Iran's supreme leader vows to 'put rioters in their place' after violent protests left at least 10 people dead

Iran's Supreme Leader threatened to put 'rioters in their place' after violent protests left at least 10 people dead. 

The Middle Eastern nation has seen a sharp rise in arrests following days of unrest sparked by soaring inflation. 

Speaking in a recorded appearance on Saturday, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said the Islamic Republic 'we will speak with the protesters but talking to rioters is useless.

'Rioters should be put in their place,' he added. 

Khameini also vowed not to 'yield to the enemy' after US President Donald Trump threatened to come to the aid of protesters, stating that the United States was 'locked and ready to go'.

The Supreme Leader's warning comes after state-affiliated media reported three deaths on Saturday, with rights groups saying more than 10 had already died in demonstrations across Iran since Sunday as the collapsing rial currency hits an economy already undermined by sanctions. 

Videos circulating on social media purported to show protests in southern and western Iran. 

In one, marchers called on other Iranians to come onto the streets, chanting 'We don't want spectators: join us'.

Mehr and Fars news agencies, both state affiliated, reported that a security forces member and two demonstrators were killed in Malekshahi, a western town, when what they called armed protesters tried to enter a police station.

The weeklong protests, have become the biggest in Iran since 2022, when the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in police custody triggered nationwide demonstrations.

However, the protests have yet to be as widespread and intense as those surrounding the death of Amini, who was detained over not wearing her hijab, or headscarf, to the liking of authorities.

The deaths overnight into Saturday involved a new level of violence. 

In Qom, home to the country's major Shiite seminaries, a grenade exploded, killing a man there, the state-owned IRAN newspaper reported.

It quoted security officials alleging the man carried the grenade to attack people in the city, some 80 miles south of the capital, Tehran.

Online videos from Qom purportedly showed fires in the street overnight.

The second death happened in the town of Harsin, some 230 miles southwest of Tehran. 

There, the newspaper said a member of the Basij, the all-volunteer arm of Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, died in a gun and knife attack in the town in Kermanshah province.

Demonstrations have reached over 100 locations in 22 of Iran's 31 provinces, the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency reported.

Iran's civilian government under reformist President Masoud Pezeshkian has been trying to signal it wants to negotiate with protesters. 

However, Pezeshkian has acknowledged there is not much he can do as Iran's rial has rapidly depreciated, with $1 now costing some 1.4 million rials.

The protests, taking root in economic issues, have heard demonstrators chant against Iran's theocracy as well. 

Tehran has had little luck in propping up its economy in the months since its June war with Israel in which the US also bombed Iranian nuclear sites in Iran.

Iran recently said it was no longer enriching uranium at any site in the country, trying to signal to the West that it remains open to potential negotiations over its atomic program to ease sanctions. 

However, those talks have yet to happen as Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have warned Tehran against reconstituting its atomic program.

Meanwhile, Iranian anti-government demonstrators and supporters of exiled Crown Prince of Iran, Reza Pahlavi, gathered outside the Embassy of Iran in London on Saturday.

Protesters were photographed brandishing historic Iranian flags, as they demanded freedom for their nation.

Source: Mail Online, Staff, January 3, 2026

"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted."

— Oscar Wilde