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DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — <\/span>Iran signaled Friday that security forces would crack down on protesters,<\/a> directly challenging U.S. President Donald Trump\u2019s pledge to support those peacefully demonstrating as the death toll rose to at least 50.<\/p>\n Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei dismissed Trump as having hands \u201cstained with the blood of Iranians\u201d as supporters shouted \u201cDeath to America!\u201d in footage aired by Iranian state television. State media later repeatedly referred to demonstrators as \u201cterrorists,\u201d setting the stage for a violent crackdown like those that followed other nationwide protests<\/a> in recent years. <\/p>\n Protesters are \u201cruining their own streets … in order to please the president of the United States,\u201d Khamenei said to a crowd at his compound in Tehran. \u201cBecause he said that he would come to their aid. He should pay attention to the state of his own country instead.\u201d<\/p>\n Iran\u2019s judiciary chief Gholamhossein Mohseni-Ejei separately vowed that punishment for protesters \u201cwill be decisive, maximum and without any legal leniency.\u201d<\/p>\n There was no immediate response from Washington, though Trump has repeated his pledge to strike Iran if protesters are killed, a threat that’s taken on greater significance after the U.S. military raid<\/a> that seized Venezuela’s Nicol\u00e1s Maduro.<\/p>\n Despite Iran\u2019s theocracy cutting off the nation from the internet and international telephone calls, short online videos shared by activists purported to show protesters chanting against Iran\u2019s government around bonfires as debris littered the streets in the capital, Tehran, and other areas into Friday morning. <\/p>\n Iranian state media alleged \u201cterrorist agents\u201d of the U.S. and Israel set fires and sparked violence. It also said there were \u201ccasualties,\u201d without elaborating.<\/p>\n The full scope of the demonstrations couldn\u2019t be immediately determined due to the communications blackout, though it represented yet another escalation in protests that began over Iran\u2019s ailing economy and that has morphed into the most significant challenge to the government in several years. The protests have intensified steadily since beginning Dec. 28.<\/p>\n The protests also represented the first test of whether the Iranian public could be swayed by Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi, whose fatally ill father fled Iran<\/a> just before the country\u2019s 1979 Islamic Revolution. Pahlavi, who called for the protests Thursday night, similarly has called for demonstrations at 8 p.m. Friday.<\/p>\n Demonstrations have included cries in support of the shah, something that could bring a death sentence in the past but now underlines the anger fueling the protests that began over Iran\u2019s ailing economy. <\/p>\n So far, violence around the demonstrations has killed at least 50 people while more than 2,270 others have been detained, said the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency. <\/p>\n \u201cWhat turned the tide of the protests was former Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi\u2019s calls for Iranians to take to the streets at 8 p.m. on Thursday and Friday,\u201d said Holly Dagres, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. \u201cPer social media posts, it became clear that Iranians had delivered and were taking the call seriously to protest in order to oust the Islamic Republic.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cThis is exactly why the internet was shut down: to prevent the world from seeing the protests. Unfortunately, it also likely provided cover for security forces to kill protesters.\u201d<\/p>\n When the clock struck 8 p.m. Thursday, neighborhoods across Tehran erupted in chanting, witnesses said. The chants included \u201cDeath to the dictator!\u201d and \u201cDeath to the Islamic Republic!\u201d Others praised the shah, shouting: \u201cThis is the last battle! Pahlavi will return!\u201d Thousands could be seen on the streets before all communication to Iran cut out. <\/p>\n \u201cIranians demanded their freedom tonight. In response, the regime in Iran has cut all lines of communication,\u201d Pahlavi said. \u201cIt has shut down the internet. It has cut landlines. It may even attempt to jam satellite signals.\u201d<\/p>\n He went on to call for European leaders to join Trump in promising to \u201chold the regime to account.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI call on them to use all technical, financial, and diplomatic resources available to restore communication to the Iranian people so that their voice and their will can be heard and seen,\u201d he added. \u201cDo not let the voices of my courageous compatriots be silenced.\u201d<\/p>\n Pahlavi had said he would offer further plans depending on the response to his call. His support of and from Israel has drawn criticism<\/a> in the past \u2014 particularly after the 12-day war Israel waged on Iran in June. Demonstrators have shouted in support of the shah in some demonstrations, but it isn\u2019t clear whether that\u2019s support for Pahlavi himself or a desire to return to a time before the 1979 Islamic Revolution. <\/p>\n The internet cut also appears to have taken Iran\u2019s state-run and semiofficial news agencies offline. The state TV acknowledgment at 8 a.m. Friday represented the first official word about the demonstrations.<\/p>\n State TV claimed the protests were violent and caused casualties, but did not elaborate. It also said the protests saw \u201cpeople\u2019s private cars, motorcycles, public places such as the metro, fire trucks and buses set on fire.\u201d State TV later reported that violence overnight killed six people in Hamedan, some 280 kilometers (175 miles) southwest of Tehran.<\/p>\n The European Union and Germany condemned the violence targeting demonstrators. <\/p>\n Iran has faced rounds of nationwide protests<\/a> in recent years. As sanctions tightened<\/a> and Iran struggled after the 12-day war<\/a>, its rial currency collapsed in December, reaching 1.4 million to $1. Protests began soon after, with demonstrators chanting against Iran\u2019s theocracy. <\/p>\n