- Maj. Gen. Hossein Dehghan, who advises Iran’s supreme leader, told CNN that Iran’s response to the US assassination of the top military commander Qassem Soleimani “for sure will be military and against military sites.”
- “We can say America, Mr. Trump, has taken action directly against us – so we take direct action against America,” Dehghan said in the interview broadcast Sunday.
- He also dismissed President Donald Trump’s threat to target Iranian cultural sites if Iran avenged Soleimani’s death.
- “No American military staff, no American political center, no American military base, no American vessel will be safe” if Trump destroys the cultural sites, Dehghan said.
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A top Iranian general has warned that Iran will target the US military to avenge the assassination of the leading military commander Qassem Soleimani last week.
In a CNN interview that aired Sunday, Maj. Gen. Hossein Dehghan – who advises Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei – said that Iran’s response would “for sure will be military and against military sites.”
He also suggested that Iran’s response would come not from the array of Iranian proxy forces spread throughout the Middle East but from the Iranian military itself.
“It might be argued that there could be proxy operations,” he said. “We can say America, Mr. Trump, has taken action directly against us – so we take direct action against America.”
Soleimani, the major general who led Iran's elite Quds Force, was the architect of the nation's military strategy across the Middle East and was arguably its most powerful military and political figure. His assassination last week sent shockwaves through the region.
Iran's leaders have pledged revenge against the US in response.
The US has about 800 military bases and installations around the world, with about 70,000 US troops deployed in the Middle East, according to US Central Command.
'If he says 52, we say 300'
Dehghan also dismissed Trump's threat, on which he doubled down Sunday, to target 52 Iranian sites, including some cultural ones, should Iran respond to the Soleimani assassination.
Trump said the number of targets reflected the number of hostages Iran took during the 1979 hostage crisis, which helped end President Jimmy Carter's presidency after one term.
Deliberately destroying cultural sites or cultural heritage sites is considered a war crime under the Geneva Conventions.
"If he says 52, we say 300 - and they are accessible to us," Dehghan told CNN. "No American military staff, no American political center, no American military base, no American vessel will be safe."
"He doesn't know international law," he added. "He doesn't recognize UN resolutions either. Basically, he is a veritable gangster and a gambler."
Iran on Sunday also announced that it would withdraw from its commitments under the 2015 nuclear deal, suggesting the country could take a big step toward obtaining a nuclear weapon. Trump withdrew the US from the deal in 2018.
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