Fashion student ‘shot in back of the head’ among hundreds killed in Iran

Dubai: US President Donald Trump says the Iranian government had called him “to negotiate” and he has been in touch with the country’s opposition leaders, amid an escalating war of words between the United States and the Tehran regime.

Iran has threatened to target US military bases if Trump carries out his renewed threats to intervene on behalf of protesters, while Trump has reportedly been briefed on military strikes and other interventions the US could enact against the country.

“The military is looking at it, and we’re looking at some very strong options,” Trump told reporters travelling on Air Force One on Sunday night. He also said the leaders of Iran wanted to negotiate.

“I think they’re tired of being beat up by the United States. Iran wants to negotiate with us.”

Iran’s parliament speaker on Sunday (Monday AEDT) said the US military and Israel would be “legitimate targets” if the US were to strike the Islamic Republic over the ongoing protests roiling the country.

Later on Monday, Iran’s foreign minister told foreign diplomats “the situation has come under total control” after the bloody crackdown on protests, but offered no evidence to support the statement.

Abbas Araghchi also said that the protests “turned violent and bloody to give an excuse” for Trump to intervene.

At least 544 people have died in violence surrounding the demonstrations, according to the US-based Human Rights Activist News Agency, but there are fears the death toll is far higher.

The dead include 23-year-old Rubina Aminian, a Kurdish student who was shot at close range in the back of the head on Thursday after she had left her college in Tehran to join the protests, according to the group Iran Human Rights.

Sources close to the Aminian family told the Norway-based group her parents had been taken to a location near their daughter’s college to try to identify her, and were confronted with the bodies of hundreds of young people killed during the protests.

“It wasn’t just my daughter; I saw hundreds of bodies with my own eyes,” her mother said, according to a statement provided to the human rights group.

Demonstrators again flooded the streets of the Iranian capital, Tehran, and the second-largest city at the weekend, marking two weeks of unrest and nationwide protests challenging Iran’s theocracy, during which more than 10,000 people have been detained, according to HRANA. The group uses supporters inside Iran to cross-check information and has provided accurate accounts of previous unrest.

One protester told The New York Times: “Either we die, or we get out of these terrible conditions we are living under.

“There is no way these protests calm down. There is no way, this time, that they can stop us”, 40-year-old Ali told the paper by phone.

With the internet down in Iran and phone lines cut off, gauging demonstrations from abroad has grown more difficult, amid fears the information blackout is emboldening hardliners within the security services to launch a bloody crackdown.

Trump offered support for the protesters, saying on social media that “Iran is looking at FREEDOM, perhaps like never before. The USA stands ready to help!!!”

The president and his national security team have been weighing a range of potential responses, including cyberattacks and direct strikes by the US or Israel, according to two people familiar with internal White House discussions who were not authorised to comment publicly and who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Asked about Iran’s threats of retaliation, Trump said: “If they do that, we will hit them at levels that they’ve never been hit before.”

Separately, the State Department in Washington said: “Do not play games with President Trump. When he says he’ll do something, he means it.”

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the Australian government stood with the people of Iran, “who are standing up for their human rights, standing up for their dignity, standing up for a change that is required”.

“This is a regime that has oppressed its own people,” Albanese said. “This is an oppressive regime that has played a bad role, not only for its people, but a bad role internationally, which is why I stood in this very courtyard and expelled the Iranian ambassador for the involvement of their agencies in attacks here on Australian soil. ”

The BBC said it had verified videos appearing to show the Iranian government stepping up its response to the protests that have spread to more than 100 cities and towns.

Staff at two hospitals told the broadcaster that more than 100 bodies had been brought in over a two-day period.

Most international news organisations are banned from operating in Iran, making it difficult to confirm information.

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

In footage from the north-eastern city of Mashhad, smoke can be seen billowing into the night sky from fires in the street amid masked protesters and a road strewn with debris. Explosions can be heard.

Iranian state TV is reporting on security force casualties while portraying control over the nation, without discussing dead demonstrators, whom it increasingly refers to as “terrorists”. However, it also acknowledged the latest demonstrations in Tehran and Mashhad.

The protests, which began in Tehran late last month over a currency crisis and spiralling inflation, have escalated into demands for an end to the theocratic regime under Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Khamenei has dismissed demonstrators as a “bunch of vandals” seeking to “please” Trump, while Iran’s attorney-general said anyone protesting would be considered an “enemy of God” – an offence that carries the death penalty.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian told state TV that Israel and the US were masterminding the unrest and said Iran’s enemies had brought in “terrorists … who set mosques on fire … attack banks, and public properties”.

On Monday, Iran declared three days of national mourning “in honour of martyrs killed in resistance against the United States and the Zionist regime”.

Iran’s exiled Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi last week called on demonstrators to take to the streets and urged them to carry the country’s old lion and sun flag and other national symbols used during the shah’s reign.

State television and news agencies have shown video of purported protesters shooting at security forces, chanting “Death to Khamenei!” and stabbing security guards.

The unrest is most widespread since the 2022 protests sparked by the death in custody of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who was detained by Iran’s morality police for allegedly not wearing her hijab properly.

More than 550 people were killed and 20,000 were detained by security forces over several months, according to human rights groups.

AP, Reuters

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