Defiant Khamenei insists 'won't back down' in face of Iran protests

Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Friday insisted that the Islamic republic would "not back down" in the face of protests after the biggest rallies yet in an almost two week movement sparked by anger over the rising cost of living.

Chanting slogans including "death to the dictator" and setting fire to official buildings, crowds of people opposed to the clerical establishment marched through major cities late Thursday.

Internet monitor Netblocks said authorities had imposed a total connectivity blackout late Thursday and added early Friday that the country has "now been offline for 12 hours... in an attempt to suppress sweeping protests".

The demonstrations represent one of the biggest challenges yet to the Islamic republic in its over four-and-a half decades of existence, with protesters openly calling for an end to its theocratic rule.

But Khamenei struck a defiant tone in his first comments on the protests that have been escalating since January 3, calling the demonstrators "vandals" and "saboteurs", in a speech broadcast on state TV.

Khamenei said US President Donald Trump's hands "are stained with the blood of more than a thousand Iranians", in apparent reference to Israel's June war against the Islamic republic which the US supported and joined with strikes of its own.

He predicted the "arrogant" US leader would be "overthrown" like the imperial dynasty that ruled Iran up to the 1979 revolution.

"Last night in Tehran, a bunch of vandals came and destroyed a building that belongs to them to please the US president," he said in an address to supporters, as men and women in the audience chanted the mantra of "death to America".

"Everyone knows the Islamic republic came to power with the blood of hundreds of thousands of honourable people, it will not back down in the face of saboteurs," he added.

Trump said late Thursday that "enthusiasm to overturn that regime is incredible" and warned that if the Iranian authorities responded by killing protesters, "we're going to hit them very hard. We're ready to do it."

- 'Even larger' -

AFP has verified videos showing crowds of people, as well as vehicles honking in support, filling a part of the vast Ayatollah Kashani Boulevard late on Thursday.

The crowd could be heard chanting "death to the dictator" in reference to Khamenei, 86, who has ruled the Islamic republic since 1989.

Other videos showed significant protests in other cities, including Tabriz in the north and the holy city of Mashhad in the east, as well as the Kurdish-populated west of the country, including the regional hub Kermanshah.

Several videos showed protesters setting fire to the entrance to the regional branch of state television in the central city of Isfahan. It was not immediately possible to verify the images.

Flames were also seen in the governor's building in Shazand, the capital of Markazi province in central Iran, after protesters gathered outside, other videos showed.

The protests late Thursday were the biggest in Iran since 2022-2023 rallies nationwide sparked by the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, who had been arrested for allegedly violating the Islamic republic's strict dress code.

Rights groups have accused authorities of firing on protesters in the current demonstrations, killing dozens. However, the latest videos from Tehran did not show intervention by security forces.

The son of the shah of Iran ousted by the 1979 Islamic Revolution, US-based Reza Pahlavi, who had called for major protests Thursday, urged a new show of force in the streets on Friday.

Pahlavi, in a new video message early Friday, said Thursday's rallies showed how "a massive crowd forces the repressive forces to retreat".

He called for bigger protests Friday "to make the crowd even larger so that the regime's repressive power becomes even weaker".