WASHINGTON/DUBAI/DOHA, Jan 14 (Reuters) – The United States is withdrawing some personnel from bases in the Middle East, a U.S. official said on Wednesday, after a senior Iranian official said Tehran had warned neighbours it would hit American bases if Washington strikes.

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The U.N. Security Council is due to meet on Iran on Thursday at the request of the United States.

“All the signals are that a U.S. attack is imminent, but that is also how this administration behaves to keep everyone on their toes. Unpredictability is part of the strategy,” a Western military official told Reuters later on Wednesday.

At the White House, however, Trump suggested he was adopting a wait-and-see posture toward the crisis.

Trump told reporters that he has been told that killings in the Iranian government’s crackdown on the protests were subsiding and that he believes there is currently no plan for large-scale executions.

Asked who told him that the killings had stopped, Trump described them as “very important sources on the other side.”

The president did not rule out potential U.S. military action, saying “we are going to watch what the process is” before noting that his administration had received a “very good statement” from Iran.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said on Wednesday “there is no plan” by Iran to hang people, when asked about the anti-government protests.

“There is no plan for hanging at all,” the foreign minister told Fox News in an interview on the “Special Report with Bret Baier” show. “Hanging is out of the question,” he said.

According to the Norway-based Iran Human Rights Society, hangings are common in Iranian prisons.

TIMING REMAINS UNCLEAR

Two European officials said U.S. military intervention could come in the next 24 hours. An Israeli official also said it appeared Trump had decided to intervene, though the scope and timing remained unclear.

Britain was also withdrawing some personnel from an air base in Qatar ahead of possible U.S. strikes, The I Paper newspaper reported. The British defence ministry had no immediate comment.

Iran and its Western foes have both described the unrest, which began two weeks ago as demonstrations against dire economic conditions and rapidly escalated in recent days, as the most violent since the 1979 Islamic Revolution that installed Iran’s system of Shi’ite clerical rule.

An Iranian official has said more than 2,000 people have died. A rights group put the toll at more than 2,600.

Iran has “never faced this volume of destruction”, Armed Forces Chief of Staff Abdolrahim Mousavi said on Wednesday, blaming foreign enemies.

Iranian authorities have accused the U.S. and Israel of fomenting the unrest, carried out by people it calls armed terrorists.

IRAN ASKS REGIONAL STATES TO PREVENT A US ATTACK

Trump has openly threatened to intervene in Iran for days, without giving specifics. In an interview with CBS News on Tuesday, he vowed “very strong action” if Iran executes protesters. He also urged Iranians to keep protesting and take over institutions, declaring “help is on the way”.

The senior Iranian official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Tehran had asked U.S. allies in the region to prevent Washington from attacking Iran.

“Tehran has told regional countries, from Saudi Arabia and UAE to Turkey, that U.S. bases in those countries will be attacked” if the U.S. targets Iran, the official said.

Direct contacts between Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi and U.S. Special Envoy Steve Witkoff have been suspended, the official added.

The United States has forces across the region including the forward headquarters of its Central Command at Al Udeid in Qatar and the headquarters of the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet in Bahrain.

GOVERNMENT DOESN’T SEEM NEAR COLLAPSE, WESTERN OFFICIAL SAYS

The flow of information from inside Iran has been hampered by an internet blackout.

The U.S.-based HRANA rights group said it had so far verified the deaths of 2,403 protesters and 147 government-affiliated individuals, dwarfing tolls from previous waves of protests crushed by the authorities in 2022 and 2009.

The government’s prestige was hammered by a 12-day Israeli bombing campaign last June – joined by the U.S. – that followed setbacks for Iran’s regional allies in Lebanon and Syria. European powers restored U.N. sanctions over Iran’s nuclear programme, compounding the economic crisis there.

The unrest on such a scale caught the authorities off guard at a vulnerable time, but it does not appear that the government faces imminent collapse, and its security apparatus still appears to be in control, one Western official said.

The authorities have sought to project images showing they retain public support. Iranian state TV broadcast footage of large funeral processions for people killed in the unrest in Tehran, Isfahan, Bushehr and other cities.

People waved flags and pictures of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and held aloft signs with anti-riot slogans.

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Armed Kurdish separatist groups tried to cross into Iran from Iraq in recent days, stoking fears that the country’s spiraling unrest has attracted dangerous foreign militants who could destabilize the wider region, according to reports.

Iranian officials said the attempted breach came amid a sweeping crackdown on nationwide protests against the country’s regime, with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) leading the response, Reuters reported.

The Tasnim News Agency also reported armed militia groups operating in Iraq crossed the border in western and northwestern Iran, according to Middle East Monitor.

TOP IRANIAN OFFICIAL DOWNPLAYS DEATH TOLL, BLAMES ‘ISRAELI PLOT’ AS US CONSIDERS STRIKES

Reuters had reported that three sources, including a senior Iranian official, said Turkey’s intelligence agency, known as MIT, warned the IRGC that Kurdish fighters were trying to cross the Iran-Iraq border.

The Iranian official said clashes also broke out after the attempt to cross and accused the fighters of trying to exploit the unrest and create further instability.

According to the Council on Foreign Relations, around 30 million Kurds live in the Middle East, mainly in Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey.

TRUMP SAYS IRAN ‘STARTING TO’ CROSS US RED LINES AS PROTESTERS DIE IN GOVERNMENT CRACKDOWN

Turkey has designated Kurdish militant groups in northern Iraq as terrorist organizations and has carried out cross-border military operations against them. The Turkish military has also targeted PKK bases in Iraq.

In 2025, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) said it would disarm and end its decades-long battle against Turkey.

Reuters said MIT and President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s office did not comment on the Iran crossing, though it warned that any interference in Iran would inflame regional crises.

‘LEAVE IRAN NOW’: US EMBASSY POSTS WARNING TO AMERICANS STILL IN THE COUNTRY

Iranian authorities alleged the fighters were dispatched from Iraq and Turkey and said the Iranian regime has asked both governments to stop any transfer of fighters or weapons into Iran.

The number of deaths during the crackdown on protesters rose to at least 2,571 on Wednesday, accordin g to the Human Rights Activists News Agency.

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President Donald Trump said Wednesday he had been told the killings had halted, and he believes there is no plan for large-scale executions. 

Asked who told him, Trump said they were “very important sources on the other side.”

Iran closed its airspace to most flights Wednesday, according to flight-tracking website Flightradar24, with the closure lasting a little more than two hours.

Airspace restrictions come amid fears that US President Donald Trump could attack Iran.

Iran temporarily closed its airspace to most flights amid attack threats by United States President Donald Trump, according to the US aviation authority.

Most flights were prohibited from Iranian airspace between 1:45am and 4:00am local time (22:15 to 00:30 GMT) and again from 4:44 am to 7am (01:14 to 03:30 GMT) on Thursday, according to the notices posted by the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).

The restrictions applied to all commercial flights without “prior approval” from Iran’s Civil Aviation Organisation (CAO), according to the notices.

FlightRadar, an online flight tracking service, showed just three aircraft over Iran as of 6:05am local time, with dozens of planes flying around the country’s borders. Iran’s airspace reopened at about 7am local time.

The FAA and CAO did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The airspace restrictions come amid threats by US President Donald Trump to attack Iran following Tehran’s deadly crackdown on antigovernment protests in the country.

The US and the United Kingdom on Wednesday withdrew a number of military personnel from Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, after a senior Iranian official said Tehran had warned that it would target US forces in the Middle East region if Trump launched an attack.

A number of countries have also issued advisories to their citizens in the region amid fears of escalation.

Trump appeared to lower his rhetoric towards Tehran later on Wednesday, saying he had received assurances from “important sources” that the killings of protesters in Iran had stopped.

Safe Airspace, a website run by the aviation safety organisation OpsGroup, said the airspace closures could signal “further security or military activity” and warned of the “risk of missile launches or heightened air defence, increasing the risk of misidentification of civil traffic”.

In 2020, Iran’s air defences shot down a Ukraine International Airlines flight shortly after it took off in Tehran, killing all 176 people on board.

A 2021 report by Iran’s CAO concluded that the missile battery’s operator had misidentified the Ukrainian aircraft as a “hostile object”, and that officials had not properly evaluated the risks to commercial planes amid tensions with the US.