Iran's supreme leader threatens Israel and US with 'a crushing response'
over Israeli attack
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[November 02, 2024]
By JON GAMBRELL
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran's supreme leader on Saturday
threatened Israel and the U.S. with “a crushing response” over attacks
on Iran and its allies.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei spoke as Iranian officials are increasingly
threatening to launch yet another strike against Israel after its Oct.
26 attack on the Islamic Republic that targeted military bases and other
locations and killed at least five people.
Any further attacks from either side could engulf the wider Middle East,
already teetering over the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip and
Israel’s ground invasion of Lebanon, into a wider regional conflict just
ahead of the U.S. presidential election this Tuesday.
“The enemies, whether the Zionist regime or the United States of
America, will definitely receive a crushing response to what they are
doing to Iran and the Iranian nation and to the resistance front,"
Khamenei said in video released by Iranian state media.
The supreme leader did not elaborate on the timing of the threatened
attack, nor the scope. The U.S. military operates on bases throughout
the Middle East, with some troops now manning a Terminal High Altitude
Area Defense, or THAAD, battery in Israel.
The USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier likely is in the Arabian Sea,
while Pentagon press secretary Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder said Friday that more
destroyers, fighter squadrons, tankers and B-52 long-range bombers would
be coming to the region to deter Iran and its militant allies.
The 85-year-old Khamenei had struck a more cautious approach in earlier
remarks, saying officials would weigh Iran’s response and that Israel’s
attack “should not be exaggerated nor downplayed.” Iran has launched two
major direct attacks on Israel, in April and October.
But efforts by Iran to downplay the Israeli attack faltered as satellite
photos analyzed by The Associated Press showed damage to military bases
near Tehran linked to the country's ballistic missile program, as well
as at a Revolutionary Guard base used in satellite launches.
Iran's allies, called the “Axis of Resistance” by Tehran, also have been
severely hurt by ongoing Israeli attacks, particularly Lebanon's
Hezbollah and Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Iran long has used those groups
as both an asymmetrical way to attack Israel and as a shield against a
direct assault. Some analysts believe those groups want Iran to do more
to back them militarily.
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In this photo released by an official website of the office of the
Iranian supreme leader, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei waves
to the crowd during a meeting with school and university students,
in Tehran, Iran, Saturday, Nov. 2, 2024. (Office of the Iranian
Supreme Leader via AP)
Iran, however, has been dealing with its own problems at home, as
its economy struggles under the weight of international sanctions
and it has faced years of widespread, multiple protests. After
Khamenei's speech, the Iranian rial fell to 691,500 against the
dollar, near an all-time low. It had been 32,000 rials to the dollar
when Tehran reached its 2015 nuclear deal with world powers.
Gen. Mohammad Ali Naini, a spokesman for Iran's paramilitary
Revolutionary Guard which controls the ballistic missiles needed to
target Israel, gave an interview published by the semiofficial Fars
news agency just before Khamenei's remarks were released. In it, he
warned Iran's response "will be wise, powerful and beyond the
enemy’s comprehension.”
“The leaders of the Zionist regime should look out from the windows
of their bedrooms and protect their criminal pilots within their
small territory,” he warned. Israeli air force pilots appear to have
used air-launched ballistic missiles in the Oct. 26 attack.
Khamenei on Saturday met with university students to mark Students
Day, which commemorates a Nov. 4, 1978, incident in which Iranian
soldiers opened fire on students protesting the rule of the shah at
Tehran University. The shooting killed and wounded several students
and further escalated the tensions consuming Iran at the time that
eventually led to the shah fleeing the country and the 1979 Islamic
Revolution.
The crowd offered a raucous welcome to Khamenei, chanting: “The
blood in our veins is a gift to our leader!” Some also made a hand
gesture — similar to a “timeout” signal — given by the slain
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in 2020 in a speech in which he
threatened that American troops who arrived in the Mideast standing
up would “return in coffins” horizontally.
Iran will mark the 45th anniversary of the U.S. Embassy hostage
crisis this Sunday, following the Persian calendar. The Nov. 4,
1979, storming of the embassy by Islamist students led to the
444-day crisis, which cemented the decades-long enmity between
Tehran and Washington that persists today.
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