Trump Promises ‘Very Strong Action’ if Iran Hangs Protesters

US President Donald Trump on Tuesday evening said that the United States would take action in Iran if the regime carries out its promised executions of arrested protesters.

“We will take very strong action. If they do such a thing, we will take very strong action,” Trump told CBS News in an exclusive interview.

Due to an internet blackout in Iran, and few journalists on the ground, it has been impossible to independently verify the varying estimates of those arrested and killed, but US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) reported in an update on Tuesday that at least 10,721 people have been detained in protests spanning about 600 locations in 187 cities across all 31 Iranian provinces. 

The family of one of the protesters arrested last week, Erfan Soltani, said he is to be executed on Wednesday. They told the BBC that the Islamic regime is using “every tactic they know to suppress people and spread fear”.

“Now they’re talking about hanging the protesters,” Trump said. “We’ll see how that works out for them. It’s not going to work out good.”

Tehran’s delegation to the UN said that the US “playbook” would “fail again”.

“US fantasies and policy toward Iran are rooted in regime change, with sanctions, threats, engineered unrest, and chaos serving as the modus operandi to manufacture a pretext for military intervention,” Iran’s UN mission posted to social media.

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The US military said it defeated a series of Iranian missile and drone attacks in the Gulf and struck an Iranian military facility on Qeshm Island in the Strait of Hormuz. US Central Command denied Iranian claims that US bases in Bahrain and the region were hit, saying all attacks failed. The incidents came despite a US-Iran ceasefire in place since April 8.

HRANA said it already had confirmed the killing of 2,403 protesters, including 12 children, but the total death toll is likely much higher.

CBS has pegged the number of deaths at between 12,000 and 20,000. News reports have shown stacks of bodies overwhelming local morgues.

Footage leaked out of the country has shown the Islamic Revolutionary Guard storming hospitals and arresting those receiving treatment, while the regime is also reportedly targeting pharmacies, investigating customers in protest areas who have sought supplies to treat trauma wounds.

A nurse at a hospital in the hometown of former Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khomeini told news outlet DW:

“We knew the security agents were coming to arrest the wounded or record their identities. People gathered at the entrance to stop them.”

The nurse continued, “At the same time, we were desperately short of blood, so calls for donors went out on social media. But the IRGC [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps] and special units prevented donors from reaching us. Several citizens were even detained.”

Earlier in the day, Trump posted to social media, encouraging the protesters not to stop, and to take over institutions and record the names of “killers and abusers.”

 “Iranian Patriots, KEEP PROTESTING,” he on his Truth Social platform. “I have cancelled all meetings with Iranian Officials until the senseless killing of protesters STOPS. HELP IS ON ITS WAY.”

When pressed by a journalist later in the day on what exactly he meant by sending help, the US president responded, “You’re going to have to figure that one out. I’m sorry.”