Iran’s Revolutionary Guard commander warns US that his forces ‘have their finger on the trigger’

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — The commander of Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, which has spearheaded recent nationwide protests over a crackdown that has killed thousands, warned that his army is “more ready than ever, finger on the trigger,” as U.S. warships head toward the Middle East.

Nornews, a news outlet close to Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, reported on its Telegram channel that Commander General Mohammad Pakpour warned the United States and Israel “not to make any miscalculations.”

“The Islamic Revolutionary Guard and beloved Iran are more ready than ever, finger on the trigger, to execute the commander-in-chief’s orders and directives,” Noornews quoted Pakpour as saying.

Tensions between Iran and the U.S. have been high since protests began on Dec. 28 that began with the collapse of Iran’s currency, the rial, and gripped the country for nearly two weeks.

Meanwhile, the number of people arrested by activists has risen to more than 40,000, as fears grow that some could face the death penalty.

Trump’s warning

US President Donald Trump has repeatedly warned Tehran, setting two red lines for the use of military force: the killing of peaceful protesters and the mass execution of people caught in demonstrations.

Trump has repeatedly said Iran will halt the execution of 800 people arrested during protests. He did not elaborate on the source of the claim, which Iran’s top prosecutor Mohammad Movahedi strongly denied on Friday in comments carried by the judiciary’s Mizan news agency.

On Thursday, Trump said aboard Air Force One that the U.S. is moving warships toward Iran “in case” he wants to take action.

“We have a large fleet going in that direction and we probably shouldn’t use it,” Trump said.

A US 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.

Trump also cited several rounds of talks that US officials held with Iran over its nuclear program before Israel launched a 12-day war against the Islamic Republic in June, which saw US warplanes bomb Iranian nuclear sites. He threatened military action against Iran that would make earlier US strikes against Iranian uranium enrichment sites “look like peanuts.”

Airlines surprised

The tensions have caused at least two European airlines to suspend some flights in the wider region.

Air France canceled two return flights from Paris to Dubai over the weekend. The airline said it is “closely following developments in the Middle East in real time and continuously monitors the geopolitical situation in the areas served and overflown by its aircraft to ensure the highest level of flight safety and security.” It said it would resume its service to Dubai later on Saturday.

Luxair said it had suspended Saturday’s flight from Luxembourg to Dubai for 24 hours “in light of the ongoing tensions and insecurity affecting the region’s airspace and the measures taken by many other airlines.”

It told the AP it was monitoring the situation closely “and a decision on whether the flight will operate tomorrow will be made based on the ongoing assessment.”

Arrival information at Dubai International Airport showed the cancellation of Saturday flights from Amsterdam by Dutch carriers KLM and Transavia. The airline did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Some KLM flights to Tel Aviv, Israel, were also canceled on Friday and Saturday, according to online flight trackers.

Increasing deaths and arrests

Although there have been no further demonstrations in Iran for several days, the death toll reported by activists continues to rise despite the most widespread internet blackout in Iran’s history, which has now lasted more than two weeks.

The US-based Human Rights Watch news agency put the death toll at 5,200 on Saturday and expected to rise. The group’s figures were accurate in previous unrest and relied on a network of activists in Iran to verify deaths. That death toll exceeds that of any other movement or unrest there in decades, and recalls the chaos surrounding Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Iran’s government said on Wednesday that the death toll for the first time had reached 3,117. It said 2,427 were civilians and security forces and labeled the rest as “terrorists”. In the past, Iran’s theocracy has undercounted or underreported deaths from unrest.

The activist agency also raised the total number of people arrested on Saturday to 40,879 – a significant jump from the more than 27,700 people in its previous update.

There are fears that Iran may impose the death penalty on arrested protesters, as it has done in the past.

Iranian judiciary officials have called some of those arrested “mohreb” – or “enemies of God” – charges that carry the death penalty. It was used, among other charges, to carry out mass executions in 1988 in which at least 5,000 people were killed.

At a special session of the UN Human Rights Council on Iran held in Geneva on Friday, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk expressed concern over “contradictory statements from Iranian authorities about whether those arrested in connection with the uprising should be executed.”

He said Iran “remains among the world’s top execution states,” executing at least 1,500 people last year – a 50% increase from 2024.

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Associated Press writers John Gambrell in Dubai, Samuel Petrequin in Paris, Melanie Lidman in Tel Aviv, Israel and Constantine and Amar Madhani in Washington contributed to this report.