Shafaq News– Tehran

Iran’s Parliamentary Speaker, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, warned on Friday that all US military bases and forces across the Middle East would be treated as “legitimate targets” in the event of any American attack or “adventurism” against Iran.

Responding to comments by US President Donald Trump, who said last week that the United States would support protesters in Iran if authorities moved to suppress what he described as peaceful demonstrations, Ghalibaf accused foreign intelligence services of attempting to exploit Iran’s protests by pushing them toward armed confrontation, but “those efforts had failed…Iranian authorities did not equate protesters with foreign agents.”

The protests began on December 28 following a sharp decline in the Iranian rial, which fell to a record low of about 1.45 million per US dollar, alongside a surge in food prices. Initial strikes by merchants in Tehran’s Grand Bazaar later spread to many provinces, with demonstrations expanding beyond economic demands to include political slogans.