TEHRAN (AFP) — Protesters and security forces clashed in several Iranian cities on Thursday, with six reported killed, the first deaths since the cost-of-living demonstrations broke out.

The protests began on Sunday in Tehran, where shopkeepers went on strike over high prices and economic stagnation, and have since spread to other parts of the country.

On Thursday, Iran’s Fars news agency reported two people killed in clashes between security forces and protesters in the city of Lordegan, in the province of Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari, and three in Azna, in neighboring Lorestan province.

“Some protesters began throwing stones at the city’s administrative buildings, including the provincial governor’s office, the mosque, the Martyrs’ Foundation, the town hall and banks,” Fars said of Lordegan, adding that police responded with tear gas.

Fars reported that the buildings were “severely damaged” and that police arrested several people described as “ringleaders.”

In Azna, Fars said “rioters took advantage of a protest gathering... to attack a police commissariat.”

During previous protest movements, state media has labelled demonstrators “rioters.”

Earlier Thursday, state television reported that a member of Iran’s security forces was killed overnight during protests in the western city of Kouhdasht.

“A 21-year-old member of the Basij from the city of Kouhdasht was killed last night by rioters while defending public order,” the channel said, citing Said Pourali, the deputy governor of Lorestan Province.

The Basij are a volunteer paramilitary force linked to Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, the ideological branch of the Islamic republic’s army.

Pourali said that “during the demonstrations in Kouhdasht, 13 police officers and Basij members were injured by stone throwing.”

In the western city of Hamedan, protesters torched a motorbike in what the Tasnim news agency described as an unsuccessful attempt to burn down a mosque.

The same agency reported on Thursday that 30 people in a district of Tehran had been arrested the night before for alleged public order offenses in a “coordinated operation by the security and intelligence services.”

The demonstrations are smaller than the last major outbreak of unrest in 2022, triggered by the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, who was arrested for allegedly violating Iran’s strict dress code for women.