Iran warned Israel and the US about their response to the attacks

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Saturday threatened Israel and the United States with a “crushing response” over attacks on his country and its allies.

Khamenei made the announcement as Iranian officials increasingly threaten to launch another strike against Israel following its Oct. 26 attack on the Islamic Republic in which military bases and other targets were attacked and at least five people were killed.

Iran warned Israel and the US about their response to the attacks

Any further attacks from either side could drag the entire Middle East, already teetering over Israel’s war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip and the Jewish state’s ground invasion of Lebanon, into a broader regional conflict ahead of Tuesday’s US presidential election.

“The enemies, be it the Zionist regime or the United States of America, will definitely receive a crushing response for what they are doing to Iran, the Iranian nation and the resistance front,” Khamenei said in a video published by Iranian state media.

The Supreme Leader did not specify the timing of the threatened attack or its scale. The US military operates throughout the Middle East, with some troops currently manning the Ultimate High Altitude Defense (Taad) Battery in Israel.

Khamenei, 85, had taken a more cautious approach in previous remarks, saying officials would weigh Iran’s response and that the Israeli attack “should neither be exaggerated nor minimized.”

But Iran’s attempts to downplay the attack failed as satellite photos reviewed by the Associated Press (AP) showed the strikes damaged military bases near the capital Tehran that are linked to the country’s ballistic missile program and also damaged a base Revolutionary Guard. used when launching satellites.

Iran’s allies, which Tehran calls the “Axis of Resistance,” have also been hit hard by ongoing Israeli attacks, especially Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Iran has long used these groups as an asymmetric means of attacking Israel and as a shield against direct attack. Some analysts believe these militant groups want Iran to do more to support them militarily.

However, Iran faces its own challenges domestically as its economy struggles under the weight of international sanctions and has faced widespread and widespread protests for years.

General Mohammad Ali Naini, a spokesman for the Revolutionary Guard, which controls the ballistic missiles needed to defeat Israel, gave an interview published by the semi-official Fars news agency shortly before Khamenei’s remarks were published. In it, he warned that Iran’s response “will be wise, powerful and beyond the enemy’s understanding.”

“The leaders of the Zionist regime must look out of their bedroom windows and protect their criminal pilots in their small territory,” Naini warned.

Also on Saturday, Khamenei met with university students to mark Students’ Day. It focuses on an incident that occurred on November 4, 1978, when Iranian soldiers opened fire on students protesting the Shah’s rule at the University of Tehran, killing and wounding several students.

The shooting further heightened the tensions engulfing Iran at the time, ultimately leading to the Shah’s flight from the country and the Islamic Revolution of 1979.

On Sunday, Iran will mark the 45th anniversary of the US Embassy hostage crisis on the Persian calendar. The storming of the embassy by Islamist students on November 4, 1979 led to a 444-day crisis that cemented a feud between Tehran and Washington that persists to this day.