Tehran, Iran – Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has warned the United States that any attack on his country would result in a “regional war” as US President Donald Trump amasses military assets in the Middle East.

“They should know that if they start a war this time, it will be a regional war,” the 86-year-old supreme leader, who has held absolute power for 37 years, said at an event in downtown Tehran on Sunday.

He was speaking to a large crowd of supporters gathered to mark the anniversary of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s return to Iran from exile in France in 1979, which led to the Iranian Revolution and the flight of the US-backed ruler, Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi.

Khamenei said the US wants to “devour” Iran and its vast oil and natural gas resources, adding that what happened during the recent antigovernment protests “was similar to a coup” since a large number of government offices, banks and mosques were stormed.

The supreme leader described the deadly unrest as another “sedition”, a term he had previously used for the 2009 Green Movement and other such protests.

“The recent sedition was similar to a coup. Of course, the coup was suppressed,” Khamenei said. “Their goal was to destroy sensitive and effective centres involved in running the country, and for this reason, they attacked the police, government centres, [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps or IRGC] facilities, banks and mosques and burned copies of the Quran.”

‘Iranians are in mourning’

The protests started on December 28 after shopkeepers in Tehran’s business district protested Iran’s rapid economic decline linked to local mismanagement and corruption, as well as the collapse of Iran’s currency, the rial, amid sanctions imposed by the US and its allies.

But the protests soon morphed into nationwide expressions of anger over curtailed personal and social freedoms, an acute energy and water crisis, and severe air pollution, among other things.

The United Nations, international rights groups, and foreign-based opponents of the Iranian establishment say thousands were shot dead or stabbed by security forces during the protests.