Senior officials in Iran have acknowledged that the country has reportedly been “thrust into survival mode” amid growing and increasingly violent protests against the Islamic Republic’s regime.

At least 17 people have been killed during a week of unrest in Iran, a rights group said on Sunday, as protests spread across the country, sparking violent clashes between demonstrators and security forces.

Deaths and arrests have been reported throughout the week, both by state media and rights groups, though the figures differed.

The protests are the biggest in three years. Some senior figures have struck a softer tone than in some previous bouts of unrest, at a moment of vulnerability for Iran with the economy in tatters and international pressure building.

After US President Donald Trump threatened to intervene if Iran killed peaceful protesters on Friday, the country’s Supreme National Security Council held a meeting to discuss how to temper the protests without reacting violently and avoid fueling the rage toward the regime, three Iranian officials familiar with government deliberations told The New York Times on Sunday.

The council also prepared for a scenario where Iran would be hit with military strikes, the report said.

Amid the protests, senior officials have acknowledged the Islamic Republic, which came to power in the revolution of 1979, has now been “thrust into survival mode,” the three officials told the Times.

Trump reiterated his threats on Sunday.

“We’re watching it very closely. If they start killing people like they have in the past, I think they’re going to get hit very hard by the United States,” he told reporters aboard Air Force One.

According to an intelligence report shared with the British daily The Times, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, 86, will flee Tehran to Moscow with his aides and family members if his security forces fail to halt the growing demonstrations or desert his side amid the unrest.

“The ‘plan B’ is for Khamenei and his very close circle of associates and family, including his son and nominated heir apparent, Mojtaba,” an intelligence source told the British newspaper.

In December 2024, then-Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, an ally of both Russian President Vladimir Putin and Khamenei, fled a rebel takeover to the Russian capital.

Iran’s President........

© The Times of Israel