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DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — <\/span>Iran’s supreme leader insisted Saturday that \u201crioters must be put in their place\u201d after a week of protests<\/a> that have shaken the Islamic Republic, likely giving security forces a green light to aggressively put down the demonstrations. <\/p>\n The first comments by 86-year-old Ayatollah Ali Khamenei come as violence surrounding the demonstrations sparked by Iran’s ailing economy has killed at least 10 people. The protests show no sign of stopping and follow U.S. President Donald Trump warning Iran<\/a> on Friday that if Tehran \u201cviolently kills peaceful protesters,\u201d the United States \u201cwill come to their rescue.\u201d <\/p>\n While it remains unclear how and if Trump will intervene, his comments sparked an immediate, angry response, with officials within the theocracy threatening to target American troops in the Mideast. They also take on new importance after Trump said Saturday that the U.S. military captured Venezuelan President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro<\/a>, a longtime ally of Tehran. <\/p>\n The protests, have become the biggest in Iran since 2022, when the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini<\/a> in police custody triggered nationwide demonstrations. However, the protests have yet to be as widespread and intense as those surrounding the death of Amini, who was detained over not wearing her hijab, or headscarf, to the liking of authorities. <\/p>\n State television aired remarks by Khamenei to an audience in Tehran that sought to separate the concerns of protesting Iranians upset about the rial’s collapse from \u201crioters.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe talk to protesters, the officials must talk to them,\u201d Khamenei said. \u201cBut there is no benefit to talking to rioters. Rioters must be put in their place.\u201d<\/p>\n He also reiterated a claim constantly made by officials in Iran that foreign powers like Israel or the United States were pushing the protests, without offering any evidence. He also blamed \u201cthe enemy\u201d for Iran’s collapsing rial. <\/p>\n \u201cA bunch of people incited or hired by the enemy are getting behind the tradesmen and shopkeepers and chanting slogans against Islam, Iran and the Islamic Republic,” he said. “This is what matters most.\u201d<\/p>\n Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard ranks include the all-volunteer Basij force, whose motorcycling-riding members have violently put down protests like the 2009 Green Movement and the 2022 demonstrations. The Guard answers only to Khamenei. <\/p>\n Hard-line officials within the country are believed to have been pushing for a more-aggressive response to the demonstrations as President Masoud Pezeshkian has sought talks to address protesters’ demands. <\/p>\n But bloody security crackdowns often follow such protests. Protests over a gasoline price hike in 2019 reportedly saw over 300 people killed. A crackdown on the Amini protests of 2022, which lasted for months, killed more than 500 people and saw over 22,000 detained.<\/p>\n \u201cIran has no organized domestic opposition; protesters are likely acting spontaneously,\u201d the Eurasia Group said in an analysis Friday. \u201cWhile protests could continue or grow larger (particularly as Iran\u2019s economic outlook remains dire), the regime retains a large security apparatus and would likely suppress such dissent without losing control of the country.\u201d<\/p>\n Two deaths overnight into Saturday involved a new level of violence. In Qom, home to the country’s major Shiite seminaries, a grenade exploded, killing a man there, the state-owned IRAN newspaper reported. It quoted security officials alleging the man was carrying the grenade to attack people in the city, some 130 kilometers (80 miles) south of the capital, Tehran. <\/p>\n Online videos from Qom purportedly showed fires in the street overnight.<\/p>\n The second death happened in the town of Harsin, some 370 kilometers (230 miles) southwest of Tehran. There, the newspaper said, a member of the Basij, the all-volunteer arm of Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, died in a gun and knife attack in the town in Kermanshah province. <\/p>\n Demonstrations have reached over 100 locations in 22 of Iran\u2019s 31 provinces, the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency reported.<\/p>\n The protests, taking root in economic issues, have heard demonstrators chant against Iran\u2019s theocracy as well. Tehran has had little luck in propping up its economy in the months since its June war with Israel<\/a> in which the U.S. also bombed Iranian nuclear sites in Iran<\/a>.<\/p>\n Iran recently said it was no longer enriching uranium<\/a> at any site in the country, trying to signal to the West that it remains open to potential negotiations over its atomic program to ease sanctions. However, those talks have yet to happen as Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have warned Tehran against reconstituting its atomic program<\/a>. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n