The US president, who is holidaying in his private resort in Mar-a-Lago, Florida, was responding reportedly to intelligence Iranian ballistic missile units being in a heightened state of alert.
President Donald Trump on Saturday threatened Iran with “very fast and very hard” reprisals for attacking American people or assets in retaliation for the assassination of General Qasem Soleimani, who had headed the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and said US military has 52 Iranian targets in its cross-hairs.
The US president, who is holidaying in his private resort in Mar-a-Lago, Florida, was responding reportedly to intelligence Iranian ballistic missile units being in a heightened state of alert and presumably to a threat from a senior Iranian military leader who had said dozens of American facilities and bases were within the reach of Iranian forces, and Tel Aviv.
“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.” he wrote in a string of tweets. The USA wants no more threats!” Trump was referring to the 52 American diplomats and citizens who had been held hostage for 444 days at the US mission in Tehran from November 1979 to January 1981 by Iranian students in support of the Islamic Revolution led by Ayatollah Khomeini.
The United States killed General Soleimani in a drone strike outside the international airport in Baghdad on Friday, along with the leader of an Iran-backed Iraqi militia and five other men. He was planning “imminent and sinister” attacks on Americans and their military facilities, the US has said.
Iranians, their allies and their proxies have responded with expected outrage and have vowed to avenge the assassination, with President Hassan Rouhani assuring the general’s relatives “everyone” will step up to it. An Iranian military commander, Brigadier General Gholamali Abuhamzeh, is reported to have said, Saturday, “Thirty-five vital American positions in the region are within the reach of the Islamic Republic, and Tel Aviv. The Strait of Hormuz is a vital thoroughfare for the West, and a large number of American destroyers and warships cross the Strait of Hormuz, the Sea of Oman and the Persian Gulf.”
This might have set off the president, or, as The New York Times reported that US intelligence had detected Iranian ballistic missile units in heightened state of alert. The report also said that some officials believed it was unclear if the Iranians were dispersing them in anticipation of an American attack or they were being mobilised for a strike against the US.
US officials have said they are prepared for retaliatory strikes and that was a risk factored into the decision to kill Soleimani and have argued that the cost of not doing anything would have been far higher “While there’s always a risk in taking decisive action, there’s a greater risk in not taking that action,” National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien told reporters Friday.
The United States has deployed 3,500 additional troops to the region to bolster its forces there and carried airstrikes on five targets associated with Kata’ib Hezbollah, which is an Iranian-sponsored Shiite militia group, and three targets in Western Iraq and two targets in Eastern Syria. Officials described these facilities as command and control facilities or weapons caches of the militia.
“I would note also that we will take additional actions as necessary to ensure that we act in our own self-defense and we deter further bad behavior from militia groups or from Iran,” defense secretary Mark Esper said to reporters in Florida after briefing the president, along with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and other top officials.
