Street protests continued in Iran for a fifth consecutive day, accompanied by Iranian and foreign reactions.
Three people were killed in an attack on a police headquarters in Lorestan Province in western Iran, and two others were killed during protests marked by unrest in the country’s southwest, according to the Fars News Agency.
The semi-official agency reported that protesters in the city of Lordegan pelted administrative buildings with stones before moving toward the provincial governorate building, prompting police to use tear gas, resulting in injuries.
In Azna, also in Lorestan, the agency said “a group of rioters” exploited a protest gathering to attack a police station, leaving three people dead and 17 others wounded during clashes.
As for reactions to the protests, U.S. President Donald Trump threatened to intervene if Iran opened fire on peaceful protesters and killed them.
In a post on the Truth Social platform, Trump said: “We are on standby and ready to move.”
In response, Ali Larijani, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, said the U.S. president must realize that interference in Iran’s internal affairs would destabilize the region and undermine Washington’s interests.
Larijani also described Trump’s remarks as direct U.S. intervention in the protests.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, however, said public discontent should not be attributed to external actors such as the United States, stressing that the root of the problem lies in poor domestic management.
Pezeshkian described the protesters’ demands as legitimate and urged the government to take steps to improve the economic situation.
The protests began last Sunday, when shop owners in Tehran’s Grand Bazaar closed their stores and took to the streets in protest of deteriorating economic conditions, particularly rising prices and the sharp decline in the value of the Iranian currency against the U.S. dollar.
Inflation reached 42.5 percent in December, while the Iranian rial lost about half of its value against the dollar in 2025.
Iran’s economy has suffered for years as a result of Tehran’s involvement in regional conflicts and its support for militias in several Arab countries, according to opponents of the Iranian system. The economy has also been strained by Western sanctions imposed over Iran’s nuclear program.
This past June, Iran got into a direct fight with Israel for 12 days and its nuclear facilities were attacked by the U.S.
