Anti-regime protests continue in Tehran

Iranian students chant slogans during an overnight anti-government demonstration outside the campus of Tehran University early Friday for the third consecutive night. The United States gave its full backing on Thursday to anti-government protestors in Iran who have defied threats of a crackdown to demonstrate against the Islamic regime this week. At the same time, though, the State Department denied charges from Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei that Washington is fomenting the protests because it realised it could not topple the government by force. Photo: AFP

Demonstrators directed their venom at supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has accused Washington of fomenting the unrest, and called again for him to step down.

A hundred students managed to break out of their university campus after midnight and take to the street after smashing down a door.

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They chanted slogans hostile to Iran's hardline Islamic leadership and hurled stones at police and members of Islamist militias.

Police fired teargas to disperse hundreds of other student demonstrators who had lit fires inside the campus.

Thousands of cars converged near the campus, with drivers sounding their horns in support of the students. But unlike the two preceding nights, few people rallied in the area on foot.

Anti-riot squads largely succeeded in blocking the roads, preventing both drivers and the extremist Ansar Hezbollah militia from getting too near the campus.

Armed with clubs and chains, the militia members roared around on motorbikes, smashing car windscreens and insulting the occupants, and even confronting the police at times, witnesses said.

Khamenei on Thursday accused the United States of stirring trouble in the country.

He said Washington had realized it could not overthrow the Islamic republic militarily and "wanted to create trouble in Iran... divide the people and create a chasm between the regime and the populace".

In a speech in the southern city of Varamin broadcast on state television, he said that if the United States "sees that disgruntled people and adventurers want to cause trouble, and if it can turn them into mercenaries, it will not hesitate to do so in giving them its support."