Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called US President Donald Trump a "criminal" today for supporting protesters in Iran and blamed the protesters for thousands of deaths since late December.
Khamenei, in a speech broadcast on state television, said that "several thousand" people had died in the protests, which began on December 28, marking the first time he has acknowledged the scale of the casualties since the demonstrations began.
"During this uprising, the American president personally made remarks, encouraged the rebels to continue and said: We support you, we support you militarily," Khamenei said, repeating the accusation that the US wants dominance over Iran's economic and political resources.
He said Tehran considers "the American president a criminal, because of the victims and the damage, because of the accusations against the Iranian nation."
Khamenei added that the protesters were Washington's "infantry" and that they had destroyed mosques and schools during the riots.
"By injuring people, they killed several thousand of them," he said.
Trump said yesterday that "Iran has canceled the hanging of more than 800 people," and that he respected Tehran's decision, without clarifying the planned executions.
He has been announcing to protesting Iranians in recent days that "help is on the way" and that his administration will "respond accordingly" if the killing of protesters continues or if authorities execute detained protesters.
Khamenei further stated in his speech that the protesters were armed with ammunition from abroad, without specifying the countries of origin.
"We are not planning, we are not leading the country into war. But we are not letting domestic offenders go, worse than domestic offenders, there are also international offenders. We are not leaving them alone either," he said, urging officials to continue with the prosecution.
Iranian officials have repeatedly accused the US and Israel of fomenting unrest in the country.
The situation in Tehran has been calm in recent days, and telephone signals and the internet have returned to some parts of the country, after the authorities blocked them on January 8th.
Demonstrations broke out across Iran on December 28 due to the country's poor economic situation and the devaluation of the national currency, the rial, and according to the independent activist group FOOD, 3.090 people were killed, making it the worst riots since the 1979 revolution.
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