Iran's Supreme Leader threatens US, Israel with 'crushing response' to Israeli attack

Iran's supreme leader on Saturday threatened Israel and the United States with a “crushing response” to attacks on Iran and its allies.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei spoke as Iranian officials increasingly threaten to launch a new strike against Israel following the Oct. 26 attack on the Islamic Republic, which targeted military bases and other locations and killed at least five people.

Any further attack from either side could engulf the entire Middle East, already gripped by the war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip and Israel's ground invasion of Lebanon, in a broader regional conflict just before Tuesday's U.S. presidential election.

“The enemies, whether it is the Zionist regime or the United States of America, will certainly receive a crushing response to what they are doing to Iran, the Iranian nation and the resistance front,” he said. Khamenei said in a video published by Iranian state media.

The supreme leader did not provide details on the timing of the threatened attack, nor its scope. The U.S. military operates on bases throughout the Middle East, with some troops now manning a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD, battery in Israel.

The aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln is likely in the Arabian Sea, while Pentagon press secretary Gen. Pat Ryder said Friday that more destroyers, fighter squadrons, tankers and bombers Long-range B-52s would come to the region to deter Iran. and its activist allies.

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei greets the crowd during a meeting with students from schools and universities, in Tehran, Iran, Saturday, November 2, 2024. Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader via AP

Khamenei, 85, had taken a more cautious approach in his earlier remarks, saying officials would evaluate Iran's response and that the Israeli attack “should not be exaggerated or downplayed.” Iran launched two major direct attacks against Israel, in April and October.

But Iran's efforts to downplay the Israeli attack failed when satellite photos analyzed by The Associated Press showed damage to military bases near Tehran linked to the country's ballistic missile program, as well as to a base Revolutionary Guards used for satellite launches.

Iran's allies, called the “Axis of Resistance” by Tehran, have also been severely affected by ongoing Israeli attacks, particularly Lebanese Hezbollah and Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Iran has long used these groups both as an asymmetric means of attacking Israel and as a shield against direct attack. Some analysts say these groups want Iran to do more to support them militarily.

Iran, however, is facing its own domestic problems, as its economy struggles under the weight of international sanctions and it faces years of multiple and widespread protests. After Khamenei's speech, the Iranian rial fell to 691,500 against the dollar, close to a historic low. It stood at 32,000 rials to the dollar when Tehran concluded its nuclear deal in 2015 with world powers.

Gen. Mohammad Ali Naini, a spokesman for Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guards which controls the ballistic missiles needed to target Israel, gave an interview published by the semi-official Fars news agency just before Khamenei's remarks were published. In it, he warns that Iran's response “will be wise, powerful and beyond the comprehension of the enemy.”

“The leaders of the Zionist regime should look out of their bedroom windows and protect their criminal pilots in their small territory,” he warned. Israeli Air Force pilots appear to have used air-launched ballistic missiles in the October 26 attack.

Khamenei met with university students on Saturday to mark Students' Day, which commemorates a November 4, 1978 incident in which Iranian soldiers opened fire on students protesting the Shah's rule at Tehran University. The shooting killed and injured several students and further escalated tensions ravaging Iran at the time, ultimately leading the Shah to flee the country and spark the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

The crowd warmly welcomed Khamenei, chanting: “The blood that flows in our veins is a gift to our leader!” » Some also made a hand gesture – similar to a “time out” signal – given by assassinated Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in 2020, in a speech in which he threatened that US troops who arrived standing at the Middle East would “come back in coffins” horizontally.

Iran will mark the 45th anniversary of the US embassy hostage crisis this Sunday, according to the Persian calendar. On November 4, 1979, the storming of the embassy by Islamist students led to a 444-day crisis, which cemented the decades-long enmity between Tehran and Washington that persists today.

Crisis in the Middle East

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