Donald Trump has said an American “armada” is heading towards the Middle East and that the US is monitoring Iran closely, as activists put the death toll from Tehran’s crackdown on protesters at 5,002.
Speaking on Air Force One as he returned from the World Economic Forum in Davos overnight, he said: “We have a lot of ships going that direction, just in case. I’d rather not see anything happen, but we’re watching them very closely … we have an armada … heading in that direction, and maybe we won’t have to use it.”
The aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln and several guided-missile destroyers are due to arrive in the Middle East in the coming days. Additional air defence systems are being deployed, most likely around US and Israeli airbases. The UK said it would send RAF Eurofighter Typhoon jets from 12 Squadron to Qatar, at Doha’s request.
The US president pulled back from attacking Iran two weeks ago, despite promising “help is on its way”, largely because he felt he had been given no military option that would prove decisive in securing regime change in Tehran. He was also urged to hold back by the Gulf states.
In an update on Friday, the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) said the death toll from the Iranian crackdown on protesters had reached 5,002 – comprising 4,716 demonstrators, 203 government-affiliated people, 43 children and 40 civilians not taking part in the protests.
The agency’s numbers have been accurate in previous unrest in Iran and rely on a network of activists there to verify deaths. HRANA said at least 26,541 people had been arrested.
The protests started on 28 December when traders took to the streets in Tehran in response to a sudden dip in the value of the rial. As they spread, demands expanded to include calls for an end to the country’s government, creating the most serious and deadliest unrest in the country since the 1979 revolution.
Speaking at an emergency session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, Volker Türk, the UN commissioner for human rights, said thousands of people, including children, had been killed on the streets and in residential areas. He said video evidence showed there were hundreds in morgues with fatal injuries to their heads and chests, while hundreds of security personnel had also been killed.
He urged Iran to “end their brutal repression”, including summary trials, and urged a complete moratorium on the use of the death penalty.
Türk decried Iran’s judiciary chief this week saying there would be no leniency for the thousands detained, saying it was a “chilling development”. “I am deeply concerned by contradictory statements from the Iranian authorities about whether those detained in connection with the protests may be executed,” he said, pointing out that Iran “remains among the top executioner states in the world”, with at least 1,500 people reportedly put to death there last year.
The Iranian authorities have sought to delegitimise the protests by claiming rioters infiltrated peaceful protests. “None of this would justify resorting to disproportionate use of force or coercing families,” Türk said. He claimed there had been 100 forced confessions and a lack of transparency about proceedings, with those arrested including lawyers, human rights activists, cafe owners, athletes and actors.
The internet shutdown was the longest recorded in Iran and had severely restricted communications making it difficult for families to check on the welfare of their loved ones, he said.
Mai Sato, the UN special rapporteur on human rights in Iran, demanded to be able to visit Iran for a thorough investigation. “The Iranian people have shown enormous courage by talking truth to power,” she said, and urged the international community to reciprocate.
“Lethal force can only be used as a last resort to protect life and must be lawful, necessary and proportionate. I’ve received countless videos showing security forces using lethal force against unarmed protesters.”
The protest movement has largely petered out in the face of the crackdown, which was accompanied by an unprecedented internet blackout, though chants of “death to the dictator” are taking place at bitter and often well-attended funerals.
Videos are still trickling out from inside Iran showing how security forces were given licence to shoot to kill protesters, especially from 5-8 January.
One of the main reformist newspapers, Ham-Mihan, has been shut down for printing two stories: one on the pursuit of protesters in a hospital and the other detailing the severity and brutality of the suppression more widely.
Many leading reformists have not been able to express their views on the crackdown, and the few that have been allowed to address wider audiences seem to be blaming both sides for a collapse in social solidarity brought on by a crash in the exchange rate. The extent to which these problems are caused by sanctions or internal inefficiency is debated.
In his longest reflection to date on the violence, the Iranian president, Masoud Pezeshkian, a reformist elected 18 months ago, claimed “the civil and just protest of the people was turned into a bloody and violent battle due to a conspiracy by those who wish Iran ill will”.
Scott Bessent, the US treasury secretary, took credit while in Davos for the protests, saying US sanctions had led to the unrest and that maximum economic sanctions “worked because in December, their economy collapsed”.
He added: “We saw a major bank go under. The central bank has started to print money. There is a dollar shortage. They are not able to get imports, and this is why the people took to the streets. This is economic statecraft, no shots fired, and things are moving in a very positive way here.”
Trump has repeatedly left open the option of new military action against Iran after Washington backed and joined Israel’s 12-day war in June aimed at degrading Iranian nuclear and ballistic missile programmes. But the prospect of immediate American action seemed to have receded in recent days, with both sides insisting on giving diplomacy a chance.
Ali Abdollahi Aliabadi, who heads Iran’s Khatam-al Anbiya Central Headquarters, which coordinates the army and the Revolutionary Guards, warned the US on Thursday that any military strike on Iran would turn all US bases in the region into “legitimate targets”.
