President Donald Trump has threatened to hit 52 critical targets in Iran in retaliation if Tehran strikes any American interests in the region, upping the stakes after Iran said it had identified 35 targets for potential strikes and raised the red ‘flags of revenge’ over a key mosque
‘
Let this serve as a WARNING that if Iran strikes any Americans, or American assets, we have targeted 52 Iranian sites (representing the 52 American hostages taken by Iran many years ago), some at a very high level & important to Iran & the Iranian culture, and those targets, and Iran itself, WILL BE HIT VERY FAST AND VERY HARD. The USA wants no more threats!’ Trump tweeted on Saturday from Mar-a-Lago, after spending the day at his nearby golf course.
‘Iran is talking very boldly about targeting certain USA assets as revenge for our ridding the world of their terrorist leader who had just killed an American, & badly wounded many others, not to mention all of the people he had killed over his lifetime, including recently hundreds of Iranian protesters,’ Trump said.
‘He was already attacking our Embassy, and preparing for additional hits in other locations. Iran has been nothing but problems for many years,’ he continued.
Trump’s threat referenced the Iran hostage crisis of 1979-1981, in which 52 U.S. diplomats and citizens were held hostage by student revolutionaries in Iran. His threat to target sites important to ‘Iranian culture’ drew many accusations from critics that he was threatening to commit ‘war crimes’.
A White House spokesman did not immediately respond to an inquiry about the list of U.S. targets from DailyMail.com on Saturday evening.
The U.S. military confirmed two rocket attacks near American facilities in Iraq on Saturday, saying that no U.S. personnel or allies were injured. The attacks took place near the Green Zone in Baghdad and Balad Air Base in northern Iraq.
Earlier on Saturday, an Iranian official said at least 35 U.S. targets, including warships and Tel Aviv, have been identified for retaliatory strikes.
Iranian General Gholamali Abuhamzeh, a Revolutionary Guards commander in the southern province of Kerman, made the threat a day after Quds Force leader General Qassem Soleimani was killed at the Baghdad International Airport by a U.S. airstrike.
Abuhamzeh said vital American targets in the region had been identified a ‘long time ago’, including ships in the Persian Gulf, the Strait of Hormuz and Tel Aviv.
‘The Strait of Hormuz is a vital point for the West and a large number of American destroyers and warships cross there … some 35 U.S. targets in the region as well as Tel Aviv are within our reach,’ he said, according to Reuters.
Hezbollah, an Islamic political and militant group, has also warned Iraqi soldiers to stay at least 1,000 meters away from U.S. military bases from Sunday onwards.
Vowing vengeance for Soleimani’s death, Iranians raised the blood-red ‘flags of revenge’ over the minarets at the revered Jamkaran Mosque in the holy city of Qom on Saturday.
A retaliation attack from Iran could be seen ‘within weeks’ either at home or abroad, a senior congressional staffer told Time.
The staffer said: ‘There is no indication that there is going to be a de-escalation in the near future. The only question is how bad is the retaliation going to be and where and what is it going to hit.’
Abuhamzeh’s concerning remarks that Iran has previously identified targets seems to confirm the State Department’s reasoning behind the airstrike on Friday.
The State Department said: ‘General Soleimani was actively developing plans to attack American diplomats and service members in Iraq and throughout the region.’
‘The United States will continue to take all necessary action to protect our people and our interests wherever they are around the world.’
Meanwhile, one of the Iranian-backed militia Kataeb Hezbollah, or Hezbollah Brigades, warned Iraqi soldiers to vacate any premises near U.S. bases housing American soldiers in a thinly-veiled threat.
‘The leaders of the security forces should protect their fighters and not allow them to become human shields to the occupying Crusaders,’ the statement said, regarding coalition bases. In a press conference after Friday’s airstrike, Trump said Soleimani was plotting ‘imminent and sinister’ attacks against Americans in a press conference after the airstrike.
‘Soleimani was plotting imminent and sinister attacks on American diplomats and military personnel, but we caught him in the act and terminated him,’ the president revealed in a press conference.
Although the specific locations of the 35 targets have not been disclosed, the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad and the military base could be potential targets.
This comes off the heels of the slaying of an American contractor who was killed in a rocket attack a week ago while working at an Iraqi military base in the country’s northern region.
The U.S. retaliated by launching an attack on five Popular Mobilization militia bases in Iraq and Syria, killing more than 24 people and inciting a nearly two-day siege of the United States Embassy in Baghdad.
Following Soleimani’s death, several Iranian officials and the 62-year-old’s supporters have vowed revenge on the United States.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said the U.S. made a ‘grave mistake’ in killing Soleimani and will supposedly suffer consequences for years to come.
Hours after the attack, Trump said that he ordered the killing of Soleimani to prevent war, adding that the commander was plotting ‘imminent and sinister’ attacks against Americans.
The general was the architect of Iran’s shadow warfare and military expansion in the Middle East and was targeted specifically because he was actively developing plans to kill members of the U.S. military and diplomats in the region.
‘We took action last night to stop a war. We did not take action to start a war,’ the president said in brief remarks at Mar-a-Lago on Friday.
Rouhani has said that Iran has the right to seek revenge, saying that that retaliation will come when the ‘dirty hands of the US’ are removed from the region indefinitely.