Al Jazeera:
Tehran, Iran – Iran’s armed forces say they are prepared to fire on United States warships as President Donald Trump said Washington was still deliberating new attacks or continued pressure on Iran.
Trump told supporters at a rally in Florida on Friday that the US military “may do another Epic Fury”, in reference to the extensive bombing campaign against Iran at the start of the war. He had earlier questioned whether to end the conflict quickly through huge attacks on Iran or let pressure on Tehran from a naval blockade and sanctions persist.
But Ali Abdollahi, chief of general staff of the Iranian armed forces, asserted that the US Navy is incapable of re-entering Iran’s territorial waters or its periphery due to Iran’s ability to target any vessel in the region.
“The US president can only dream of their soldiers and military again entering the Persian Gulf. They will take this wish to the grave for good,” he said in a statement carried by state media on Saturday morning.
Abdollahi also said US rhetoric about the war pointed to a basic contradiction: US claims that Iran’s military capabilities have been mostly destroyed during the war were nullified by its refusal to bring its aircraft carriers and support vessels closer to Iranian territory.
He added that Iranian forces were determined to “drown” the US and Israel in a “quagmire” in retaliation for their surprise attack on Iran on February 28, starting an eight-month war and plunging the whole region into instability.
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