Iran’s leader vows regime “will not back down” and says saboteurs trying to please Trump as web shutdown continues

Thousands of Iranians filled the streets of Tehran and other cities on Thursday night, listening to the country’s exiled prince’s call to make their voices heard in the toughest challenge to the Islamic Republic’s hardline rulers in years.

I protests have spread across the country for 12 daysIt left dozens dead and more than 2,000 arrested by security forces, according to a monitoring group based outside the country, but despite the arrests and the nationwide shutdown of internet and telephones, the violence intensified on Thursday night.

It was impossible to get a clear picture of the scale of the unrest, given the reduction in the flow of information, but Iran’s ruler appeared in a brief televised address Friday morning, defiantly accusing President Trump of inciting the protests, signaling that he is still in power, and vowing that his regime “will not back down.”

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, 86, called for unity and accused “a bunch of vandals” in Tehran, where a state television building was set on fire, for “destroying a building that belongs to them to please the US president.”

As he spoke, the audience in front of him chanted “Death to America!”

In light of the communications blackout, which continued Friday morning according to Internet watchdog NetBlocks, short videos posted online, mostly by anti-government activists, provided the last real window into the unrest across the country.

It appeared to have intensified since 8pm local time on Thursday, when exiled Prince Reza Pahlavi called on Iranians to shout and chant from their windows against the regime.

“The Iranian people want their freedom tonight,” said Pahlavi, the son of former head of state Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who fled the country shortly before the 1979 Islamic revolution that brought the current regime.

In a statement posted online, he asked European leaders to join Mr. Trump to “hold the regime to account,” using “all technical, financial, and diplomatic resources available to restore communication with the people of Iran so that their voice and will can be heard and seen. Do not allow the voices of our brave people to be silenced.”

Pahlavi issued his call a few days ago about mass chanting against the regime at 8 p.m., which is noon on the east coast of the United States, on Thursday and Friday, so it is possible that the regime will face another night of great unrest.

In the videos, which are difficult to independently verify, many people could be heard chanting “Death to the dictator!” and “Death in the Islamic Republic,” while others demanded the return of the monarchy, saying: “Pahlavi will return!”

“All the big crowds in my area are Pahlavi and in many places my sources report the same thing – the pro-Pahlavi crowds are rampant, undeniably,” one source in Tehran told CBS News Thursday night, calling it “the kings answering to Reza,” before being cut off.

Holly Dagres, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said the prince’s meeting appeared to have “changed the tone of the protests,” telling the Associated Press that, based on communications, “it was clear that the Iranian people brought and took seriously the call to protest to oust the Islamic Republic.”

“That’s exactly why the internet was shut down: to prevent the world from seeing the protests. Unfortunately, it might have provided security forces to kill the protesters,” Dagres said.

As of Thursday, the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency, which relies on the country’s communications network, said at least 42 people had been killed and more than 2,270 others arrested, but that was before a clear picture of the chaos was obtained Thursday night and Friday morning.

Echoing Khamenei, Iran’s state-controlled media on Friday blamed US and Israeli “terrorists” for the violence. It acknowledged the injuries, but did not provide details.

The protests began on December 28 as merchants in Tehran closed their shops and took to the streets to express anger at Iran’s economy, which has been crippled for years by isolation and a raft of sanctions imposed by the US and other nations over its nuclear program and support for militant groups across the region.

Iran’s dictatorial regime has ended several previous uprisings, violently, and a source in Tehran told CBS News that there is a deep fear among many people that the current protests will suffer the same fate.

However, this time, the protests are playing out under the threat of direct US intervention by President Trump.

“I told them that if they start killing people, which they usually do during violence – they have a lot of riots – if they do, we will hit them hard,” said Mr. Trump on Thursday during a radio interview.

Vice President JD Vance told reporters at the White House that the US stands by anyone holding peaceful protests in Iran. Asked whether the US, as it did over the summer, would participate in any new Israeli strikes on Iran, Vance asked Tehran to discuss its nuclear program with Washington, but said he would “let the president talk about what we do in the future.”