Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said on Sunday, January 18, that any attack on the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, would amount to a declaration of war.
In a post on social media platform X Pezeshkian said: “If the Iranian people are facing hardships and difficulties in their lives, one of the main reasons is the long-standing hostility and inhumane sanctions imposed by the United States government and its allies. Any aggression against the supreme leader of our country is tantamount to a total war against the Iranian nation.”
The Iranian president’s warning comes a day after Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei held US President Trump responsible for causing casualties, damage and defamation of Iranians during protests, calling him a “criminal” as the country’s death toll topped 3,000, Reuters reported, citing records by a rights group.
Khamenei also warned that while his government has no intention of leading the nation to war, it will not allow domestic or international criminals to go unpunished. He claimed that “persons linked to Israel and the US caused enormous damage and killed several thousand” during the protests.
Chaos in Iran
Iran has seen major anti-government protests calling for the removal of Ayatollah Khamenei’s government, resulting in over 3,000 deaths. Some reports also noted a “very slight increase” in internet activity after the eight-day outage.
“The latest anti-Iranian uprising was different in that the American president was personally involved,” Iranian media quoted Khamenei as saying, Reuters reported.
US threatens ‘action’
The US has warned it will take “military action” if Iran uses force against protesters. Trump announced that he had canceled all meetings with Iranian officials in response to the country’s continued crackdown on protests, claiming that “help is on the way.”
Earlier, Khamenei had sharply criticized Trump, telling him to ‘manage his own country’ as the president repeatedly threatened to ‘hit very, very hard’.
“As for the guy (Trump) sitting there with arrogance and pride passing judgment on the whole world, he should also know that usually the despotic and arrogant powers of the world – like Pharaoh, Nimrod, Reza Khan, Mohammad Reza and their ilk – will be overthrown just as they were at the height of their pride.” Khamenei.