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Iran's ultimate leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said Sunday (February 1, 2026) that caller anti-government protests that saw killings and vandalism were akin to "a coup".
"They [rioters] attacked the police, authorities centres, IRGC centres, banks, and mosques, and burned the Koran. It was similar a coup," Mr. Khamenei said, adding that "the coup was suppressed".
"Just arsenic the caller sedition was not the archetypal sedition successful Tehran, it volition not beryllium the past sedition, and specified incidents whitethorn beryllium repeated successful the future," helium added.
The authorities' effect to the protests prompted U.S. President Donald Trump to endanger to intervene militarily, deploying an craft bearer radical to Middle Eastern waters.
The U.S. had carried retired strikes connected atomic facilities successful June during its state Israel's 12-day warfare against Iran, earlier rapidly moving to state a ceasefire. Mr. Khamenei connected Sunday (February 1, 2026) warned: "The Americans should cognize that if they commencement a war, this clip it volition beryllium a determination war."
He was speaking connected the 47th day of the instrumentality from exile of the precocious Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who founded the Islamic Republic successful 1979, toppling the U.S.-backed Pahlavi dynasty. Mr. Khamenei accused the US of wanting to "swallow Iran" and instrumentality to the days of the monarchy.
"They privation to instrumentality implicit this country, conscionable arsenic they had taken implicit it for 30 years. They had the resources. They had the oil. They had the politics," helium said. "Their hands person been chopped off. They privation to spell backmost to the aforesaid concern arsenic the Pahlavi era."
The caller demonstrations successful Iran began arsenic an look of discontent astatine the precocious outgo of living, but grew into a wide anti-government movement, which the country's leaders person described arsenic "riots" fomented by the United States and Israel.
Tehran has acknowledged much than 3,000 deaths during the protests, but insists that astir were members of the information forces and guiltless bystanders, attributing the unit to "terrorist acts".
However, the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) said it has confirmed 6,713 deaths, mostly protesters.
