Tehran warns it will respond to any US threats against Iran

US President Joe Biden said on Tuesday that he had made a decision on how to respond to the drone attack that killed three US service members in Jordan last Saturday, but did not provide details about his plans.

In the first attack to kill US troops in the Middle East since the escalation of violence in the region following the Israel-Hamas war, Washington has confirmed that Ketaib Hezbollah, a pro-Iran militia in Iraq, was behind the attack. On Tuesday, the group announced it would halt military operations against the US to avoid embarrassing the Baghdad government.

“We have assessed the threats from US officials and affirm that they have been challenging us for too long. We know each other, any threat will receive a suitable response,” Salami said, according to the semi-official Tasnim news agency.

“The United States needs to stop making threats and focus on political solutions,” Iranian foreign minister Hossein Amirabdollahian was quoted as saying by Iran’s state media during a government meeting.

US forces stationed in Syria, Iraq and at sea have carried out tit-for-tat strikes against pro-Iranian armed groups since Israel launched a counter-attack in response to a Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.

But the drone strike in Jordan last Saturday was the first time US forces suffered casualties, putting pressure on Mr Biden to respond decisively despite the potential risk of escalating the conflict.

Iran's envoy to the United Nations, Amir Saeid Iravani, said on Wednesday that Tehran would respond decisively to any attack on Iranian territory, its interests or Iranians abroad.

In recent weeks, airstrikes believed to have been carried out by Israel in Syria have killed several members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, including several senior commanders. On Monday, an Israeli airstrike hit what Tasnim described as an “Iranian military advisory center” in Syria, killing two people. Iran’s envoy to Syria denied that the site was an Iranian base and insisted that the individuals killed were not Iranian.

On January 15, 2024, Iran said it had attacked “several Israeli spy headquarters” in Iraq's semi-autonomous Kurdistan region.

In the most direct confrontation between Iran and the US in recent years, US forces killed a senior commander of the Quds Force of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps in a strike on Baghdad airport in January 2020. Tehran responded by attacking a US air base in Iraq.

Nguyen Quang Minh (according to Reuters)

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