Trump threatens Iran after Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's funeral saw open
calls for his killing
[July 11, 2026]
By JON GAMBRELL, MICHELLE L. PRICE and WILL WEISSERT
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — U.S. President Donald Trump
threatened Iran on Saturday after the funeral of Supreme Leader
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei saw open calls for his killing, further
underlining the tensions gripping the Middle East as an interim deal to
end the war buckles under repeated crossfire in the region.
Trump made the comments on his Truth Social after senior U.S. officials
demanded that Iran make a public statement saying the Strait of Hormuz
is open and that ships crossing the vital corridor won’t be attacked any
longer.
So far, Tehran has not done so, instead insisting that the route remain
under its control and that it be allowed to charge ships moving through
it, upending decades of precedent that consider the strait an
international waterway.
There had been multiple days of U.S. airstrikes targeting Iran, as well
as Iranian retaliatory fire targeting nations across the Middle East.
Those strikes had been sparked by Iran attacking three ships in the
strait earlier this week.
Trump makes an online threat toward Iran
A thousand “missiles are Locked and Loaded and aimed at the Islamic
Republic of Iran, with thousands of more to immediately follow, should
the Iranian Government act on its threat,” Trump wrote on his website.
The U.S. president said his threat was in response to threats “to
assassinate, or attempt to assassinate” him. During Khamenei's funeral,
mourners repeatedly held posters or banners calling for him to be killed
along with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The Iran war's opening moments on Feb. 28 saw an airstrike that killed
Khamenei, 86. Iran only buried Khamenei this week following a dayslong
funeral ceremony that saw his body taken to cities in both Iran and
Iraq.
Trump added in his post that the U.S. military would “completely
decimate and destroy all areas of Iran — PRAISE BE TO ALLAH!”
Trump, repeatedly during the war and its uneasy ceasefire, has invoked
the name of God in Arabic, as well as threatened to destroy Iran’s very
civilization. The Council on American-Islamic Relations, a nationwide
advocacy group, has in the past criticized Trump’s “deranged mocking of
Islam.”
Trump's comments come as the Strait of Hormuz is a major point of
contention
The U.S. officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe to
reporters the state of play with Iran, said the resumption of strikes
this week came after what they described as a rogue faction of Iranian
hard-liners trying to sabotage the ceasefire between Tehran and
Washington.
However, Iran has insisted its theocracy is unified after the war under
the country's new supreme leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei.
The U.S. officials said Friday that Trump is giving U.S. negotiators
limited time to reach a deal with Iran, but, in a sign of the challenges
ahead, they underscored that the president had a wide range of options
if talks fall apart.
Moments before the U.S. officials spoke, however, Tehran’s diplomat at
the United Nations told reporters that any activity in the Strait of
Hormuz, including its opening or demining operations, “rests exclusively
with Iran.”
Qatari mediators separately traveled to Iran to meet with officials on
Friday, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei said.
Iran has said the strait must now be under its sole control and that
vessels should begin paying fees to Tehran — even though the world has
for decades considered it an international waterway. About a fifth of
all traded oil and natural gas passed through the strait before the war
began.
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In this photo released by Iran's Supreme Leader's office, mourners
carry the coffin of the late Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali
Khamenei above the crowd for the final prayer before his burial at
the Imam Reza Shrine in Mashhad, northeastern Iran, Thursday, July
9, 2026. (Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader via AP)
Iran’s grip on the strait during the conflict led to a global energy
crisis, though oil prices have sharply dropped since wartime highs
of $120 a barrel.
Middle East remains tense after attacks
After the U.S. wrapped up its latest strikes on Thursday, more
attacks reportedly hit Iran, leaving questions about who else may be
targeting the Islamic Republic. Israel didn't claim them, meaning
the Gulf Arab states may have launched them, likely as a means to
deter Iran from attacking them again. Iran on Thursday retaliated
for U.S. strikes by targeting Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait and Qatar.
The strikes in Iran over two days killed at least 17 people and
wounded 115 others, Iran's Health Ministry spokesperson Hossein
Kermanpour said.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi traveled to Oman on Saturday
to meet with his counterpart. Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan
told his country’s state broadcaster TRT that he believed “a
solution can be reached” this weekend between Iran and Oman, which
lie on opposite sides of the narrow waterway.
However, Araghchi on Saturday accused the U.S. of violating the
interim deal by ending waivers allowing Iran to sell crude oil on
the open market in U.S. dollars. Washington did that in response to
the attacks on ships in the strait.
“Reality check: There can only be mutual compliance,” Araghchi wrote
on X.
The U.S. continues to urge mariners to travel on a southern route
through Oman’s territorial waters to avoid Iranian waters and the
commands of its paramilitary Revolutionary Guard. That has angered
Tehran and sparked the attacks in the strait.
US insists a nuclear deal will require Iran to turn over enriched
uranium
The U.S. officials also told journalists that any deal on Iran’s
nuclear program would require Tehran to turn over its stockpile of
highly enriched uranium. That's something Iran has repeatedly
refused.
If the U.S. does not reach a deal with Iran to turn over its nuclear
material, it has military options to ensure that it remains buried
underground forever, the officials said. They did not detail those
options.
The uranium, enriched to near weapons-grade levels, is believed to
be at nuclear sites the U.S. bombed in 2025. Iran long has insisted
its nuclear program is peaceful, despite the International Atomic
Energy Agency saying the Islamic Republic is the only country in the
world to enrich uranium so highly without a weapons program.
The officials also insisted that they would never reach a nuclear
deal with Iran if it did not first stop its attacks on ships in the
Strait of Hormuz.
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Price and Weissert reported from Washington.
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