Donald Trump issued a warning for Iran the past weekend. He said that America will attack 52 targets, a number that represents the victims of the 1979-81 Iran hostage crisis. It was the POTUS’ response to the threat coming from Tehran where the leaders said they will hit 35 American targets in their area including some of the U.S. ships.
The tension between the two countries heightened on Saturday, Jan. 4 when Iran raised the red flag on top of the Jamkaran Mosque. This means that the country has declared war and the officials are vowing to seek revenge for the death of Qassem Soleimani, a major general in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps since 1998 and head of Iran’s elite Quds Force, NBC News reported.
Soleimani was put down in a U.S. air raid in Baghdad on Friday, Jan. 3, through a bombing near Baghdad airport. He was killed along with deputy commander of Iraq’s Popular Mobilisation Forces (a.k.a Hashd al-Shaab), Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis. The move was condemned by Iranian leaders and officials and Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Hosseini Khamenei said that "a harsh retaliation is waiting."
In response, the American president also warned Iran not to launch an attack or they will have to deal with harsher retaliation. He added that Iran has been attacking the U.S. embassy and preparing to hit other locations so they will not stay still anymore besides Iran is said to have been bringing nothing but problems for many years.
“They attacked us and we hit back,” the POTUS tweeted. “If they attack again, which I would strongly advise them not to do, we will hit them harder than they have ever been hit before!”
He went on to state, “Iran is talking very boldly about targeting certain USA assets as revenge for our ridding the world of their terrorist leader who had just killed an American, & badly wounded many others, not to mention all of the people he had killed over his lifetime, including recently hundreds of Iranian protesters.”
In any case, Javad Zarif, Iran’s foreign minister, called the air raid on Friday "an act of state terrorism and a violation of Iraq's sovereignty." Meanwhile, mourners for Soleimani gathered on the streets as the body of the official arrives from Iraq. Today, Iraq is expected to make a request for the American troops to withdraw or leave their country.
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