US President Donald Trump speaks during a meeting with US oil companies executives in the East Room of the White House in Washington, DC. AFP
“If they start killing people like they have in the past, we will get involved. We’ll be hitting them very hard where it hurts,” Trump told reporters at the White House.
He said any US response would not involve ground troops but made clear that Washington was prepared to strike Iran.
“You’d better not start shooting, because we’ll start shooting too,” he said.
Trump’s new threats to use force against Tehran come as Washington and Western powers ramp up sanctions on the country over its nuclear power program.
Last June, Israel, backed by the US, carried out a wave of deadly attacks on Iranian civilian and military infrastructure and nuclear facilities, which left hundreds of Iranians dead and widespread devastation.
Egypt has been mediating between Tehran and the International Atomic Energy Agency to reach a peaceful resolution to Western objections over Tehran's nuclear program.
Earlier on Friday, Trump threatened on his Truth Social platform that if Iranian authorities shot and killed protesters, the United States would “come to their rescue.”
“We are locked and loaded, and ready to go,” Trump wrote, without specifying what form any intervention would take.
In an interview published on Thursday, Trump said his “own morality” was the only constraint on his authority to order military action worldwide.
“Yeah, there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me,” Trump told The New York Times when asked whether there were limits on his global powers.
Asked about international law, Trump said: “I don’t need international law.” He later added that he did need to abide by international law, but said “it depends what your definition of international law is.”
The new threats by Trump against Iran came days after US special forces abducted Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro from Caracas and transferred him to the United States to face federal charges. It also comes as Trump renewed threats to take control of Greenland, an autonomous territory of Denmark and a NATO partner.
In Iran, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei fired back at US President Donald Trump on Friday, accusing Washington of seeking to exploit protests in Iran and warning that authorities would not tolerate what he described as foreign-backed "saboteurs," according to state media.
“Trump should know that world tyrants such as Pharaoh, Nimrod, Reza Shah and Mohammad Reza were brought down at the peak of their arrogance. He too will be brought down,” Khamenei said in remarks aired on state television on Friday.
He accused protesters of acting at the behest of foreign powers and said authorities would not tolerate what he described as “mercenaries for foreigners," according to state media.
Khamenei said Trump’s hands “are stained with the blood of more than a thousand Iranians," an apparent reference to Israel’s June war against the Islamic Republic, which the United States supported and later joined with strikes of its own.
“Everyone should know that the Islamic Republic came to power with the blood of hundreds of thousands of honourable people, and it will not back down in the face of saboteurs,” he was quoted as saying.
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