Trump Says US Tried to Arm Iranian Protesters Through Kurdish Groups

President Donald Trump told Fox News on April 5 that the United States tried to arm Iranian protesters and sent them guns via Kurdish groups but that he believes that the Kurds kept the guns for themselves.

Trump told Fox’s Trey Yingst that the Iranian government killed 45,000 Iranian civilians in response to the protests against the regime earlier this year.

Iran executed two men on April 4 for being members of the banned People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran, according to the Iranian opposition group.

The Iranian regime executed four people on March 30 and March 31 and then executed the two, totaling six executions in a week, the People’s Mojahedin Organization said in a statement.

The executions follow months of physical and psychological torture of prisoners, the Iranian opposition group said.

“These state-sanctioned murders were designed to physically eliminate the regime’s organized opposition and terrorize a restless society into submission,” the People’s Mojahedin Organization stated on April 5. “However, this desperate campaign of intimidation has spectacularly backfired.”

Amnesty International said the protests in Iran began on Dec. 28 as citizens were outraged at decades of repression and demanded change. Iran was experiencing soaring inflation, mismanagement of essential government services, and worsening living conditions, according to the human rights organization.

Amnesty said Iranian security forces have repeatedly fired rifles and shotguns loaded with metal pellets at protesters, frequently targeting their heads and torsos. The Iranian regime has also carried out massacres of protesters, according to the organization, during which thousands of people have been killed.

Amnesty called the regime’s response unprecedented, noting that it shut down access to the internet to block information about the incidents.

“Amid the current crackdown, there are grave concerns that authorities will resort to swift trials and arbitrary executions under the pretext of deterring dissent,” Amnesty International stated in a Jan. 26 report.

The human rights organization said that Iran’s head of the judiciary issued a Jan. 5 order directing prosecutors to show “no leniency” to protesters and to expedite their trials.

The Islamic regime has executed at least 160 prisoners during the first three months of 2026, according to a report released on March 31 by the Hengaw Organization for Human Rights.

Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.) criticized the Iranian government earlier this year.

“The Iranian regime is violently cracking down on its own people,” Smith said in a Jan. 16 statement. “Security forces are killing protesters, carrying out mass arrests, and attempting to silence dissent through fear and brutality and a state-imposed communications blackout. This is not public order. It is repression.”