{"id":255738,"date":"2026-01-24T18:14:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-24T18:14:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/255738\/"},"modified":"2026-01-24T18:14:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-24T18:14:11","slug":"irans-revolutionary-guard-commander-warns-the-us-says-his-force-has-its-finger-on-the-trigger","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/255738\/","title":{"rendered":"Iran’s Revolutionary Guard commander warns the US, says his force has its ‘finger on the trigger’"},"content":{"rendered":"

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Iran\u2019s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard<\/a>, a force which was key in putting down recent nationwide protests in a crackdown that left thousands dead<\/a>, is \u201cmore ready than ever, finger on the trigger,\u201d its commander said Saturday, as U.S. warships headed toward the Middle East.<\/p>\n

Nournews, a news outlet close to Iran\u2019s Supreme National Security Council, reported on its Telegram channel that the commander, Gen. Mohammad Pakpour, warned the United States and Israel \u201cto avoid any miscalculation.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Islamic Revolutionary Guards and dear Iran stand more ready than ever, finger on the trigger, to execute the orders and directives of the Commander-in-Chief,\u201d Nournews quoted Pakpour as saying.<\/p>\n

Tension remains high between Iran and the U.S. in the wake of a bloody crackdown on protests that began on Dec. 28, triggered by the collapse of Iran\u2019s currency, the rial, and swept the country for about two weeks.<\/p>\n

U.S. President Donald Trump has repeatedly warned Tehran, setting two red lines for the use of military force: the killing of peaceful demonstrators and the mass execution of people arrested in the protests.<\/p>\n

Trump has repeatedly said Iran halted the execution of 800 people detained in the protests. He has not elaborated on the source of the claim \u2014 which Iran\u2019s top prosecutor, Mohammad Movahedi, strongly denied Friday in comments carried by the judiciary\u2019s Mizan news agency.<\/p>\n

On Thursday, Trump said aboard Air Force One that the U.S. was moving warships toward Iran \u201cjust in case\u201d he wants to take action.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a massive fleet heading in that direction and maybe we won\u2019t have to use it,\u201d Trump said.<\/p>\n

A U.S. Navy official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss military movements, said Thursday that the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln and other warships traveling with it were in the Indian Ocean.<\/p>\n

Trump also mentioned the multiple rounds of talks American officials had with Iran over its nuclear program before Israel launched a 12-day war against the Islamic Republic<\/a> in June, which also saw U.S. warplanes bomb Iranian nuclear sites. He threatened Iran with military action that would make earlier U.S. strikes against Iranian uranium enrichment sites \u201clook like peanuts.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThey should have made a deal before we hit them,\u201d Trump said.<\/p>\n

The tension has led at least two European airlines to suspend some flights to the wider region.<\/p>\n

Air France cancelled two return flights from Paris to Dubai over the weekend. The airline said it was “closely following developments in the Middle East in real time and continuously monitors the geopolitical situation in the territories served and overflown by its aircraft in order to ensure the highest level of flight safety and security.\u201d It said it would resume its service to Dubai later Saturday. <\/p>\n

Luxair said it had postponed its Saturday flight from Luxembourg to Dubai by 24 hours \u201cin light of ongoing tensions and insecurity affecting the region\u2019s airspace, and in line with measures taken by several other airlines.\u201d<\/p>\n

It told the AP it was closely monitoring the situation \u201cand a decision on whether the flight will operate tomorrow will be taken based on the ongoing assessment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Arrivals information at Dubai\u2019s international airport also showed the cancellation of Saturday flights from Amsterdam by Dutch carriers KLM and Transavia. The airlines did not immediately respond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n

Some KLM flights to Tel Aviv in Israel were also canceled on Friday and Saturday, according to online flight trackers.<\/p>\n

Although there have been no further demonstrations in Iran for days, the death toll reported by activists has continued to rise as information trickles out despite the most comprehensive internet blackout in Iran\u2019s history, which has now lasted more than two weeks.<\/p>\n

The U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency<\/a> on Saturday put the death toll at 5,137, with the number expected to increase. More than 27,700 people have been arrested, it said.<\/p>\n

The group\u2019s figures have been accurate in previous unrest and rely on a network of activists in Iran to verify deaths. That death toll exceeds that of any other round of protest or unrest there in decades, and recalls the chaos surrounding Iran\u2019s 1979 Islamic Revolution.<\/p>\n

Iran\u2019s government<\/a> offered its first death toll on Wednesday, saying 3,117 people were killed. It said 2,427 were civilians and security forces, and labeled the rest as \u201cterrorists.\u201d In the past, Iran\u2019s theocracy has undercounted or not reported fatalities from unrest.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Associated Press writers Jon Gambrell in Dubai, Samuel Petrequin in Paris, Melanie Lidman in Tel Aviv, Israel, and Konstantin Toropin and Aamer Madhani in Washington contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Iran\u2019s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, a force which was key in putting down recent…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":255739,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[135605,127,114,122,42,43,238,5468,40,38,41,39,126],"class_list":{"0":"post-255738","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-135605","9":"tag-article","10":"tag-business","11":"tag-general-news","12":"tag-headlines","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-politics","15":"tag-protests-and-demonstrations","16":"tag-top-news","17":"tag-top-stories","18":"tag-topnews","19":"tag-topstories","20":"tag-world-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255738","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=255738"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255738\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/255739"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=255738"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=255738"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=255738"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}