Trump warns Iran against shooting protesters

The warning comes as demonstrations that have run for nearly a week turned deadly, with clashes between protesters and police leaving several dead.

“If Iran shots [sic] and violently kills peaceful protesters, which is their custom, the United States of America will come to their rescue," the president said on social media. “We are locked and loaded and ready to go."

It wasn’t clear what action the U.S. might take. The U.S. has slapped sanctions on Iranian perpetrators of human-rights violations during previous waves of unrest, but Trump has pursued a more muscular foreign policy, including bombing Iranian nuclear sites over the summer, even as he pushes forward peacemaking efforts in Gaza and elsewhere.

Trump warned earlier this week during a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that Iran would face military strikes if it tried to rebuild its ballistic-missile or nuclear programs, which were badly damaged during the 12-day war in June.

Iran’s leaders have acknowledged legitimate economic grievances in the protests, but hard-liners used Trump’s threat to paint some of the demonstrators as troublemaking agents of the country’s enemies. Ali Larijani, a top Iranian national security official, warned the U.S. against interfering in internal matters, saying it would create chaos in the region and implying it could put American soldiers at risk.

Iran has little ability to counter any strike after Israel shattered its air defenses during the war. But it was able to launch missile barrages that, while doing no strategic damage, stretched U.S. and Israel defenses and left dozens dead. Iran and its militia allies have also previously attacked American bases in the region.

The Iranian protests have left seven people dead, at least 33 injured and 119 under arrest, according to the group Human Rights Activists in Iran. The demonstrations, which began in Tehran, have spread to at least 32 cities, the group said in a report late Thursday.

The protests continued Friday in Tehran and elsewhere in the country. Protesters buried a demonstrator who was killed late Thursday in Fooladshahr, in Iran’s central province of Isfahan, according to the Hengaw Organization for Human Rights, another Iranian rights group.

Three other people were killed Thursday during a demonstration outside a police station in Lorestan Province in western Iran, according to Fars news agency, which is affiliated with the paramilitary Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Another two people were killed during a protest near the governor’s residence in Lordegan, another western Iranian province, Fars said.

A 21-year-old member of the Basij—a volunteer force tasked with protecting the Islamic Republic—was killed after demonstrators threw stones in Kuhdasht in Lorestan, the state broadcaster IRIB reported. About a dozen members of law enforcement and the Basij were injured, the local deputy governor, Saeed Pour Ali, said in comments reported by IRIB.

The demonstrations began Sunday after merchants took to the streets to protest after a precipitous drop in the value of the rial, the country’s currency. International sanctions over Iran’s refusal to pare back its nuclear ambitions have led to widespread economic problems, including high inflation and a devaluation of its currency. The June war with Israel shattered its defenses and exposed its weaknesses.

The violence could spur the regime to crack down more firmly on protesters.

“The only strategy the regime knows is repression," said Saeid Golkar, an associate professor at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga and an Iran expert.

During the first few days of the protests, Iranian officials vowed to address the economic concerns that were highlighted by the demonstrations. But hard-liners have promised a fierce response if protesters turned to calling for the downfall of the Islamic Republic. Police violence resulted in hundreds of deaths in 2022 demonstrations over the country’s strict religious codes.

Enemies will exploit the situation, Pour Ali, the Lorestan deputy governor, said late Wednesday. “Rioting and destruction of public property have nothing to do with civil protests," he said.

Mohammad Movahedi-Azad, Iran’s prosecutor-general, warned this week that any attempt to turn economic protests into a tool of “insecurity" or “destruction of public property would face a legal, proportionate and firm response," according to the judiciary news agency Mizan.

Iran’s food inflation reached 64.2% in October, according to the World Bank, the second highest level in the world after South Sudan. The rial has lost 60% of its value since the June war with Israel. Iran has failed to clinch a deal with the U.S. over its atomic program that could have helped alleviate some of the stress sanctions have placed on its economy.

The economic crisis has been accompanied with mounting repression. More than 1,870 people were executed in Iran in 2025, about twice as many as the prior year, according to data collected by the Washington-based Abdorrahman Boroumand Center, an advocacy group that documents human-rights violations in Iran. More than 490 people have been executed since Nov. 1, surpassing the total for all of 2021.

Write to Benoit Faucon at benoit.faucon@wsj.com