Severe damage

Analysts say US options include strikes on military facilities or targeted hits against the leadership under Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in a full-scale bid to bring down the system that has ruled Iran since the 1979 Islamic revolution that ousted the shah.

Before Trump’s comments were published, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said “conducting diplomacy through military threat cannot be effective or useful”.

In televised comments, Araghchi said he had “no contact” with US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff in recent days and that Tehran had “not sought negotiations”.

Iranian armed forces chief of staff Habibollah Sayyari warned the US against any “miscalculation”, saying that “they too would suffer damage”.

Following a call on Tuesday between Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and de facto Saudi leader Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Iran reached out to other US allies in the region.

The Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council Ali Larijani spoke with Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, who is also foreign minister, both sides said.

Sheikh Mohammed emphasised Qatar’s support for “all efforts aimed at reducing escalation and achieving peaceful solutions”, the Qatari foreign ministry said.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty meanwhile held separate calls with both Araghchi and Witkoff, and stressed the need to “work towards deescalation”, the Egyptian foreign ministry said.

Turkey’s Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan told Al-Jazeera television: “It’s wrong to attack Iran. It’s wrong to start the war again.” He urged Washington to reopen talks on the nuclear standoff.

New dimensions of crackdown

In an updated toll, the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) said it had confirmed that 6,221 people had been killed, including 5,856 protesters, 100 minors, 214 members of the security forces and 49 bystanders.

But the group added it was still investigating another 17,091 possible fatalities. At least 42,324 people have been arrested, it said.

HRANA warned that security forces were searching hospitals for wounded protesters, saying this highlighted “new dimensions of the continued security crackdown”.

HRANA said a trial in Malard outside Tehran on Tuesday of a man accused over the death of a police officer was the first such hearing linked to the protests.

It was a “starting point for a broad series of trials” that would be “aimed at imposing severe penalties on protesters”, HRANA said.

Meanwhile, Iran on Wednesday executed a man arrested last year on charges of spying for Israel’s Mossad spy agency, the judiciary said.