President Donald Trump dropped the hammer Saturday on Iran in a new series of threats aimed at the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism, warning them that the United States military has pre-targeted 52 Iranian sites.
Trump tweeted, “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.”
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….
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 4, 2020
“He was already attacking our Embassy, and preparing for additional hits in other locations. Iran has been nothing but problems for many years,” Trump continued. “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!”
….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!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 4, 2020
The remarks from Trump come as reports surfaced on Saturday that Iran had identified “at least 35 U.S. targets … for retaliatory strikes after the country’s president chillingly vowed to exact revenge for the killing of General Qassem Soleimani,” The Daily Mail reported.
“Iranians today raised the blood-red ‘flags of revenge’, vowing to retaliate after the US killed general Qassem Soleimani in an airstrike in Baghdad,” The Daily Mail reported. “Iranian state TV broadcast the flag being hoisted over the minarets at the revered Jamkaran Mosque in the holy city of Qom on Saturday.”
Very very unusual to see a red flag flying over holy mosque of Jamkaran in Qom, Iran‘s holiest city. It’s is almost always blue. The red flag symbolises revenge. pic.twitter.com/0VeWvUY37L
— Ali Arouzi (@aliarouzi) January 4, 2020
Late this week, U.S. forces killed Qasem Soleimani, the head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Quds Force, which is a designated terrorist organization. The Daily Wire reported:
Soleimani was killed along with top Iraqi paramilitary commander Abu Mahdi al-Mohandes, who headed the Iranian-linked Popular Mobilization Forces, when an American MQ-9 Reaper drone targeted a convoy carrying the two men as they left Baghdad International Airport.
Soleimani was killed after the U.S. intelligence community obtained information that Soleimani was planning serious attacks on Americans throughout the region.
“There was an attack that was imminent that could have killed dozens or hundreds of Americans. We found an opportunity, and we delivered,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told Fox News on Friday. “He was traveling the region when he landed in Baghdad. The travels before that put him in places all around the region which were aimed solely at building out what they were referring to as ‘the big attack.’ They were aiming to take down significant amounts of Americans.”
“It would have undoubtedly killed locals, too, Iraqis, Lebanese, Syrians, perhaps, people all throughout the region,” Pompeo continued. “This was an attack that would have been to some scale. We can’t talk much about the details, but suffice [it] to say, the American people can know that the decision that President Trump made to take Qasem Soleimani down saved American lives.”
The Department of Defense confirmed Pompeo’s remarks in a statement: “General Soleimani was actively developing plans to attack American diplomats and service members in Iraq and throughout the region. General Soleimani and his Quds Force were responsible for the deaths of hundreds of American and coalition service members and the wounding of thousands more. He had orchestrated attacks on coalition bases in Iraq over the last several months — including the attack on December 27th — culminating in the death and wounding of additional American and Iraqi personnel. General Soleimani also approved the attacks on the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad that took place this week.”