• Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has blamed the US and Israel for protests that have gripped the country.
• The 83-year-old accused the countries of trying to stop Iran’s “progress”.
• Protests erupted after a woman died in custody of Iran’s morality police.

Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has blamed the United States and Israel for the country’s two-week-long protests, accusing the countries of attempting to halt Iran’s “progress.”

On Monday, Khamenei referred to the anti-government protests, which were among the largest seen in the country in years, as “riots.”

The 83-year-old leader had remained silent on the protests, which erupted after Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish woman, died in the custody of Iran’s morality police last month.

“I say explicitly that these riots and insecurity were planned by the US and the occupying, fake Zionist regime [Israel] and those who are paid by them, and some traitorous Iranians abroad helped them,” Khamenei told graduating cadets at Tehran’s police academy.

“In the accident that occurred, a young woman died, which also pained us, but reactions to her death before investigations [take place]… when some come to make the streets insecure, burn Qurans, take hijabs off covered women, and burn mosques and people’s cars – they’re not a normal, natural reaction,” Khamenei said, surrounded by police, army, and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps chiefs (IRGC).

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Khamenei attempted to cast the unrest as part of a foreign effort to destabilise Iran, claiming that another “excuse” would have been found to destabilise the country if Amini’s death had not occurred.

Iran’s supreme leader claimed the unrest was an attempt to halt the country’s progress, despite harsh US sanctions imposed since 2018, when Washington unilaterally terminated Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers.

“They believe the country is moving toward full-fledged power, and they cannot tolerate this,” Khamenei said.

In light of the protests, which have resulted in the deaths of dozens of people, the US is said to be considering additional sanctions against Iran. It has relaxed some internet sanctions against Iran in an attempt to assist Iranians in circumventing government internet restrictions imposed since the protests began.

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