{"id":13215,"date":"2026-01-17T13:55:00","date_gmt":"2026-01-17T13:55:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/?p=13215"},"modified":"2026-01-17T13:55:00","modified_gmt":"2026-01-17T13:55:00","slug":"irans-supreme-leader-blames-us-for-protests","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/?p=13215","title":{"rendered":"Iran’s supreme leader blames US for protests"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Jack Burgess<\/span>and<\/span><\/p>\n

Ghoncheh Habibiazad,<\/span>BBC Persian<\/span><\/p>\n

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\"IranianIranian leader press office via Getty Images<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n
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Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has accused the US and Donald Trump of being responsible for “casualties, damage and slander” in his country during recent protests.<\/p>\n

In a speech on Saturday, Khamenei acknowledged that thousands of people had been killed during recent unrest, “some in an inhuman, savage manner” but blamed the deaths on “seditionists”.<\/p>\n

The US president has urged Iranian anti-government demonstrators to “keep protesting” and threatened military intervention if security forces kill them.<\/p>\n

Protests in Iran have claimed 3,090 lives, according to US-based Iranian Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), in unrest that started over the economy on 28 December.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Since then, the protests have turned into calls for the end of the rule of Iran’s supreme leader.<\/p>\n

The Iranian government has called the demonstrations “riots” backed by Iran’s enemies.<\/p>\n

Protesters have been met with deadly force and videos of security forces shooting at demonstrations<\/a> have been authenticated by both BBC Persian and BBC Verify.<\/p>\n

There has also been a near-total shutdown of the internet and communication services in Iran. On Saturday overall connectivity remained at about 2% of ordinary levels, according to cyber monitor NetBlocks.<\/p>\n

There have been fewer reports of unrest in recent days but with internet access still restricted developments on the ground remain unclear. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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During his speech on Saturday, Khamenei also said Iran considered President Trump to be a “criminal” and said the US must be “held accountable” for recent unrest.<\/p>\n

He also claimed on social media that “America’s goal is to swallow Iran”. <\/p>\n

Trump has not yet responded to the supreme leader and the BBC has approached the White House for a comment.<\/p>\n

Donald Trump said on Wednesday<\/a> he had been told “the killing in Iran has stopped”, but added that he had not ruled out military action against the country.<\/p>\n

His comments came after the US and UK both reduced the number of personnel at the Al-Udeid air base in Qatar.<\/p>\n

Officials told CBS, the BBC’s US partner, that a partial American withdrawal was a “precautionary measure”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

#Irans #supreme #leader #blames #protests<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jack Burgessand Ghoncheh Habib… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13216,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[242],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13215"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13215"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13215\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13216"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13215"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13215"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13215"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}