iran, and the country’s economy has been struggling ever since.
The country is now seeing its sixth day of protests, which have become the biggest in Iran since 2022, following the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in police custody.
Amini was detained for not wearing her hijab in compliance with the country’s dress code.
The shocking death resulted in nationwide protests around the country, while the world watched.
In response to Trump’s remarks, Ali Larijani, a former Parliament Speaker and the secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, claimed on X that both the US and Israel were fanning the flames of the demonstrations.
He said: "Trump should know that intervention by the US in the domestic problem corresponds (to) chaos in the entire region and the destruction of the US interests.”
He provided no evidence to support this allegation.
He went on: “The people of the US should know that Trump began the adventurism. They should take care of their own soldiers."
Speaking to a news conference on Monday, Trump did not comment on whether he supported a change of regime in Iran, but discussed the economic situation in the country.
He said: "They've got a lot of problems: tremendous inflation, their economy is bust, their economy is no good, and I know people aren't so happy."
