The US is considering "very tough options" for intervention in Iran amid the ongoing protests against the regime in the country, President Donald Trump said. "The military is looking at options", the US head of state said. According to two sources familiar with the content of the discussions in the White House, Trump and his team are exploring in particular the possibilities of cyberattacks and military intervention by the US or Israel.
Negotiations or preemptive strike?
According to Trump, "the leaders of Iran" called him on Saturday. "They want to negotiate", the US president said, without giving further details. The two sides are in the process of arranging a meeting, Trump added, but stressed that "it may be necessary to act before the meeting".
The US president also announced that he would talk to Elon Musk about the possibilities of restoring internet access in Iran. Musk's company SpaceX is the world's largest satellite internet provider. Last week, the Iranian regime shut down the internet and even largely blocked the telephone network after information about the harsh suppression of the protests began to spread on social networks. At the same time, the speaker of the Iranian parliament, Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, threatened that the US military and Israel could become legitimate military targets for Tehran if the US actually undertakes military intervention in Iran. A "preemptive strike" was not ruled out.
Protests are growing, the authorities' response is becoming increasingly brutal
Protests are growing across the country. According to activists, they are already taking place in 185 cities, reports the German public broadcaster ARD. Human rights organizations speak of hundreds of deaths, including children. Over 10,000 people have been arrested, reports the US-based human rights organization HRANA. And the British BBC quotes its source as saying: "The situation here is very, very bad. It's like a war zone. The streets are covered in blood. They're taking the bodies out in trucks".
A doctor from Tehran tells the German FACS that her friend's 17-year-old cousin died after losing blood from a wound in the abdomen. He had previously been chased away by security guards at three hospitals. Clinics were instructed to immediately report people with gunshot wounds to the police. On Saturday night, she asked a surgeon friend if he could take care of the wounded man at his home. His answer was that he had already removed bullets from the bodies of 50 wounded people in their homes. “That’s what he said. I don’t know if the number is correct, but that’s what he said,” the doctor said, adding that several of her fellow doctors had told her that they had treated the wounded not only with buckshot but also with live bullets. “This is the first time we’ve seen something like this in Tehran on such a scale,” the doctor said. She personally knows for sure that at least eight people have been killed.
"The intent to kill is obvious"
Ophthalmologist Amir-Mobarez Parasta from Munich, who has close contacts with many Iranian doctors, suggests that the death toll is very high. Unlike in 2022, when injuries were mostly caused by rubber bullets, lethal weapons are now increasingly being used, the doctor says. "This time the intent to kill is obvious", he adds. According to him, the shots are often aimed directly at the head and neck. The doctor says he has seen videos in which security forces aimed directly at the carotid artery, apparently with the aim of causing as much shock as possible among the protesters.
Parasta's testimony matches what other eyewitnesses saw. A man from Karaj told FAC that his father saw snipers stationed on the roof of a local shopping mall on Friday. They were shooting at suspected protest leaders who had been marked with paint by police.
A woman from Mashhad said that an acquaintance of hers was shot in the head. Another woman said she went to a clinic because she had a panic attack. There, a nurse told her about a man who had been shot in the eye by a bullet. There were so many eye injuries during the 2022 protests that human rights activists suggested that the aim was to deliberately blind the demonstrators. The opposition website Iranwire reported on Sunday that more than 500 eye injuries had been sustained in the current protests.
Shah's son calls for "new phase" of protests
Reza Pahlavi, the son of the Shah who was overthrown in 1979, has called for a "new phase" of the protests. In addition to the streets of Iranian cities, all state propaganda institutions should now become "legitimate targets" of the protest, Pahlavi wrote on his X profile and called for the "shameful flag" of the Islamic Republic to be replaced everywhere abroad with the flag that was used during the monarchy. Due to the Internet blockade in Iran, it is not clear how many of the Shah's messages are reaching the protesters.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has meanwhile expressed his shock at the messages coming from Iran. On his X profile, he called on the Iranian authorities to stop using violence against the protesters and restore access to information.
Author: Mina Kirkova