DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guards are “more ready than ever to pull the trigger,” the commander of Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guards said Saturday as U.S. warships sail toward the Middle East. The Revolutionary Guards have been key in suppressing recent nationwide protests that have left thousands dead.
Nournews, a news outlet close to Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, reported on its Telegram channel that Iranian commander General Mohammad Pakpour warned the United States and Israel to “avoid any miscalculation.”
“The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps and dear Iran are more ready than ever to pull the trigger and implement the orders and instructions of the Commander-in-Chief,” Parkpool was quoted as saying by the newspaper.
Tensions between Iran and the United States remain high after the collapse of Iran’s currency, the rial, on December 28 triggered a bloody crackdown on protests that swept the country for about two weeks.
Trump’s warning
U.S. President Donald Trump has repeatedly warned Tehran, setting two red lines for the use of force: killing peaceful demonstrators and mass executions of people arrested during protests.
Trump has repeatedly said Iran has stopped executing 800 people detained during the protests. He did not elaborate on the source of the claim – which Iran’s top prosecutor Mohammad Mowahdi strongly denied in comments carried by the judiciary’s Mizan news agency on Friday.
On Thursday, Trump said aboard Air Force One that the United States was sending warships to Iran “just in case” he wanted to take action.
“We have a huge fleet heading in that direction and maybe we don’t have to use it,” Trump said.
The USS Abraham Lincoln and other warships traveling with it are in the Indian Ocean, a U.S. Navy official said on Thursday, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Trump also noted that before Israel launched a 12-day war against the Islamic Republic in June, U.S. officials held multiple rounds of talks with Iran over its nuclear program and U.S. warplanes bombed Iranian nuclear facilities. He threatened Iran with military action that would make an earlier U.S. strike on Iran’s uranium enrichment facilities “look trivial.”
“They should make a deal before we hit them,” Trump said.
Airline jitters
Tensions have led at least two European airlines to suspend some flights to the wider region.
Air France canceled two return flights from Paris to Dubai over the weekend. The airline said it was “closely monitoring developments in the Middle East in real time and continues to monitor the geopolitical situation in the regions that its aircraft serve and fly over to ensure the highest levels of flight safety and security.” It said it would resume flights to Dubai later on Saturday.
Luxair said it had postponed its Saturday flight from Luxembourg to Dubai for 24 hours “in light of the ongoing tension and insecurity in the region’s airspace and in line with measures taken by several other airlines”.
It told The Associated Press it was monitoring the situation closely and “will make a decision whether to operate the flight tomorrow based on an ongoing assessment.”
Arrivals information from Dubai International Airport also showed that KLM and Transavia had canceled flights from Amsterdam on Saturday. The airline did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Some KLM flights to Tel Aviv, Israel, were also canceled on Friday and Saturday, according to online flight trackers.
Death toll rises
While there have been no further demonstrations in Iran for several days, the death toll reported by activists continues to rise as information continues to spread, even as the most comprehensive internet blockade in Iran’s history continues for more than two weeks.
The U.S.-based Human Rights Activists news agency put the death toll at 5,137 on Saturday, with the death toll expected to rise. More than 27,700 people have been arrested, the report said.
The group has provided accurate figures from previous riots and relied on a network of Iranian activists to verify the death toll. The death toll exceeds that of any other round of protests or riots in the region in decades, recalling the chaos surrounding Iran’s 1979 Islamic revolution.
The Iranian government announced the death toll for the first time on Wednesday, saying 3,117 people had died. The report said 2,427 of them were civilians and security forces, while the remainder were described as “terrorists.” In the past, Iran’s theocratic regime has underestimated or failed to report the death toll from unrest.
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Associated Press writers Jon Gambrell in Dubai, Samuel Petrequin in Paris, Melanie Lidman in Tel Aviv, Israel, and Konstantin Toropin and Aamer Madhani in Washington contributed to this report.
