President Donald Trump said the United States could reach out to Iranian officials and is in touch with the opposition as he considers a range of strong responses, including military options, to the escalating unrest that poses one of the biggest challenges to clerical rule since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Reuters reports.
Trump said Iran had called for talks over its nuclear program, which Israel and the United States bombed in a 12-day war last June. Trump warned Iranian leaders that the United States would attack if security forces opened fire on protesters.
The American human rights organization HRANA announced that it had confirmed the deaths of 490 protesters and 48 members of the security forces, while more than 10.600 people were arrested.
Iran has not released official figures on the number of casualties, and Reuters was unable to independently confirm the figures.
A US official told the agency yesterday that Trump is set to meet with senior advisers on Tuesday to discuss options regarding Iran. The Wall Street Journal reported that the options include military strikes, the use of secret cyberweapons, expanding sanctions and providing online assistance to anti-government sources.
"The military is looking at it, and we are looking at some very strong options," Trump told reporters traveling with him on Air Force One last night.
Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf warned Washington not to make a "miscalculation."
"Let's be clear: in the event of an attack on Iran, the occupied territories (of Israel), as well as all American bases and ships, will be our legitimate targets," said Qalibaf, a former commander of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guard.
Dozens of body bags
The protests began on December 28th in reaction to skyrocketing prices, before turning into a rebellion against the clerical rulers who have ruled the country since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Iranian authorities have accused the US and Israel of fomenting unrest and called for a national rally today to condemn "terrorist actions led by the United States and Israel," state media reported.
The flow of information from Iran has been hampered by an internet shutdown that has been in place since January 8. Trump said yesterday that he would talk to Elon Musk about restoring internet access in Iran via his Starlink satellite network.
Footage posted on social media on Saturday from Tehran showed large crowds of people marching, clapping and chanting at night. "This crowd has no end or beginning," one man can be heard saying.
State television showed dozens of body bags on the ground at Tehran's Forensic Medicine Institute, saying the victims were victims of events caused by "armed terrorists," as well as footage of family members gathered outside the Kahrizak Forensic Medical Center in Tehran as they waited to identify the bodies.
Reuters confirmed the locations.
Authorities declared three days of national mourning yesterday "in honor of the martyrs who died in the resistance against the United States and the Zionist regime," state media reported.
Three Israeli sources, who attended security consultations in Israel over the weekend, said that Israel had raised its alert level due to the possibility of American intervention.
Israel and Iran fought a 12-day war in June 2025, in which the United States briefly intervened by attacking nuclear facilities. Iran responded by firing missiles at Israel and at a US air base in Qatar.
"Troublemakers and terrorists"
Although Iranian authorities have survived previous waves of protests, the latest unrest comes at a time when Tehran is still recovering from last year's war, and its regional position has been weakened by blows inflicted on allies, such as Lebanon's Hezbollah, following the attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.
The unrest in Iran comes at a time when Trump is demonstrating American power on the international stage, having ousted Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and is considering buying Greenland or taking it by force.
Alan Ayr, a former US diplomat and expert on Iran, believes that the protests are unlikely to overthrow the existing system of government.
"I think it's more likely that the authorities will eventually suppress these protests, but that they will emerge from that process significantly weaker," he told Reuters, noting that the Iranian elite still appears cohesive and that there is no organized opposition.
Trump tweeted two days ago: "Iran is looking toward freedom, perhaps like never before. The United States stands ready to help!"
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