Iran’s supreme chief admits ‘savage’ killing of hundreds of protesters as he blames Trump for unrest – as supporters chant: ‘Death to America, loss of life to England’

While his supporters chanted ‘death to America, death to England, Iran‘s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has acknowledged in a speech that thousands of people were killed during recent anti-government protests – some in an ‘inhuman, savage manner’.

‘Those linked to Israel and US caused massive damages and killed several thousands’, Khamenei said in a speech broadcast on state television on Saturday.

He accused Donald Trump of direct involvement in the unrest, branding the US president a ‘criminal’ and claiming he had personally intervened in what he described as a foreign-backed ‘sedition’.

‘We consider the U.S. president guilty, both for the casualties, for the damages, and for the slander he made against the Iranian nation.

‘The nature of the sedition, this sedition was American, it was clear. The Americans planned and acted. The aim of the Americans – and I am stating this clearly and unequivocally with forty-odd years of experience in the Islamic Republic – is to swallow Iran.’

Attendees can then be heard chanting: ‘Death to America, death to America, death to America. 

Khamenei goes on to say that said Iran would avoid wider war but warned that those he blamed for the unrest – including the US and Israel – would face consequences.

‘In the past,’ he said, ‘when sedition like this occurred in the country, which we had, we had numerous seditions, it was often the American press, second-rate politicians from America or European countries who interfered.’

‘Death to America, death to England, death to traitors, death to Israel,’ attendees chanted back.

While Iranian officials had previously acknowledged hundreds of deaths, including members of the security forces, Khamenei’s remarks mark the first time the country’s top authority has spoken of casualties in the thousands.

There is still no independently confirmed death toll, though US-based rights group, HRANA, has estimated that 3,000 people have been killed in the protests. 

Khamenei doubled down on his accusations in a post on X, writing: ‘We find the US President guilty due to the casualties, damages and slander he inflicted upon the Iranian nation.’

In response, Mr Trump called for an end to Ayatollah Khamenei’s nearly 40-year reign.

‘The man is a sick man who should run his country properly and stop killing people,’ Mr Trump told Politico in an interview on Saturday.

‘His country is the worst place to live anywhere in the world because of poor leadership.’

‘It’s time to look for new leadership in Iran.’

In recent days, Mr Trump had told protesting Iranians that ‘help is on the way’ and that his administration would ‘act accordingly’ if the killing of demonstrators continued or if Iranian authorities executed detained protesters.

Meanwhile in the UK, four officers were injured and 14 people arrested at an anti-government protest outside the Iranian embassy in London.

One of those arrested on Friday is alleged to have scaled the building in Kensington to remove the Iranian flag from the embassy’s balcony.

A further 13 were arrested for offences including violent disorder, assault of an emergency worker, criminal damage and trespass on diplomatic premises.

Despite the arrests, protests have continued into Saturday with a crowd of people pictured holding the flags of Israel and Pahlavi Iran.

In a post on X, the force confirmed they had imposed conditions to ‘minimise disruption to local residents’ and ‘prevent any potential serious disorder’, including the banning of ‘amplified equipment’ after 7pm. 

It comes amid heightened regional tensions after Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps threatened US forces, claiming it had pinpointed a hotel in Qatar used by senior American commanders.

US troops were recently evacuated from military bases across the Middle East amid fears Iran could retaliate if Donald Trump ordered an attack on the country.

A Telegram channel affiliated with the IRGC, which many Western nations consider a terrorist organisation, warned commanders to ‘watch your heads’ in a chilling threat.

Operations Center Media said the ‘clumsy’ relocation of senior US military personnel ‘will in no way shield them from a decisive and forceful response by the armed forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran in the event of any aggression against Iranian territory’.

The threat level to US forces in the region was later lowered after Trump stepped back from the brink, following Tehran’s announcement that detained protester Erfan Soltani had not been sentenced to death. 

The US president had warned that executing anti-government demonstrators could trigger military action.

However, the situation remains unstable, with the United States thought to be weighing the deployment of additional military assets to the Middle East, including a possible aircraft carrier strike group, ABC News reported on Friday.

As well as taking place in central London, anti-government protests have swept across Iran in recent weeks, with video footage showing buildings ablaze and violent clashes with security forces. Rights groups estimate at least 3,000 people were killed during the unrest. 

Iranian rapper Meraj Tehrani who lives in the UK but took part in the protests described it as ‘a massacre on the streets’.

Speaking to Sky News, Mr Tehrani said: ‘At first I think the government didn’t believe that so many people would come out, they were surprised.’

The rapper said he saw non-lethal bullets and tear gas being used but then the violence escalated and ‘everything got serious’.

As well as ‘machine guns’ being fired at random protestors, he claimed that bodies were ‘left on the street for the others to look at, so they get panicked and scared and it is a lesson for them’.

Mr Tehrani also suggested that foreign forces, including Iraqi militia, had been brought in by the regime to stop the protests. 

While much of the disorder has since been suppressed, authorities have sought to reassert control through nationwide pro-government rallies. 

On Friday, Iran’s exiled crown prince Reza Pahlavi urged Trump to carry out a ‘surgical strike’ against Iran’s security forces, calling for international action to weaken the regime’s command structure.

Speaking to reporters in Washington, Pahlavi said US action should focus on the Revolutionary Guards, whom he described as the main source of repression.

Trump has previously expressed scepticism over Pahlavi’s ability to command support inside Iran, even as the exiled royal has stepped up lobbying efforts in Washington.

Pahlavi confirmed he had met White House envoy Steve Witkoff last weekend but declined to give details, calling it a ‘sensitive time’.

‘I believe that President Trump is a man of his word and, ultimately, he will stand with the Iranian people,’ he said, adding that it was ‘never too late’ for the US to help.

‘We will fight until we win.’

Ahead of his remarks, videos played at the press conference showed people injured, apparently by Iranian security forces and other scenes from the protests, including demonstrators chanting ‘Long Live the Shah.’

That chant has been heard at the protests, alongside other chants calling for the fall of the Islamic Republic that do not mention the Shah.

‘The Iranian people are taking decisive action on the ground. It is now time for the international community to join them fully,’ Pahlavi said.

Pahlavi said countries should target the leadership and command and control structure of Iran’s elite military force, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, block the assets of the clerical rulers and expel the government’s diplomats from world capitals.

He also called on the world to help break through the government’s communications blockade by deploying Starlink satellite internet systems.

Pahlavi said a secure communication channel had been set up for people who want to defect from the government or its security forces, saying that tens of thousands of people have made contact, but he did not address how he planned to exert control over the vast network of Iran’s security establishment apparatus, including the Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Helping the protesters to succeed ‘does not require putting (foreign) boots on the ground,’ Pahlavi said.

‘The Iranian people’s boots are already on the ground. They are the ones marching, sacrificing and fighting for their freedom every single day.’

A democratic Iran under his leadership would have ‘cordial relations’ with its neighbours, he said, including Israel – a close ally of Iran in his father’s day and an implacable foe of the Islamic Republic now.

Pahlavi in 2023 visited Israel and met Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other officials.

More than 3,400 people have been killed by Iranian security forces since the outbreak of protests at the end of December, according to the human rights organisation Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO).

The unrest, initially sparked by economic hardship and the collapse of the currency, has evolved into broader calls for the fall of the clerical establishment, posing the most serious internal challenge to Iran’s rulers in years.

Britain, France, Germany and Italy have summoned Iranian ambassadors in protest over the crackdown.