(Bloomberg) -- Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Saturday said “several thousand people” died in this month’s anti-government demonstrations, his first acknowledgment of the deadly scale of the unrest.
Some of those were killed “brutally and inhumanely,” Khamenei said without offering detail in a public meeting broadcast on state TV. He accused the US and Israel of aiding the killings and said the Islamic Republic has evidence to support the claim.
Iran doesn’t intend to push the country toward war, but won’t allow either domestic or international criminals to go unpunished, Khamenei said.
He said US President Donald Trump was culpable for “deaths, damage, and accusations he has inflicted on the Iranian people,” and that Washington’s broader policy goal was to place Iran under military, political, and economic domination.
The toll suggested by Khamenei was in line with estimates from human rights groups and others that some 3,500 people had perished. The groups estimate that more than 22,000 people have been detained.
Trump told Politico that Iran needs new leadership and said Khamenei is guilty of “the complete destruction of the country and the use of violence at levels never seen before.”
The protests have taken place during a record long internet blackout for Iran’s population of about 92 million people.
