DUBAI: US President Donald Trump threatened Iran on Saturday after the funeral of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei saw open calls for his killing, further underlining the tensions gripping the Mideast as an interim deal to end the war buckles under repeated crossfire in the region.
Trump made the comments on his Truth Social after senior US officials demanded that Iran make a public statement saying the Strait of Hormuz is open and that ships crossing the vital corridor won’t be attacked any longer.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei said on Saturday that avenging his slain predecessor and father was “the demand of the nation” and “must certainly” take place, according to a written message released on his Telegram account.
Khamenei issued the message on the occasion of funeral ceremonies for his father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, held months after he was killed in the US-Israeli airstrikes on February 28.
“We pledge to avenge the blood of the martyred leader and all the martyrs of these two wars from the criminal and disgraced killers,” Khamenei said in the message.
There had been multiple days of US airstrikes targeting Iran, as well as Iranian retaliatory fire targeting nations across the Mideast.
Trump makes online threat toward Iran
“1000 Missiles are Locked and Loaded and aimed at the Islamic Republic of Iran, with thousands of more to immediately follow, should the Iranian Government act on its threat,” Trump wrote on his website.
The US president described his threat as coming over threats “to assassinate, or attempt to assassinate” him. During Khamenei’s funeral, mourners repeatedly held posters or banners calling for him to be killed along with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The Iran war’s opening moments on Feb. 28 saw an airstrike that killed Khamenei, 86. Iran only buried Khamenei this week in a dayslong funeral ceremony that saw his body taken to cities in both Iran and Iraq.
Trump added in his post that the US military would “completely decimate and destroy all areas of Iran — PRAISE BE TO ALLAH!”
Trump repeatedly during the war and its uneasy ceasefire has invoked the name of God in Arabic, as well as threatened to destroy Iran’s very civilization. The Council on American-Islamic Relations, a nationwide advocacy group, in the past has criticized Trump’s “deranged mocking of Islam.”
Middle East remains tense after attacks
After the US wrapped up its latest strikes on Thursday, more attacks reportedly hit Iran, leaving questions about who else may be targeting the Islamic Republic. Israel didn’t claim them, meaning the Gulf Arab states may have launched them, likely as a means to deter Iran from attacking them again. Iran on Thursday retaliated for US strikes by targeting Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait and Qatar.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi plans to discuss the strait with his Omani counterpart at a meeting Saturday in Oman, Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency said. Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan told his country’s state broadcaster TRT that he believed “a solution can be reached” this weekend between Iran and Oman, which lie on opposite sides of the narrow waterway.
However, Araghchi on Saturday accused the US of violating the interim deal by ending waivers allowing Iran to sell crude oil on the open market in US dollars. Washington did that in response to the attacks on ships in the strait.
“Reality check: There can only be mutual compliance,” Araghchi wrote on X.
The US continues to urge mariners to travel on a southern route through Oman’s territorial waters to avoid Iranian waters and the commands of its paramilitary Revolutionary Guard. That has angered Tehran and sparked the attacks in the strait.
