One person was injured and a man arrested after a vehicle drove into a crowd of Iranian protesters in Los Angeles on Sunday, authorities have said.
A statement from Los Angeles police said one person had been hit but nobody was seriously hurt when a U-Haul box truck drove down a street crowded with demonstrators.
The driver of the truck, a man who was not identified, has been arrested “pending further investigation”, police confirmed.
A banner attached to the truck read: “No Shah. No Regime. USA: Don’t Repeat 1953. No Mullah” – an apparent reference to a US-backed coup that year that toppled then prime minister Mohammad Mossadegh.
People were forced to scramble as the vehicle entered the crowd, while some tried to attack the driver.
ABC7 news helicopter footage showed officers keeping the crowd at bay as protesters swarmed the truck, thrusting flagpoles through the driver’s side window and throwing punches at the driver.
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The truck was stopped several blocks away and surrounded by police cars.
A crowd of hundreds of people, some waving the Iranian flag, had gathered on Sunday along Veteran Avenue in LA’s Westwood neighbourhood in solidarity with the ongoing anti-government protests in Iran, sparked by a widening economic crisis in the country.
Los Angeles, home to the largest Iranian community outside of Iran, was not the only city outside Iran to stage protests over the weekend.
Demonstrations were held outside Downing Street in London, as well as at the UK’s Iranian Embassy, where on Saturday a protester climbed on to a balcony and tore down a flag.
The rising death toll in Iran
More than 500 people have died and more than 10,000 have been arrested since demonstrations started in Iran’s capital Tehran on 28 December, according to the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency.
Details about the protests are scarce as a communications blackout remains in effect across Iran’s 31 provinces.
Cybersecurity watchdog NetBlocks said the blackout has been ongoing for at least 84 hours.
Read more:
Why are people protesting in Iran?
More than 500 killed in Iran, rights group says
US looking at “strong options” in response to unrest
US President Donald Trump says he is weighing up a range of responses to the escalating unrest in Iran.
“The military is looking at it, and we’re looking at some very strong options,” Mr Trump told reporters on Sunday night.
Asked about Iran’s threats of retaliation, he replied: “If they do that, we will hit them at levels that they’ve never been hit before.”
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It followed Mr Trump’s similar remarks on Friday that the US would hit Tehran “very hard” if the government “start[s] killing people”.
Reuters news agency reported that US foreign secretary Marco Rubio and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had discussed the possibility of a US intervention in Iran in a phone call on Saturday.
Iran’s foreign minister Abbas Araghchi said on Monday that the nationwide protests in his country have now “come under total control”.
