Iran protests newest: Trump says US are ‘looking at some very strong options’ as loss of life toll reportedly soars

Los Angeles police responded on Sunday after somebody drove a U-Haul box truck down a street crowded with marchers demonstrating in support of the Iranian people, causing protesters to scramble out of the way and then run after the speeding vehicle to try to attack the driver.

The U-Haul truck, with a window and side mirrors shattered, was stopped several blocks away and surrounded by police cars. ABC7 news helicopter footage showed officers keeping the crowd at bay as demonstrators swarmed the truck, throwing punches at the driver and thrusting flagpoles through the driver’s side window.

The driver, a man who was not identified, was detained “pending further investigation,” police said in a statement Sunday evening.

The police statement said one person was hit by the truck but nobody was seriously hurt. Two people were evaluated by paramedics and both declined treatment, the Los Angeles Fire Department said.

Several hundred people, some waving the flag of Iran, had gathered Sunday afternoon along Veteran Avenue in LA’s Westwood neighborhood to protest against the Iranian theocracy. Police eventually issued a dispersal order, and by 5pm only about a hundred protesters were still in the area, ABC7 reported.

Activists say a crackdown on nationwide protests in Iran has killed more than 530 people. Protesters flooded the streets in Iran’s capital of Tehran and its second-largest city again on Sunday.

The flow of information from Iran has been hampered by an internet blackout since Thursday.

Footage posted on social media on Saturday from Tehran showed large crowds marching at night, clapping and chanting. The crowd “has no end nor beginning,” a man is heard saying.

Footage from the northeastern city of Mashhad showed smoke billowing into the night sky from fires in the street, masked protesters and a road strewn with debris, another video posted on Saturday showed.

Explosions could be heard.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he was shocked by reports of violence by the Iranian authorities and urged maximum restraint.

“The rights to freedom of expression, association & peaceful assembly must be fully respected & protected,” he said on X on Sunday.

Trump told reporters that he was getting “hourly” updates on the situation in Iran during a press huddle on Air Force One Sunday night.

“We’re looking at some very strong options,” he said, adding that Iran was “starting” to cross his red line, according to the New York Times.

The president will meet with senior administration officials, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Joint Chiefs Chair Gen. Dan Caine to weigh the options, which include boosting anti-government sources online, utilizing secret cyber weapons, and placing more sanctions on the regime and military strikes, according to the report.

Editorial: Iran’s unremittingly harsh leadership faces one of the most serious challenges to its theocratic rule since the Islamic Republic was established in 1979.

After weeks of nationwide protests, the ayatollahs’ spell could soon be broken – which is how counter-revolutions begin, and governments fall

Sen. Rand Paul spoke on ABC’s This Week as it was reported that the president was briefed in recent days on options for military strikes within the country. It isn’t clear what the administration’s target or goal for military action would be if strikes were to be authorized by the president.

Paul told ABC that while the protests, which are now nearing a third week, are a sign that many Iranians are tired to living under the current regime, there isn’t enough evidence that they were calling for or wanted U.S. intervention of any kind.

“I don’t think it’s the job of the American government to be involved with every freedom movement around the world,” Paul told ABC’s Martha Raddatz. “I think the protests are directed at the Ayatollah, justifiably so, and the best way is to encourage them and say that, of course, we would recognize a government that is a freedom-loving government that allows free elections. But bombing is not the answer.”

“[W]hen you bomb a country, then people tend to rally around their own flag,” Paul said. “They tend to see this as the — you know, a foreign country coming in and bombing us. And so, I don’t think it always has that [intended] effect.”

According to the latest date from the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency, the number of confirmed fatalities had risen to 544 people.

It added that more than 10,681 individuals have also been transferred to prisons following arrest.

The agency said Protests have taken place at 585 locations across the country, in 186 cities, spanning all 31 provinces.