A senior Iranian chief threatened on Sunday to attack Israel and reduce Tel Aviv and Haifa “to dust” if the United States carries out the latest threats from its president, Donald Trump, which he claimed to target 52 Iranian sites.
Trump, meanwhile, stated on his Twitter account that if Iran attacks any person or target of the United States, the United States will respond quickly, “and perhaps disproportionately.”
The U.S. representative said that message in networks would serve as a notification to his country’s Congress, if he decides to launch the attacks.
These Media Posts will serve as notification to the United States Congress that should Iran strike any U.S. person or target, the United States will be quickly & fully strike back, & perhaps in a disproportionate manner. Such legal notice is not required, but is given nevertheless!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 5, 2020
Tension between Tehran and Washington escalated with the assassination of Iranian general Qasem Soleimani on Friday in a U.S. bombing in Baghdad.
Find out: Qasem Soleimani, the general who was an Instragram star and appeared in music videos
A charismatic and popular figure of Iran, General Soleimani was the head of the Qods Force, an elite unit of the Guardians of the Revolution, the ideological army of the Islamic Republic, and the architect of the country’s strategy in the region.
Iran promised to avenge him with a “military” action but Trump announced Saturday that he was willing to attack 52 sites in Iran, “very soon and very hard” if the Islamic Republic attacks U.S. personnel or targets.
These sites are “very high-level and important to Iran and Iranian culture,” the representative said in a tweet.
“Trump, did you tweet that you will attack 52 targets in Iran?” replied Mohsen Rezai, former commander-in-chief of the Guardians of the Revolution and now secretary of the Council of Discernment, a key post in the Iranian political system.
“Did you tweet that you would strike again if Iran takes revenge?” added Rezai, quoted by the semi-official agency Isna.
“I’m sure Iran will reduce Haifa and Israeli centers to dust, so that Israel would be wiped off the face of the Earth,” he added.
“If the United States takes the slightest action after our military response, we will reduce Tel Aviv and Haifa to dust,” Rezai said on his Twitter account.
Iran does not recognize Israel’s existence. Several of his generals in the past threatened to attack the Hebrew state or destroy it if the United States attacks Iranian territory.
At least two rockets hit sunday night near the U.S. embassy in Baghdad, shortly after the Iraqi Parliament voted to demand the expulsion of US troops from the country, shocked by the assassination of powerful Iranian General Qasem Soleimani.
Since the Friday assassination of General Qasem Soleimani, architect of Iranian strategy in the Middle East, and Abu Mehdi Al Muhandis, number two of the pro-Iran paramilitary coalition Hashd al Shaabi, the world fears conflict.
On the one hand, Tehran cries “revenge.” On the other hand, US President Donald Trump threatens to destroy 52 Iranian targets, as many as the number of hostages that for more than a year were held at the US embassy in the Iranian capital in 1979.
On Sunday, Iran announced the “fifth and final phase” of that commitment reduction plan, and claimed to detach itself from any limit “to the number of its centrifuges” of uranium.
Tehran had previously warned that his announcement would “take into account” the “new situation” created by the general’s murder.
However, the country indicated that it would continue to voluntarily submit to the very comprehensive inspection programme launched in the wake of the 2015 agreement on Iran’s nuclear programme.
Trump justified his attack on Soleimani by arguing that he prepared “imminent” attacks against U.S. diplomats and military.
But after Soleimani’s death, “it’s no longer a ranged war, it’s a direct war,” Erica Gaston, an Iran specialist at the New America Foundation, told AFP.
French President Emmanuel Macron conveyed to Donald Trump “his full solidarity with allies,” and called on Iran to refrain “from any military escalation that could further aggravate regional instability.”
German Chancellor Angela Merkel and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson also agreed to “work together to reduce tensions in the region,” a spokesman for the German government said.
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