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Donald Trump warned Tehran that he would order severe military action against Iran if it assassinated an American diplomat in retaliation for the American assassination of a senior Iranian general.
The US president issued the dramatic warning a day after the Politico news site reported that Iran was considering killing Lana Marks, the US ambassador to South Africa. Politico said any Iranian move would be retaliation for the US assassination in January of Qassem Soleimani, who was Iran’s most powerful military commander. The report was not confirmed by other major US news organizations.
In one night cheep On Monday, Trump said that “according to press reports, Iran may be planning an assassination or other attack against the United States in retaliation for the murder of terrorist leader Soleimani.”
“Any attack by Iran, in whatever form, against the United States will be met with an attack against Iran that will be 1,000 times greater in magnitude!” added.
The White House did not respond to a request for comment on whether US intelligence thought Iran was considering assassination.
Trump issued the warning while campaigning for re-election against Joe Biden, the former US vice president and his Democratic opponent, in November.
Tensions with Iran soared in January after the United States assassinated Soleimani. Concern that the assassination would escalate into a full-scale war increased after Iran responded to the assassination by launching attacks on US forces in Iraq.
After initially suggesting that he would use “disproportionate” force against Iranian retaliation, Trump responded to the attacks on a US base in Iraq by threatening to impose more economic sanctions on Tehran.
Tensions remain high even as the threat of war has lessened, particularly as Washington has stepped up a campaign to punish Iran following Trump’s 2018 decision to withdraw from the landmark 2015 nuclear deal brokered by the Obama administration and allies. Europeans with Tehran.
Mike Pompeo, the US secretary of state, accused the European nations that were part of the Iran agreement (France, Germany and the United Kingdom) and the EU last month of siding with “the ayatollahs” for opposing the impulse. the United States to reimpose international sanctions on the Islamic republic.
Trump has defended during his re-election campaign that he kept his 2016 promise to withdraw from the nuclear deal, which was signed when Biden was vice president of the United States.
Biden has accused Trump of increasing tension with Iran and “risking approaching another war in the Middle East without a realistic strategy or an endgame.”
In a commentary article published by CNN on Sunday, he said that the Trump administration’s “maximum pressure” campaign against Tehran had been a “blessing for the Iranian regime and a failure in the interests of the United States.”
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