Donald Trump’s warning that the US will intervene if peaceful protesters are killed was “reckless and dangerous”, Iran’s foreign minister has said.

Abbas Araghchi’s comments came after the US president said Washington “will come to their rescue” of demonstrators taking part in protests over Iran’s economy, writing in a brief social media post: “We are locked and loaded and ready to go.”

Araghchi indicated Iran’s armed forces were on standby and “know exactly where to aim” in the event of an attack.

At least eight people are reported to have died during the week-long protests, as of Saturday morning.

Trump wrote on Friday: “If Iran shots [sic] and violently kills peaceful protesters, which is their custom, the United States of America will come to their rescue.”

The US president did not specify what action Washington might take. Previously, it has carried out strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites, which elicited a retaliatory strike on a US base in Qatar.

“Given President Trump’s deployment of the National Guard within US borders, he of all people should know that criminal attacks on public property cannot be tolerated,” Araghchi wrote on X.

Iran would “forcefully reject any interference in their internal affairs”, he added.

Meanwhile, an Iranian police spokesman said officers would not allow what he called “enemies” to turn “unrest into chaos”.

Protests have spread to a number of cities and towns with running battles reported between security forces and demonstrators.

The protests began in Tehran, with shopkeepers angered by another sharp fall in the value of the Iranian currency, the rial, against the US dollar on the open market.

By Tuesday, university students were involved and the protests had spread to several cities, with people chanting against the country’s clerical rulers.

Two people died in clashes between protesters and security forces in the south-western city of Lordegan, according to the semi-official Fars news agency and the human rights group Hengaw, which said they were protesters, naming them as Ahmad Jalil and Sajjad Valamanesh.

Three people were killed in Azna, while and another died in Kouhdasht, all in the west of the country, Fars reported. It did not specify whether they were demonstrators or security forces personnel.

One death was reported in Fuladshahr, central Iran, and another casualty in Marvdasht, in the south.

BBC has not been able to independently verify the deaths.

The demonstrations have been the most widespread since an uprising in 2022 sparked by the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, a young woman accused by morality police of not wearing her veil properly, but they have not been on the same scale.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian has said he will listen to the “legitimate demands” of the protesters.

But the country’s Prosecutor General Mohammad Movahedi-Azad warned that any attempt to create instability would be met with a “decisive response”.

Iran’s UN Ambassador Amir-Saeid Iravani called on the UN Security Council to condemn Trump’s statement in letter to the secretary-general and president of the Security Council on Friday, news agency Reuters reported.

“Iran will exercise its rights decisively and proportionately. The United States of America bears full responsibility for any consequences arising from these unlawful threats and any ensuing escalation,” he wrote in the letter.