U.S. President Donald Trump stated on Tuesday that he will send economic aid to opponents in Iran and once again threatened a possible military attack against the Tehran government for the repression of protests. «There is a lot of help on the way in different forms, including economic,» the head of state replied during an interview with CBS News, during a visit to a Ford Motor Company plant. When asked about the violence of the Iranian state against protesters, the Republican responded that they will take «forceful measures,» if it is confirmed that they will hang people who have participated in the protests. When explaining what would be «the long-term objective» of a military attack on the government of the ayatollahs, Trump replied that his goal is «to win.» Subsequently, when defining what a «victory» in Iran would entail, the Republican limited himself to giving as examples U.S. operations to kill Qasem Soleimani, former commander of the Quds Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps of Iran (IRGC), or Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, former leader of the Islamic State, or the one that extracted then-President Nicolás Maduro from Venezuela last January 3. The protests that began on the 28th reached their peak last Thursday with an explosion of demonstrations in practically the entire country that led to acts of vandalism against public bodies, banks that were razed, and the burning of 53 mosques throughout the country, according to official sources. Human Rights Activists (HRA) said today it has confirmed the death of a total of 1,850 people, including nine minors, in the 17 days of anti-government protests in Iran and also more than 16,700 arrests, as published in its news agency HRANA. Stéphane Dujarric, spokesman for the UN Secretary-General, António Guterres, stated today at a press conference that «there is no verified figure» by the organization on the number of people killed in the protests, but that «it is evident that an unacceptable number of civilians have died».
