Iran has warned the US, UK and France that their military bases and ships will be targeted if they help block the Iranian missile and drone retaliation for Israel’s attack, threatening to widen an already bloody war over Tehran’s nuclear programme.
“Any country that participates in repelling Iranian attacks on Israel will be subject to Iranian forces targeting all regional bases of the complicit government,” the state-owned Mehr news agency said without citing any officials.
France was also implicated in the chilling threat, which came as Israel warned ‘Tehran will burn’ if Iran keeps targeting its civilians.
‘The Iranian dictator is turning the citizens of Iran into hostages and bringing about a reality in which they – especially the residents of Tehran – will pay a heavy price because of the criminal harm to Israeli civilians,’ said Defence Minister Israel Katz.
‘If (Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali) Khamenei continues to fire missiles toward the Israeli home front – Tehran will burn.’
Meanwhile, the Israeli military said its raids had cleared its path to the capital.
“We have created aerial freedom of action from west Iran all the way to Tehran… Tehran is no longer immune,” said spokesman Brigadier General Effie Defrin.
Israel and Iran exchanged fire a day after Israel unleashed an unprecedented aerial bombing campaign that Iran confirmed had hit its nuclear facilities, ‘martyred’ top commanders and killed dozens of civilians.
Iran has hit back with waves of drone and missile strikes, with a barrage of dozens lighting up the skies over Jerusalem and Tel Aviv overnight, killing three people and wounding 76.
Following decades of enmity and conflict by proxy, it is the first time that Israel and Iran have traded fire with such intensity, with fears of a prolonged conflict engulfing the region.
Israel launched the aerial assault early Friday, only days before Iran and the United States had been due to hold a sixth round of talks on the Islamic republic’s nuclear programme.
Iran’s UN ambassador meanwhile said 78 people had been killed and 320 wounded in Friday’s first wave of Israeli strikes.
Operation Rising Lion has targeted military sites in Iran as well as nuclear facilities in a devastating wave of air strikes – escalating fears the Middle East is on the brink of all-out war.
The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) has said they have ‘established aerial superiority from western Iran to Tehran’.
‘We have created aerial freedom of action from west Iran all the way to Tehran,’ said Israel Defence Forces (IDF) spokesperson Brigadier General Effie Defrin.
“Tehran is no longer immune, the capital is exposed to Israeli strikes,” he added.
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed that Israel will strike “every target of the ayatollah regime’ in Iran, adding Israeli strikes had dealt a ‘real blow” to Tehran’s nuclear programme.
“We will hit every site, every target of the ayatollah regime,” Netanyahu said in a video statement on the second day of Israel’s air campaign targeting Iranian military and nuclear sites.
He claimed Israel had seriously impacted Iran’s nuclear programme, as well as ‘the team of senior scientists who are leading these projects’, referring to the nine individuals that the military had earlier on Saturday declared as ‘eliminated’.
Netanyahu added there would be more military operations to come.
“Very soon, you will see IDF planes above Tehran’s skies. We will hit every target of the ayatollahs’ regime.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Saturday that Israel’s air strikes on Iran had the ‘clear support’ of US President Donald Trump.
“Our enemy is your enemy… We’re dealing with something that will threaten all of us sooner or later. Our victory will be your victory,” Netanyahu said in a video statement addressed to Trump on the US leader’s birthday.
“This is what Israel is doing with the support, the clear support of the president of the United States, Donald Trump, and the American people and many others in the world.”
Meanwhile, President Donald Trump has said the US will help defend Israel, and American officials have been quoted in news reports saying that US forces have already helped shoot down Iranian drones and missiles as they approached Israel. France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, also said on Friday that his country would help defend Israel against Iranian reprisals.
The UK government has said its forces had not provided any military assistance to Israel as the prime minister, Keir Starmer, has emphasised the need for de-escalation.
Speaking at a session of the UN security council on Friday, the US diplomat McCoy Pitt warned: “No government proxy or independent actor should target American citizens, American bases or other American infrastructure in the region. The consequences for Iran would be dire.”
However, following through on the threat, delivered on Saturday through state media, would be an enormous gamble for Iran, drawing western forces into the conflict when it is already reeling under the force of sustained Israeli bombing.
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