In the mountains of northern Iraq, just 30 miles from the Iranian border, CBS News met Thursday morning with Kurdish Iranian rebel fighters, many of them women, who say they are ready to fight and help overthrow the Islamic Republic’s hardline clerical rulers.

Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (PDKI) banned as a terrorist group in the country Iran He then crossed the border and lived in exile in Iraq. For years, we have been training for the day when we can remove the Iranian regime from power. But while President Trump appears to be backing away from threats of U.S. military intervention on behalf of Iranian protesters, the leader of a Kurdish group told CBS News that the time has not yet come.

president trump said on wednesday He said he had heard from “good authorities” that “killings in Iran are stopping” and that “there are no plans for executions” in the country. subjected to brutal oppression to end two weeks of widespread protests. Sources inside Iran told CBS News about the crackdown by Iranian authorities. May have killed more than 12,000 peopleand probably many others.

His comments appeared to signal a step back from repeated warnings that the United States would intervene unspecified to protect protesters, followed by threats on Tuesday. order “very strong action” In Iran hanged protester.

That may not have been the signal from Washington that PDKI troops training across the border in Iraq were expecting.

Gen. Siran Gargoli told CBS News that the protests gave him hope that the repressive regime that came to power during the 1979 Islamic revolution might finally be overthrown, but only “if the people demonstrating in the streets get international support.”

PDKI leader Mustafa Hijri has lived in exile for more than 40 years, watching as Iran’s rulers put down several major uprisings. He said it was impossible to say for sure whether this uprising would be pivotal, as recent protests appear to have met the same fate.

“Whether the mass killings will continue depends on whether it continues or not. If it continues, the demonstrators will definitely not be able to continue. On the other hand, other scenarios are possible, such as the US negotiating with the mullah regime and forcing it to accept its terms. In this case, the regime would manage to survive for some time.”

He said he wanted U.S. intervention, specifically an attack on Iran that would attack “the core of the repressive powers that are shooting people in the streets and the so-called ‘justice’ institutions that serve the government. We want to see those institutions disappear.”

“The majority of Iranians are dissatisfied with this regime and are against it,” Hijri said.

But in the absence of such help from abroad, Hijri told CBS News, sending PDKI forces across the border and forcing the thousands of troops he claims the group has in the country into action could backfire dramatically.

“I don’t think it’s in the interests of the protesters to bring the military back into the country at this point, because it would give the regime a convenient excuse to kill its people,” he said. “This is why we have not yet reached the moment to make such a decision. But when that day comes and we come to the conclusion that our peshmerga will be returned; [Kurdish] We might do so if it doesn’t give the military another reason to crack down on protesters. ”

Hijri said PDKI wants Kurds and other ethnic minorities, who make up about 10% of Iran’s population, “to be allowed to live under democratic law, their children to learn in their native language, and their rights officially recognized by the government.”

Hijri said the rebel fighters were “trained and will be there when the party needs them.”

But while Iran’s hardline leaders are beginning to appear to have overcome further serious challenges to their grip on power, at least for now, the PKDI and the millions of Iranians who remain in the country can only continue to wait.