Iran latest: Tehran says 2,000 killed in protests as US citizens told to leave now ahead of Trump military decision

An Iranian official has just claimed that around 2,000 people have been killed in the Iran protests.

The anonymous official told Reuters that “terrorists” were to blame for the deaths of civilians and security personnel.

Tehran maintains that fatal clashes between the government and anti-regime protesters have been stoked by foreign adversaries.

Donald Trump has made waves with his strongman approach to diplomacy in the last two weeks.

The takedown of longtime Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro at the start of the month showed he was serious about using force to achieve his objectives.

Allies subsequently took threats against Greenland at face value. Trump said he’d rather buy the territory than take it.

Now, he is said to be considering action against Iran.

Anonymous US officials have told the media that Trump is (again) weighing strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities among a range of options, including an anti-regime propaganda campaign and a cyber attack of sorts.

He also seems to be open to negotiating. On Monday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said private messages from Tehran showed a willingness to engage in talks.

“I think the president has an interest in exploring those messages,” she said. “However, with that said, the president has shown he’s unafraid to use military options if and when he deems necessary, and nobody knows that better than Iran.”

Iran has not responded directly but says it remains “open to diplomacy”.

Germany’s Friedrich Merz said today he believes the Iranian regime is living through its “final days and weeks”.

The Chancellor told reporters: “If a regime can only keep itself in power by force, then it’s effectively at the end. I believe we are now seeing the final days and weeks of this regime.”

He added that he hopes there will be a way to “end this conflict peacefully”.

Merz is currently on a visit to India.

Iranians were able to make calls out of Iran for the first time in days on Tuesday as the regime relaxed some of its restrictions.

People in Tehran told the Associated Press that they were able to make calls abroad but not receive them.

SMS text messaging was still down, and internet users could not access anything abroad.

There were local connections to certain government-approved websites, people said.

As a reminder, the regime assured on Monday that it had shut down the protest situation. Trump said that Iran was keen to negotiate after he threatened renewed strikes.

Exiled crown prince Reza Pahlavi has voiced support for a US intervention in Iran as the regime scales up its crackdown.

Pahlavi told CBS News on Monday: “We need action to be taken.”

“The best way to ensure that there will be less people killed in Iran is to intervene sooner, so this regime finally collapses and puts an end to all the problems that we are facing,” he said.

Brent Oil futures are trading more than 1 per cent higher today than yesterday – that’s quite a notable jump in oil market terms.

On the one hand, it’s a bigger reaction than the markets showed when the Venezuelan leader Maduro was captured. And it also means the price has spiked to a two-month high, since tipping past $65 in mid-November. Right now, it’s at $64.65.

But zoom the lens out further and the price is still depressed compared to recent historical norms: above $100 for almost the entire second half of 2022, and still between $70-80 for all of 2024.

There has been a steady climb since mid-December, though, and we’re up 5 per cent since then already.

Donald Trump is said to be weighing fresh strikes against Iran’s nuclear programme, according to a report.

US officials told the New York Times that the president is considering a wider range of strike options than previously reported. This could include new strikes on Iran’s nuclear programme and ballistic missile sites.

Any attack is “at least several days away”, the outlet reported, citing an official. They said that the president is also still exploring diplomatic options.

Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi told diplomats in Tehran on Monday that “the situation is now under total control”.

Iran has increasingly sought to downplay unrest while framing opposition as ‘rioting’ spurred on by foreign adversaries. A sweeping internet blackout has limited communication between dissenting Iranians and the outside world.

In a sign that the situation remains fragile, Iran’s top cyberspace authority said, also on Monday, that the restrictions would remain in place until officials say otherwise.

Mohammad Amin Aqamiri said that “the time to return to normal conditions will be announced in the future”, in comments reported in Iranian media.

Alp Toker, founder of internet monitoring group NetBlocks, said the blackout, which began on 8 January, was still in place on Monday.

He said he had heard from some people who were still able to use Elon Musk’s Starlink service to communicate, though reports suggested Iran was working to disrupt it with jammers.

Here are some of the latest pictures which have emerged from Iran, where a regime-imposed internet blackout has made communications between Iranians and the outside world very difficult.