US President Donald Trump has said Iran is in "big trouble" as protests spread, again warning he could order military strikes.
Speaking on Friday, Trump said, "Iran's in big trouble. It looks to me that the people are taking over certain cities that nobody thought were really possible just a few weeks ago."
Asked about his message to Iran's leadership, Trump said, "You better not start shooting because we’ll start shooting too."
"If they start killing people like they have in the past, we will get involved," he added.
Trump said any action would stop short of deploying troops. "That doesn't mean boots on the ground, but it means hitting them very, very hard where it hurts."
Major street protests have erupted again in Iran’s main cities, including the capital, Tehran, and the second most populous city Mashhad.
Videos shared widely on social media showed crowds gathering in central areas of the cities.
People in Tehran's Sadatabad district banged pots and chanted anti-government slogans including "death to Khamenei" — a reference to supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, a video verified by the AFP news agency showed. Meanwhile, cars honked in support.
Other footage could not be independently verified and the scale of the protests was initially unclear.
The New York-based Center for Human Rights in Iran said it received credible eyewitness accounts that hospitals in Tehran, Mashhad, and Karaj were overwhelmed with injured demonstrators.
One activist video showed chaotic scenes in Tehran's Saadat Abad district, with fires burning as a voice said a mosque had been set ablaze and protesters chanted "Death to the dictator."
Students reported a heavy security presence, with the student newsletter Amirkabir saying special forces armed with Kalashnikov rifles were stationed about every 10 meters along a main road.
Tehran Mayor Alireza Zakani said unrest on Thursday night saw more than 50 banks and several government buildings set on fire. "More than 30 mosques went up in flames," he said in a video distributed by the state-linked Mehr News Agency.
"We are deeply concerned about reports of violence by Iranian security forces, and strongly condemn the killing of protesters," the statement said.
"The Iranian authorities have the responsibility to protect its own population and must allow freedom of expression and peaceful assembly without fear of reprisal," the statement added. "We urge the Iranian authorities to exercise restraint, to refrain from violence, and to uphold the fundamental rights of Iran's citizens."
Iranian Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi said the Iranian security forces may use the ongoing internet shutdown to carry out a "massacre."
Internet monitoring organization Netblocks said the internet shutdown in Iran had been going on for over 24 hours.
"What make tonight especially dangerous is the deliberate darkness: internet and phone networks pushed toward collapse so that families cannot find their loved ones, journalists cannot document, and the world cannot witness," Ebadi posted on Telegram. "A blackout is not a technical failure in Iran; it is a tactic."
Ebadi said that on Thursday night there were reports that at least 400 people in Tehran "were taken to a single hospital with severe eye injuries caused by pellet gun fire."
"Even more alarming are reports that security forces attacked hospitals and tried to arrest the wounded," Ebadi said. "A state that hunts the injured in hospital corridors has crossed a line that no society should accept and no world should ignore.
"To Western governments and international institutions: silence is not prudence. It is permission. Your inaction lowers the cost of murder," Ebadi said.
Ebadi, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2003, currently lives in London, but was born in the western Iranian city of Hamadan, where protests have been reported. She has worked to protect human rights in Iran and founded the Defenders of Human Rights Center in Iran.
The internet is down across most of Iran as the ongoing protests escalate towards a potential turning point in the country's history.
"This is a matter of survival for the regime," cybersecurity expert Amir Rashidi told DW.
The US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) said at least 62 people have died as anti-government protests continue into their 13th day.
HRANA said 14 security personnel and 48 protesters had died so far since the start of the protests on December 28.
HRANA also said 2,300 people have been detained in Iran as the government cracks down on the demonstrations.
Meanwhile, another NGO called Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO) said 51 protesters have been killed so far, including nine children. IHRNGO said the demonstrators have been killed not only in Tehran but also the cities of Mashad, Karaj and Hamedan.
IHRNGO said hundreds more have been injured since the demos began.
"The nationwide internet shutdown is reminiscent of the bloody crackdown on the November 2019 protests when several hundred protesters were killed," IHRNGO Director Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam said. "Over the past 13 days, the extent of the government's use of force against protesters has been increasing, and the risk of intensified violence and the widespread killing of protesters after the internet shutdown is very serious."
Amiry-Moghaddam called on the international community to tell the Iranian government that "the world will not tolerate the killing of protesters."
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei dismissed anti-regime protests, claiming demonstrators were vandals and saboteurs. The regime has shut down the internet and cut off international calls — and is promising to punish protesters.
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DW has spoken to a nurse in Iran who has described how the country's security forces "behaved with savage brutality" when they recently stormed a hospital in Ilam province.
Iran's foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, has accused Israel and the United States of being behind the growing anti-government protests spreading across the country.
Speaking during a visit to Lebanon, Araghchi said "the Americans and Israelis ... are directly intervening in the protests" and are "trying to transform the peaceful protests into divisive and violent ones."
Araghchi also dismissed the possibility of imminent military action by the US or Israel.
"We believe there is a low possibility of this because their previous attempts were total failures," he said.
Israel, with the support of the US, waged a brief war against Iran last summer that American and Israeli officials said was aimed at dismantling Iran's nuclear capabilities.
European officials have voiced their support for the demonstrators in Iran.
In a post on X on Friday, the European Union's foreign policy and security chief Kaja Kallas condemned the response by Iranian security forces as "disproportionate and heavy-handed."
"The Iranian people are fighting for their future. By ignoring their rightful demands, the regime shows its true colours," she wrote. "Any violence against peaceful demonstrators is unacceptable. Shutting down the internet while violently suppressing protests exposes a regime afraid of its own people."
Kallas' remarks come a day after Germany's foreign minister, Johann Wadephul, also highlighted that "peacefully expressing their opinion" is the Iranian people's right.
"I therefore condemn the excessive use of violence against peaceful demonstrators and call on the Iranian authorities to adhere to their international obligations," Wadephul said.
The son of Iran's last shah, Reza Pahlavi, has issued another call for fresh protests in Iran on Friday evening.
The exiled crown prince urged his supporters and opponents of the Iranian government to take to the streets.
In a post on his social media channels, Pahlavi said he was "proud of each and every one of you who took over the streets across Iran on Thursday night."
"Those of you who were hesitant, join your fellow compatriots on Friday night, and make the crowd even larger so that the regime's repressive power becomes even weaker," he said.
Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei insisted on Friday that the clerical regime he leads will "not back down" in the face of the growing social unrest and rare public calls for regime change and his ouster.
In his first comments on the protests since they began, a defiant Khamenei called the protesters "vandals" and "saboteurs" during a speech that was broadcast on Iranian state television.
Khamenei said the demonstrators were "ruining their own streets to make the president of another country happy," in reference to US President Donald Trump, who has threatened strikes on Iran if protesters are killed.
In an apparent reference to June's brief war between Iran and US-supported Israel, Khamenei said Trump's hands were "stained with the blood of more than a thousand Iranians."
Khamenei said the "arrogant" US president would face a similar fate to that of the shah of Iran, who was overthrown in the 1979 revolution that established the clerical regime.
"Last night in Tehran, a bunch of vandals came and destroyed a building that belongs to them to please the US president," Khamenei told his supporters, as men and women in the audience chanted "Death to America."
Anti-government protests in Iran continued into Friday morning after calls for demonstrations from the exiled crown prince, Reza Pahlavi.
The demonstrations have persisted after Iran's clerical authorities cut internet and international phone services on Thursday night.
In a post on X, Pahlavi called for Western leaders to pressure the Tehran government to "restore communication to the Iranian people so that their voice and their will can be heard and seen. Do not let the voices of my courageous compatriots be silenced."
Videos shared online before communications were shut showed crowds chanting slogans including "Death to the dictator" and "Death to the Islamic Republic" in Tehran and other cities.
The footage showed buildings and vehicles being set alight as thousands of people marched through the streets of cities across the country.
The Norway-based Iran Human Rights NGO reported that 45 demonstrators have now been killed by Iranian security forces since the unrest began in late December.
Another report by the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) said more than 2,200 people have been arrested.
Iranian state media acknowledged the protests on Friday, admitting to casualties without further details, and accused "terrorist agents" backed by the United States and Israel of inciting violence.
Thank you for joining us as the protests in Iran, which began in late December, continue to grow.
Tens of thousands of people massed on central avenue in the capital, Tehran, on Thursday.
The demonstrations began with a merchants' strike in Tehran against the dire economic conditions in the country.
But they have since morphed into broader calls for regime change and for the clerical regime led by Ayatollah Khamenei to be overthrown.
Khamenei has doubled down on his vow to clamp down on the protesters, despite warnings from Donald Trump that the US will hit Iran "very hard" if demonstrators are killed.
Stay tuned as DW brings you the latest news and analysis from Iran.
Curated by Sofia Andersson
