Category World News

The Iranian army says it would safeguard strategic infrastructure and public property as it urged the Iranians to thwart “the enemy’s plots”, after United States President Donald Trump issued a new warning to Iran’s leaders over the escalating antigovernment protests.

In a statement published by semi-official news sites, the military on Saturday accused Israel and “hostile terrorist groups” of seeking to “undermine the country’s public security”, as Tehran stepped up efforts to ‍quell the country’s biggest protests in years over the cost of living, which have left dozens dead.

“The Army, under the command of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, together with other armed forces, in addition to monitoring enemy movements in the region, will resolutely protect and safeguard national interests, the country’s strategic infrastructure, and public property,” the military said.

Iran’s ‍elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) – which operates separately from the army – also warned ⁠on Saturday that ​safeguarding ‍the 1979 revolution’s ‍achievements and the ⁠country’s security was a “red line”, ​state ‌TV reported.

Earlier on Saturday, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio once again expressed Washington’s support for the people of Iran after Iranian authorities blacked out the internet, as they sought to curb deadly protests.

“The United States supports the brave people of Iran,” Rubio posted on X.

The post came hours after Trump issued a new warning to Iran’s leaders, saying, “You better not start shooting because we’ll start shooting too.”

Trump said it looked like Iran’s leaders were “in big trouble” and repeated an earlier threat of military attacks if peaceful protesters were killed. “It looks to me that the people are taking over certain cities that nobody thought were really possible just a few weeks ago,” he said.

Protests have taken place across Iran since January 3, in a movement prompted by anger over the rising cost of living, with growing calls for the end of the clerical system that has ruled Iran since the 1979 Islamic revolution, which removed the pro-Western shah ruler.

The unrest continued overnight on Saturday, with state media blaming “rioters” for setting a municipal building on fire in Karaj, west of Tehran, the Reuters news agency reported.

Press TV broadcast footage of funerals of members of the security forces it said were killed in protests in the cities of Shiraz, Qom and Hamedan, Reuters said. Videos published by Persian-language television channels based outside Iran showed large numbers of people taking part in new protests in the eastern city of Mashhad and Tabriz in the north.

In his first comments on the escalating protests, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Friday called the demonstrators “vandals” and “saboteurs”.

In a speech broadcast on Press TV, Khamenei said Trump’s hands “are stained with the blood of more than a thousand Iranians”, in apparent reference to Israel’s attacks on Iran in June, which the US supported and joined with strikes of its own.

Khamenei predicted the “arrogant” US leader would be “overthrown” like the imperial dynasty that ruled Iran up to the 1979 revolution.

“Everyone knows the Islamic republic came to power with the blood of hundreds of thousands of honourable people; it will not back down in the face of saboteurs,” he said.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, on a visit to Lebanon on Friday, accused the US and Israel of “directly intervening” to try to “transform the peaceful protests into divisive and violent ones”, which a US State Department spokesperson called “delusional”.

‘Different approaches’

Al Jazeera’s Tohid Asadi, reporting from Tehran, said the protests have been growing in the capital, Tehran, and other cities.

“[The protests] started sporadically, but over the past two-three days, we have been witnessing more and more protests, specifically in the capital,” he said, adding that the demonstrations “flared up into violence in many streets” in Tehran on Thursday.

He said the state is trying to control the situation “with different approaches” such as tightening security measures and introducing a new subsidy scheme for citizens.

The protests are the biggest in Iran since the 2022-2023 protest movement prompted by the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, who had been arrested for allegedly violating the dress rules for women.

A “nationwide internet blackout” implemented by the Iranian authorities as protesters took to the streets has now been in place for 36 hours, monitor NetBlocks said on Saturday.

“After another night of protests met with repression, metrics show the nationwide internet blackout remains in place at 36 hours,” it said in a post on X.

Rights group Amnesty International said the “blanket internet shutdown” aims to “hide the true extent of the grave human rights violations and crimes under international law they are carrying out to crush” the protests.

Also on Saturday, the US-based son of Iran’s ousted shah urged Iranians to stage more targeted protests, with the aim of taking and then holding city centres.

“Our goal is no longer just to take to the streets. The goal is to prepare to seize and hold city centres,” Reza Pahlavi said in a video message on social media, urging more protests on Saturday and Sunday and adding he was also “preparing to return to my homeland” in a day he believed was “very near”.

Norway-based NGO Iran Human Rights, raising a previous toll of 45 issued the day before, said at least 51 protesters, including nine children, have been killed by security forces, and hundreds more injured.

In a joint statement on Friday, the foreign ministers of Australia, Canada and the European Union issued a strong condemnation and called on Iran to “immediately end the use of excessive and lethal force by its security forces”.

Myanmar’s military government is holding an election despite much of the country being ravaged by the effects of war with rebel forces. Al Jazeera’s Tony Cheng has been to the abandoned town of Hpapun, where there are no residents left to vote.

A new video has emerged showing the final moments of a Minnesota woman’s encounter with an immigration officer before she was killed, as public uproar grows in the United States over the shooting and exclusion of local agencies from the investigation.

A Minnesota prosecutor on Friday called on the public to share with investigators any recordings and evidence connected to the fatal shooting of Renee Nicole Good, 37, who was fatally shot by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent.

A new, 47-second video published online by a Minnesota-based conservative news site, Alpha News, on Friday, and later reposted on social media by the Department of Homeland Security, shows the shooting from the perspective of ICE officer Jonathan Ross, who fired the shots on Wednesday.

With sirens blaring in the background, Ross, 43, approaches and circles Good’s vehicle in the middle of the road while apparently filming on his cellphone. At the same time, Good’s wife was also recording the encounter and can be seen walking around the vehicle and approaching the officer.

A series of exchanges occurred.

“That’s fine, I’m not mad at you,” Good says as the officer passes by her door. She has one hand on the steering wheel and the other outside the open driver’s side window.

“US citizen, former f—ing veteran,” says her wife, standing outside the passenger side of the SUV holding up her phone. “You wanna come at us, you wanna come at us, I say go get yourself some lunch, big boy.”

Other officers approach the driver’s side of the car at about the same time, and one says, “Get out of the car, get out of the f—ing car.”

Ross is now at the front driver’s side of the vehicle. Good reverses briefly, then turns the steering wheel towards the passenger side as she drives ahead, and Ross opens fire. The camera becomes unsteady and points towards the sky, then returns to the street view showing Good’s SUV careening away.

“F—ing b—-,” someone at the scene says.

A crashing sound is heard as Good’s vehicle smashes into others parked on the street.

Minnesota officials slam federal agencies

President Donald Trump’s administration has defended the ICE agent who shot Good in her car, painting her as a “domestic terrorist” and claiming Ross – an Iraq War veteran – was protecting himself and the fellow agents. The White House insisted the video gave weight to the officer’s claim of self-defence – even though the clip does not show the moment the car moved away, or him opening fire.

Local officials in Minnesota have condemned federal agencies for excluding them from the probe, and a local prosecutor said on Friday that federal investigators had taken Good’s car and shell casings from the scene.

“This is not the time to bend the rules. This is a time to follow the law… The fact that Pam Bondi’s Department of Justice and this presidential administration has already come to a conclusion about those facts is deeply concerning,” Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, a Democrat, told a news briefing on Friday.

“We know that they’ve already determined much of the investigation,” he said, adding that the state’s Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, within its department of public safety, has consistently run such investigations.

“Why not include them in the process?” Frey said.

Good was the fourth person to be killed by ICE agencts since Trump launched his immigration crackdown last year.

Good’s wife, Becca Good, told local media that they had gone to the scene of immigration enforcement activity to “support our neighbours”. “We had whistles. They had guns,” she said.

The Minneapolis killing and a separate shooting in Portland, Oregon, on Thursday by the Border Patrol have set off protests in multiple US cities and denunciations of immigration enforcement tactics by the US government.

President Donald Trump said his administration will decide which oil companies are allowed to operate in Venezuela, as he met oil executives at the White House less than a week after the US abduction of Venezuela’s president.