Iranian security chief Mohsen Rezaei has threatened to strike US bases beyond the Middle East, including in Europe, if they are used for attacks against the Islamic Republic.
“If American aircraft take off from an American military base, even one located in a European country or some other distant region, to bomb Iran, we will strike those bases as well,” Rezaei told Lebanon-based Al Mayadeen TV in an interview broadcast on Wednesday.
He added that Iran’s response would “target America’s more distant military installations,” and potentially “certain islands that they assume are beyond the reach of our missiles.”
The Middle East war broke out on February 28 with US-Israeli strikes that killed Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Iran responded by launching missiles and drones at countries across the region, while the militant groups it backs in Lebanon, Yemen and Iraq also entered the fray.
Diplomatic efforts led by Qatar and Pakistan have been underway to negotiate an end to the war.
And Washington has appeared to dial back threats of renewed strikes after the defeat of President Donald Trump’s Republican Party in recent midterm elections, in part due to the unpopularity of the war on Iran.
On Tuesday, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said there was no need to attack Iran again, citing what he described as successful efforts to undermine its economy.
Tehran insists that Washington accept a raft of demands including unfreezing assets and lifting sanctions in return for reopening the Strait of Hormuz, the vital energy conduit it has blockaded since the start of the conflict.
– Past threats –
Iranian officials have previously threatened to expand the geographic scope of the conflict should the US attack again.
In late September, an adviser to Iran’s new supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei publicly mused that the war could “expand even further, reaching the Indian Ocean and perhaps beyond.”
The ocean is home to a strategic US-British military base at Diego Garcia, nearly 4,000 kilometres (2,500 miles) from Iran, which fired two missiles towards the installation in March. One fell short, while the other was intercepted, Britain said at the time.
Also in September, a suspected Tehran-backed plot against Britain’s RAF Fairford airbase — which has been used by the US military for Iran operations — was disrupted when a local farmer reported seeing men engaged in “suspicious” activity.
The US Justice Department on Tuesday announced charges against three men it described as “Iranian operatives,” including one already in jail, over their roles in the affair.
The US and Israel have repeatedly cited Iran’s nuclear programme as part of their justification for the war, but Rezaei said during Wednesday’s interview that the nuclear issue was “not currently” part of the talks.
Tehran, he added, had already established red lines, including that it would “not send even a tiny amount of the enriched material outside Iran.”
Iran’s nuclear programme — and its stockpile of uranium enriched up to 60 per cent, close to the 90 per cent threshold needed for an atomic bomb — has been at the centre of tensions for years.
AFP
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