DUBAI/WASHINGTON — About 2,000 people including security personnel have been killed in Iran, an Iranian official said on Tuesday, as the White House said President Donald Trump was briefed on military options following Tehran's intense crackdown on anti-government protesters.

The Iranian official, speaking to Reuters, said that people he called terrorists were behind the deaths of both protesters and security personnel.

This is the first time authorities have acknowledged the high death toll from an intense crackdown on two weeks of nationwide unrest.

Media reports indicate Pentagon officials have discussed long-range missile attacks, cyber operations and psychological campaign responses.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump is exploring messages from Iranian regime officials. "What you're hearing publicly from the Iranian regime is quite different from the messages the administration is receiving privately, and I think the president has an interest in exploring those messages," Leavitt told reporters Monday.

Washington and Tehran are engaged in escalating rhetoric over ongoing protests in Iran, with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi saying his government is ready for war after Trump threatened military action over Iran’s crackdown on the demonstrations.

Iran’s intelligence agency said on Tuesday that US arms and explosive equipment had been seized from “militants” who hid the weapons in several homes in the country.

The statement followed earlier claims by Araghchi, in an exclusive interview with Al Jazeera, that Iranian authorities had recordings of voices from abroad giving orders to “terrorist agents” to fire on police and protesters.

Iranian officials have previously accused the US and Israel of deploying “foreign agents” to the country to instigate violence.

On Monday evening President Trump announced 25% import tariffs on products from any country doing business with Iran.

“Effective immediately, any Country doing business with the Islamic Republic of Iran will pay a Tariff of 25% on any and all business being done with the United States of America,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social. “This Order is final and conclusive" he added.

Tehran has not yet responded publicly to Trump's announcement of the tariffs, but it was swiftly criticized by China. Iran, already under heavy US sanctions, exports much of its oil to China, with Turkey, Iraq, the United Arab Emirates and India among its other top trading partners.

Underscoring the international uncertainty over what comes next in Iran, which has been one of the dominant powers across the Middle East for decades, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said he believes the Iranian regime could be facing its “last days and weeks.”

“I assume that we are now seeing the last days and weeks of this regime,” Merz told reporters in the southern Indian city of Bengaluru on Tuesday while on a two-day official visit to the country.

“When a regime can only stay in power through violence then it has de facto reached the end,” he added.

He did not expand on whether this forecast was based on intelligence or other assessments.

Iranian Foreign Minister Araqchi dismissed Merz's criticisms, accusing Berlin of double standards and saying he had "obliterated any shred of credibility".

The Dutch foreign minister has summoned Iran’s ambassador to protest Iran’s brutal crackdown of anti-government protests, the first European government to announce such a move.

“I have summoned the Iranian ambassador to formally protest the excessive violence against peaceful protesters, large-scale arbitrary arrests and internet shutdowns,” David van Weel said on Tuesday in a statement posted on X.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk has described as “extremely worrying” statements from Iranian officials that protesters could face the death penalty.

“It (is) also extremely worrying to see public statements by some judicial officials indicating the possibility of the death penalty being used against protesters through expedited judicial proceedings,” Türk said in a statement published on Tuesday.

On Friday, Tehran’s prosecutor Ali Salehi said that some protesters in Iran could face the death penalty for their actions, according to the semi-official news agency Tasnim.

Despite the nationwide protests and years of external pressure, there are as yet no signs of fracture in the Islamic Republic's security elite that could bring an end to the clerical system in power since a 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Iran's authorities have tried to take a dual approach to the demonstrations, calling protests over economic problems legitimate while enforcing a harsh security crackdown.

"The government sees security forces and protesters as its children. To the best of our abilities, we have tried and will try to listen to their voices even if some have tried to hijack such protests," government spokesperson Fatemeh Mohajerani said on Tuesday.

The authorities have accused the US and Israel of fomenting unrest alongside the unidentified people who they call terrorists and who they say have taken over protests.

The protests began on December 28 over the fall in value of the local currency and have grown into wider demonstrations over dire economic hardships and defiant calls for the fall of the clerical establishment. — Agencies