Khamenei admits ‘several thousand’ killed in Iran protests, blames US and Israel

Khamenei says thousands died in Iran protests, calls US president ‘criminal’

• Khamenei admits thousands killed in recent Iran anti-government protests
• He blames US, Israel for violence, calls Trump a criminal for casualties.
• Iran internet shutdown: 3,000+ deaths, 22,000 detained, most Iranians cut off

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Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has, for the first time, acknowledged the scale of deaths in the country’s ongoing anti-government protests, saying “several thousand people” have been killed in weeks of unrest.

Speaking in a nationally broadcast address, Khamenei said some of the victims were killed “brutally and inhumanely,” while accusing the United States and Israel of aiding the violence. He said Iran possessed evidence to support the claim.

The Iranian leader said the country did not seek war but would not allow “either domestic or international criminals to go unpunished.” He held US President Donald Trump responsible for “deaths, damage, and accusations he has inflicted on the Iranian people,” and accused Washington of seeking Iran’s military, political, and economic domination.

“We consider the US President a criminal, both for the casualties and damage, and for the slander he leveled against the Iranian nation,” Khamenei said.

He also told the nation, “By harming the people, they (the ‘rioters’) killed several thousand of them.”

“Some were killed with a force that was inhuman … completely savagely.”

The remarks follow more than two weeks of nationwide protests that began in late December, initially triggered by a sharp fall in the value of the rial before expanding into broader demands for political change.

Human rights organisations estimate the toll to be in line with Khamenei’s comments, putting deaths at over 3,000 and detentions above 22,000, though independent verification remains difficult due to a near-total communications blackout.

Internet and mobile services were shut down by authorities on January 8, leaving much of Iran’s 92 million population cut off from the outside world. Monitoring group NetBlocks said access remains at around 2% of normal levels, despite reports of limited restoration.

US President Donald Trump has taken a sharply different view, urging Iranians to continue protests and calling for new leadership in Tehran. He told Politico that Khamenei was guilty of “the complete destruction of the country and the use of violence at levels never seen before.”

Earlier, Trump also described the Iranian leader as a “sick man” and said he should “run his country properly and stop killing people.”

The Iranian government has consistently blamed “foreign” influence for the unrest, a claim it has repeated during previous periods of domestic turmoil.