Iranian state TV has issued the first official death toll from recent protests, saying 3,117 people were killed, while the foreign minister issued the most direct threat yet against the United States after Tehran’s bloody crackdown, warning the Islamic Republic will be “firing back with everything we have if we come under renewed attack.”
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State television on Wednesday night carried a statement by the Martyrs Foundation providing the toll and saying 2,427 of the dead in the demonstrations that began Dec. 28 were civilians and security forces. It did not elaborate on the rest.
The U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency put the death toll at 4,560. The agency has been accurate throughout the years on demonstrations and unrest in Iran, relying on a network of activists inside the country that confirms all reported fatalities. The Associated Press has been unable to independently assess the death toll.
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The comments by Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, who saw his invitation to the World Economic Forum in Davos rescinded over the killings, came as a U.S. aircraft carrier group moved westward toward the Middle East from Asia. U.S. fighter jets and other equipment appeared to be moving in the Mideast after a major U.S. military deployment in the Caribbean saw troops seize Venezuela's Nicolás Maduro.
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