Iran the supreme leader has warned that any US attack on the country would spark a “regional war” in the Middle East, following President Trump’s threats to intervene militarily in response to attacks by the Islamic Republic the suppression of recent protests across the country.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s comments, delivered to a crowd at his compound in Tehran and quoted by the Tasnim news agency, are the most direct threat he has issued since the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier group arrived in international waters off Iran in the Persian Gulf.

Mr. Trump has also mentioned his desire to curb Iran’s nuclear program in recent remarks, but it remains unclear whether Mr. Trump will use force. He has repeatedly said that Iran wants to negotiate.

He said he wanted to resume negotiations last year before deciding to attack Iran’s nuclear sites last June, supporting Israel’s 12-day war with the country. On Saturday, Mr. Trump declined to say whether he had made a decision about what he wanted to do now about Iran.

Speaking to reporters as he flew to Florida, Mr Trump sidestepped the question of whether Tehran would be emboldened if the US backed off from attacking Iran, saying: “Some people think so. Some people don’t.”

He said Iran should negotiate a “satisfactory” deal to prevent the Middle Eastern country from getting any nuclear weapons, but said, “I don’t know if they will. But they’re talking to us. They’re talking to us seriously.”

In Tehran, Khamenei claimed that the US was interested in the country’s oil, natural gas and other mineral resources. He said that the Americans want to “occupy this country, as they controlled it before.”

“The Americans must be aware that if they wage war this time, it will be a regional war,” he said.

The Supreme Leader added that: “We are not instigators, we will not be unfair to anyone, we do not plan to attack any country. But if anyone shows greed and wants to attack or harass, the Iranian nation will deal a heavy blow to him.”

Khamenei also toughened his stance on recent demonstrations after earlier admitting that some protesters had legitimate economic problems. Demonstrations began on December 28, initially due to the fall of the Iranian currency, the rial. It soon grew into a direct challenge to Khamenei’s rule.

“The recent rebellion was akin to a coup,” he said. “Of course, the coup was crushed. Their goal was to destroy the sensitive and effective centers involved in running the country, and for that reason they attacked the police, government centers, (Revolutionary Guard) facilities, banks and mosques – and burned copies of the Koran. They targeted the centers that run the country.”

The US-based human rights agency, which relies on a network of sources inside Iran to gather information, says it has confirmed the deaths of 6,713 people, most of them protesters, and that authorities have so far detained at least 49,500 people. The Associated Press could not independently estimate the number of dead and arrested, given that authorities have cut off Iran’s internet from the rest of the world. Other sources told CBS News and other media outlets that the actual number of deaths nationwide is significantly higher.

As of January 21, the Iranian government put the death toll far lower at 3,117, saying 2,427 were civilians and security forces, labeling the rest as “terrorists”. In the past, the Iranian theocracy undercounted or underreported casualties in the unrest.

Even this government figure exceeds the death toll reported in any other round of protests or unrest in Iran in decades and is reminiscent of the chaos that surrounded the 1979 revolution.

For Sunday and Monday, Iran planned a military exercise with live fire in the strategic Strait of Hormuz, a narrow entrance to the Persian Gulf through which a fifth of all oil trade passes. The US military’s Central Command, the Pentagon’s regional combatant command for the Middle East, warned against threats to US warships or aircraft during exercises or disrupting commercial traffic.