On this picture launched by an official web site of the workplace of the Iranian supreme chief, Supreme Chief Ayatollah Ali Khamenei speaks in a gathering, in Tehran, Iran, Saturday, Jan. 17, 2026.
AP/Workplace of the Iranian Supreme Chief
cover caption
toggle caption
AP/Workplace of the Iranian Supreme Chief
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Iran on Tuesday warned Donald Trump to not take any motion in opposition to the nation’s Supreme Chief Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, days after the U.S. president referred to as for an finish to Khamenei’s practically 40-year reign.
“Trump knows that if any hand of aggression is extended toward our leader, we not only cut that hand but also we will set fire to their world,” Gen. Abolfazl Shekarchi, a spokesman for Iran’s armed forces, stated.
The feedback got here after Trump described Khamenei in an interview with Politico on Saturday as “a sick man who should run his country properly and stop killing people,” including that “it’s time to look for new leadership in Iran.”
Rigidity between the U.S. and Iran has been excessive since a violent crackdown by authorities on protests that started over Iran’s ailing economic system on Dec. 28. Trump has drawn two pink strains for the Islamic Republic — the killing of peaceable protesters and Tehran conducting mass executions within the wake of the demonstrations.
The united statesAbraham Lincoln, which had been within the South China Sea in latest days, had handed by means of the Strait of Malacca, a key waterway connecting the South China Sea and Indian Ocean, by Tuesday, ship-tracking knowledge confirmed.
A U.S. Navy official, talking on situation of anonymity, stated the plane provider and three accompanying destroyers have been heading west.
Whereas naval and different protection officers stopped wanting saying the provider strike group was headed to the Center East, its present heading and site within the Indian Ocean means its solely days away from transferring into the area.
It will not be first time lately {that a} provider strike group deployed to the Pacific was moved to the Center East to handle instability within the area. The Abraham Lincoln was rerouted to the Center East in 2024. Final June, the united statesNimitz strike group was ordered to the area.
The loss of life toll from the protests has reached at the very least 4,519 individuals, the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists Information Company stated Tuesday. The company has been correct all through the years of demonstrations and unrest in Iran, counting on a community of activists contained in the nation that confirms all reported fatalities. The Related Press has been unable to independently affirm the determine.
The loss of life toll exceeds that of every other spherical of protest or unrest in Iran in many years, and remembers the chaos surrounding the 1979 revolution that introduced the Islamic Republic into being. Though there have been no protests for days, there are fears the quantity may enhance considerably as data progressively emerges from a rustic nonetheless underneath a government-imposed shutdown of the web since Jan. 8.
Khamenei stated on Saturday that the protests had left “several thousand” individuals lifeless and blamed the USA. It was the primary indication from an Iranian chief of the extent of the casualties.
Greater than 26,300 individuals have been arrested, based on the Human Rights Activists Information Company. Feedback from officers have led to fears of a few of these detained being put to loss of life in Iran, one of many world’s high executioners.
Nationwide police chief Gen. Ahmad Reza Radan has stated these turning themselves in would obtain extra lenient therapy than those that do not.
“Those who were deceived by foreign intelligence services, and became their soldiers in practice, have a chance to turn themselves in,” Radan stated in an interview carried by Iran’s state tv on Monday. “In case of surrender, definitely there will be a reduction in punishment. They have three days to turn themselves in.”
He didn’t elaborate on what would occur after the three days.
