A handout photo provided by the office of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on November 2, 2024 shows him waving to the crowd during a meeting with Iranian students in Tehran. Khamenei vowed to respond to attacks on Iran and its allies. , Photo Credit: AFP Photo/HO/KHAMENEI.IR
Iran’s supreme leader on Saturday (November 2, 2024) threatened Israel and the US with a “crushing response” over attacks on Iran and its allies.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei spoke as Iranian officials threatened to launch another attack against Israel in the Islamic Republic on October 26, targeting military bases and other locations and killing at least five people .
Any further attacks from either side could engulf the broader Middle East, already reeling from the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip and Israel’s ground invasion of Lebanon, this Tuesday (November 5), US President This could escalate into a wider regional conflict just before the elections. 2024).
“The enemy, whether the Zionist regime or the United States, will definitely receive a befitting reply for what they are doing to Iran and the Iranian nation and the resistance front,” Mr. Khamenei said in a video released by Iranian state media. ,
The supreme leader did not elaborate on the timing or scope of the threatened attack. The U.S. military operates throughout the Middle East, with some soldiers now manning Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD, batteries in Israel.
Khamenei, 85, had taken a more cautious stance in earlier comments, saying officials would evaluate Iran’s response and that Israel’s attack “should neither be exaggerated nor underestimated.”
But Iran’s efforts to downplay the attack through analysis of satellite images failed The Associated Press The attacks damaged military bases near Tehran linked to the country’s ballistic missile program, as well as a Revolutionary Guard base used for satellite launches.
Iran’s allies, dubbed the “axis of resistance” by Tehran, have also been seriously hurt by ongoing Israeli attacks, particularly Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Iran has long used those groups as a means to attack Israel and as a shield against direct attack. Some analysts believe those groups want Iran to do more to support them militarily.
However, Iran is struggling with its own problems domestically, as its economy struggles under the burden of international sanctions and it has faced widespread, multiple protests for years.
Mr Khamenei met with university students on Saturday (November 2, 2024) to celebrate Students’ Day, which commemorates the November 4, 1978 incident in which Iranian troops opened fire on students protesting the Shah’s regime at Tehran University. But bullets were fired. Several students were killed and injured in the shooting and tensions increased in Iran at the time, ultimately leading to the Shah fleeing the country and the Islamic Revolution of 1979.
The crowd gave Mr. Khamenei a rousing welcome, saying, “The blood in our veins is a gift to our leader!” Some also showed a hand gesture made by slain Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in a speech in 2020 in which he threatened that US troops would “return in coffins.”
According to the Persian calendar, Iran will commemorate the 45th anniversary of the US embassy hostage crisis this Sunday (November 3, 2024). The attack on the embassy by Islamist students on November 4, 1979, led to a 444-day crisis, cementing the decades-long animosity between Tehran and Washington that persists today.
published – November 02, 2024 03:08 PM IST