Sawt Falasteen - Iran warns 'finger on trigger' as Trump says Tehran wants talks

Trump has repeatedly left open the option of new military action against Iran after Washington backed and joined Israel's 12-day war in June aimed at degrading Iranian nuclear and ballistic missile programmes.

Trump said Thursday a US naval "armada" was heading toward the Gulf, adding: "We're watching Iran."

A fortnight of protests starting in late December shook Iran's clerical leadership under supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, but the movement has petered out in the face of a crackdown that activists say killed thousands, accompanied by an unprecedented internet blackout.

The prospect of immediate American action against Tehran appears to have receded, with both sides insisting on giving diplomacy a chance.

On his way back from the World Economic Forum in Davos, Trump told reporters on Air Force One the United States was sending a "massive fleet" toward Iran "just in case."

"I'd rather not see anything happen but we're watching them very closely," he added.

In a standoff marked by seesawing rhetoric, Trump had on Tuesday warned Iran's leaders the United States would "wipe them off the face of this Earth" if there was any attack on his life in response to a strike targeting Khamenei.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian in a speech Thursday accused the United States and Israel of stoking the protests as a "cowardly revenge... for the defeat in the 12-Day War".

- 'Legitimate targets' -

Guards commander General Mohammad Pakpour warned Israel and the United States "to avoid any miscalculations, by learning from historical experiences and what they learned in the 12-day imposed war, so that they do not face a more painful and regrettable fate".

"The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and dear Iran have their finger on the trigger, more prepared than ever, ready to carry out the orders and measures of the supreme commander-in-chief," he said.

Pakpour's comments came in a written statement quoted by state television marking the national day in Iran to celebrate the Guards, whose mission is to protect the 1979 Islamic revolution from internal and external threats.

Activists accuse the Guards of playing a frontline role in the deadly crackdown on protests.

The group is sanctioned as a terrorist entity by countries including Australia, Canada and the United States, and campaigners have long urged similar moves from the EU and UK.

Another senior military figure, General Ali Abdollahi Aliabadi who leads the Iranian joint command headquarters, meanwhile warned that if America attacked, "all US interests, bases and centres of influence" would be "legitimate targets" for Iran's armed forces.

- Real toll? -

Giving their first official toll from the protests, Iranian authorities on Wednesday said 3,117 people were killed.

The statement from Iran's foundation for martyrs and veterans sought to draw a distinction between "martyrs", members of security forces or innocent bystanders, and what it called US-backed "rioters".

Of its toll of 3,117, it said 2,427 people were "martyrs".

Pezeshkian said Thursday that protest "is the natural right of citizens", but a distinction had to be drawn between protesters "whose hands are stained with the blood of innocent people".

However, rights groups say the heavy toll was caused by security forces firing directly on protesters and that the actual number of dead could be far higher, even more than 20,000.

Efforts to confirm the scale of the toll have been hampered by the national internet shutdown, with monitor Netblocks saying Thursday the blackout had surpassed "two full weeks".

"All the evidence gradually emerging from inside Iran shows that the real number of people killed in the protests is far higher than the official figure," said the director of the Iran Human Rights NGO Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, saying the authorities' toll has "no credibility whatsoever".

Warning that their own current tolls do not reflect the true number of fatalities, IHR says it has verified at least 3,428 killings. Another NGO, US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), has documented 4,902 deaths.

According to HRANA, at least 26,541 people have been arrested. On Thursday alone, state TV announced over 200 more arrests in provinces including Kermanshah in the west and Isfahan in central Iran.

I.Matar--SF-PST