Iran‘s religious dictatorship was under huge pressure last night amid protests across the nation and an internet blackout.
With buildings on fire, cars overturned and cries of ‘death to the dictator’ in the streets, the country’s Supreme Leader was said to be making plans to leave.
According to Donald Trump, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was ‘looking to go some place’, with Moscow mooted as a possible sanctuary.
Desperate to salvage their cruel regime, Iran’s clerics last night cut off the country’s 90 million citizens from the world, even resorting to military technology to block Elon Musk‘s Starlink service. With internet access reduced to 1 per cent connectivity, phone lines cut and payment systems shut down, protests spread to 31 provinces.
The death toll since the uprising began a fortnight ago rose to 62 yesterday, with more than 2,300 detained, according to human rights activists. Heroic protesters who spoke to the Daily Mail said they had ‘nothing to lose’ due to living conditions in the country after 50 years of religious rule.
Khamenei blamed Mr Trump for triggering the uprising, accusing protesters of ‘ruining their own streets’ to please the US President.
In his first address since the protests began, he told state TV: ‘Trump’s hands are stained with the blood of Iranians. This man said he ordered it and commanded it. So he confessed that his hands are stained with Iranian blood.’
Khamenei said the regime would not tolerate ‘vandals and rioters’ acting as ‘mercenaries for foreigners’. Mr Trump has repeatedly threatened to launch military action against the Tehran government should protesters be killed.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. With buildings on fire, cars overturned and cries of ‘death to the dictator’ in the streets, the Ayatollah was said to be making plans to leave
Iranians on the streets of Tehran. The death toll since the uprising began a fortnight ago rose to 62 yesterday, with more than 2,300 detained, according to human rights activists
On the Supreme Leader’s future whereabouts, Mr Trump said: ‘[Russia] or some place, he’s looking to go some place. It could be [on the verge of collapse]. In the past they’ve started shooting the hell out of people.
‘Or they’ve taken them to prisons and hung them and killed them. I said if they do that we’re going to hit them hard, we’re ready to do it.’
Last night, Downing Street called on Iranian authorities to ‘exercise restraint’. Former UK security minister Tom Tugendhat predicted the fall of the regime was a question of when rather than if.
In an interview arranged by the Lotus Advocacy think-tank, an Iranian protester said they had been arrested, adding: ‘I was detained for several days and abused repeatedly. We are suffering.
‘Protesters are being shot with live ammunition and the wounded arrested in their hospital beds. This is a war by the government against its people.’
The late shah of Iran’s exiled son, US-based Reza Pahlavi, yesterday appealed for Mr Trump’s support.
Hundreds of Iranians on the streets of Tehran. Khamenei blamed Trump for triggering the uprising, accusing protesters of ‘ruining their own streets’ to please the US President
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei with Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2022. Iran’s Supreme Leader is said to be eyeing Moscow as a possible sanctuary should the Islamic Republic fall
Posting on X, he said: ‘Ali Khamenei… has threatened people with a brutal crackdown. Please Mr President, be prepared to intervene.’
His father Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was deposed by the Islamic Revolution in 1979. He had been installed in 1953 after the CIA and MI6 toppled premier Mohammad Mossadegh following his nationalisation of Iran’s oil industry, previously controlled by Britain.
Reza Pahlavi, 65, who left Iran aged 15, could receive US backing to return and assume power. He has already promised a democratic future for all Iranians.
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch said last night: ‘We stand with the Iranian people who want a secular, democratic Iran.’
