- Diplomats say personnel advised to leave US air base in Qatar.
- Tehran calls US warnings “pretext for military intervention”.
- Iran chief justice fast trials against those involved in violence.
Tehran has warned neighbouring countries hosting US troops that it would retaliate against American bases if Washington carries out threats to intervene in protests in Iran, a senior Iranian official told Reuters on Wednesday.
Three diplomats said some personnel had been advised to leave the main US air base in the region, although there were no immediate signs of a large-scale evacuation of troops as took place in the hours before an Iranian missile attack last year.
US President Donald Trump has threatened to intervene in support of protesters in Iran, where a rights group claims hundreds have been killed in recent days in a crackdown on the protest movements.
According to an Israeli assessment, Trump has decided to intervene, although the scope and timing of this action remain unclear, an Israeli official said.
The three diplomats told Reuters that some personnel had been advised to leave the US military’s Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar by Wednesday evening.
One of the diplomats described the move as a “posture change” rather than an “ordered evacuation”. There was no sign of a large-scale movement of troops off the base to a nearby soccer stadium and shopping mall, as took place last year in the hours before Iran targeted the base with missiles in retaliation for US airstrikes on Iranian nuclear targets.
The US embassy in Doha had no immediate comment and Qatar’s foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Trump vows ‘very strong action’
Trump has been openly threatening to intervene in Iran for days, though without giving specifics.
In an interview with CBS News on Tuesday, Trump vowed “very strong action” if Iran executes protesters. “If they hang them, you’re going to see some things,” he said. He also urged Iranians on Tuesday to keep protesting and take over institutions, declaring “help is on the way”.
The Iranian official, a senior figure speaking on condition of anonymity, said Tehran had asked US allies in the region to “prevent Washington from attacking Iran”.
“Tehran has told regional countries, from Saudi Arabia and UAE to Turkiye, that US bases in those countries will be attacked” if the US targets Iran, the official said.
The official added that direct contacts between Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi and US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff had been suspended, reflecting mounting tensions.
A second Israeli source, a government official, said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s security cabinet was briefed late on Tuesday about the chances of government or US intervention in Iran. Israel fought a 12-day war against Tehran last year, which the United States joined at the end.
The United States has forces across the region, including the forward headquarters of its Central Command at Al Udeid in Qatar and the headquarters of the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet in Bahrain.
Iran holds contacts with Turkiye, UAE, Qatar
Iranian state media reported that the head of Iran’s top security body, Ali Larijani, had spoken to the foreign minister of Qatar, and Araqchi had spoken to his Emirati and Turkish counterparts.
Araqchi told UAE Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed that “calm has prevailed” and Iranians were determined to defend their sovereignty and security from any foreign interference, state media reported.
Meanwhile, the flow of information from inside Iran has been hampered by an internet blackout, with internet monitor Netblocks saying on Wednesday that the blackout had lasted 132 hours.
“Metrics show #Iran remains offline as the country wakes to another day of digital darkness,” it said in a post on X.
Some information has trickled out of Iran however. New videos on social media, with locations verified by AFP, showed bodies lined up in the Kahrizak morgue just south of the Iranian capital, with the corpses wrapped in black bags and distraught relatives searching for loved ones.
Iranian authorities have accused the United States and Israel of fomenting the unrest, carried out by people it calls terrorists.
Iran’s chief justice urges swift actions
Visiting a Tehran prison where arrested protesters are being held, Iran’s chief justice said speed in judging and penalising those involved in violence was critical to ensuring such events do not happen again.
Judiciary chief Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei said that “if a person burned someone, beheaded someone and set them on fire then we must do our work quickly”, in comments broadcast by state television.
Iranian news agencies also quoted him as saying the trials should be held in public and said he had spent five hours in a prison in Tehran to examine the cases.
State TV said that a funeral procession would take place on Wednesday in Tehran for more than 100 civilians and security personnel killed in the unrest.
Pro-government rallies were held in Iran on Monday, a show of loyalist support for the current Iranian rulers. So far, there have been no signs of fracture in the security forces that have quelled other bouts of protest over the years.
While Iranian authorities have weathered previous protests, the latest unrest is taking place with Tehran still recovering from last year’s war against Israel.
Trump told reporters on Tuesday that military action was among the options he was weighing to “punish Iran”.
“The killing looks like it’s significant, but we don’t know yet for certain,” said Trump upon returning to the Washington area from Detroit, adding he would know more after receiving a report on Tuesday evening.
Trump on Monday announced 25% import tariffs on products from any country doing business with Iran — a major oil exporter. The US State Department on Tuesday urged American citizens to leave Iran now.
Tehran called the American warnings a “pretext for military intervention”.
Iran’s UN mission posted a statement on X, vowing that Washington’s “playbook” would “fail again”.
“US fantasies and policy toward Iran are rooted in regime change, with sanctions, threats, engineered unrest, and chaos serving as the modus operandi to manufacture a pretext for military intervention,” the post said.
