Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned the United States and Israel on Thursday not to launch military action against its nuclear sites, saying it would be met with “iron fists”, state television reported.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned the United States and Israel on Thursday not to launch military action against its nuclear sites, saying it would be met with “iron fists”, state television reported.
Tension over Iran’s nuclear programme has increased since Tuesday when the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reported that Tehran appeared to have worked on designing a bomb and may still be conducting secret research to that end. Speculation has heightened in the Israeli media that Israel may strike Iran’s nuclear sites.
In the strongest comments by the Iranian authorities in recent days, the country’s most powerful figure, Khamenei, said Iran would retaliate against any attack by “the enemies”, but added that Iran had no intention of starting a “bloody war”.
“Our enemies, particularly the Zionist regime (Israel), America and its allies, should know that any kind of threat and attack or even thinking about any (military) action will be firmly responded to,” Khamenei said on state television. “The Revolutionary Guards and army and our nation ... will answer attacks with strong slaps and iron fists,” he added.
Israel, which Iran refuses to recognise, and the US say all options are on the table in confronting Tehran, including military if diplomacy fails to resolve the dispute. Israel reacted to the report by urging the international community to stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons, saying its pursuit of such arms endangered “the peace of the world”.
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