Trump warns of very strong action if Iran hangs protesters

Trump warns of very strong action if Iran hangs protesters Nokuthula Khanyile Wed, 01/14/2026 - 07:00 WASHINGTON - US President Donald Trump warned of unspecified very strong action if Iranian authorities go ahead with threatened hangings of some protesters, with Tehran calling American warnings a pretext for military intervention .International outrage has built over the crackdown that a rights group said has likely killed thousands during protests, posing one of the biggest challenges yet to Iran s clerical leadership.Iran s UN mission posted a statement on X, vowing that Washington s playbook would fail again .The post said:US fantasies and policy toward Iran are rooted in regime change, with sanctions, threats, engineered unrest, and chaos serving as the modus operandi to manufacture a pretext for military intervention.Iranian authorities have insisted they had regained control of the country after successive nights of mass protests nationwide since Thursday.Rights groups accuse the government of fatally shooting protesters and masking the scale of the crackdown with an internet blackout that has now surpassed the five-day mark.Trump, who earlier told the protesters in Iran that help is on its way , told CBS News that the United States would act if Iran began hanging protesters.Tehran prosecutors said Iranian authorities would press capital charges of moharebeh , or waging war against God , against some suspects arrested over recent demonstrations. We will take very strong action if they do such a thing, said the American leader, who has repeatedly threatened Iran with military intervention. When they start killing thousands of people, and now you re telling me about hanging. We ll see how that s going to work out for them, Trump said.New videos on social media, with locations verified by AFP, showed bodies lined up in the Kahrizak morgue just south of the Iranian capital, with the corpses wrapped in black bags and distraught relatives searching for loved ones.International phone links were restored on Tuesday, but only for outgoing calls, according to an AFP journalist, and the quality remained spotty, with frequent interruptions.Earlier Tuesday, Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform urge Iranians to KEEP PROTESTING , adding: I have cancelled all meetings with Iranian Officials until the senseless killing of protesters STOPS. HELP IS ON ITS WAY. It was not immediately clear what meetings he was referring to or what the nature of the help would be.European nations also signalled their anger over the crackdown, with France, Germany and the United Kingdom among the countries that summoned their Iranian ambassadors, as did the European Union.

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