Iran warns of consequences for US troops if attacked
Iran’s parliament speaker warned President Donald Trump that US troops in the region would be harmed if Washington decides to attack Iran.
“Maybe Mr. Trump can start a war, but he has no control over how it ends,” Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf told US broadcaster CNN.
He added that thousands of US soldiers stationed several thousand kilometers from home would certainly suffer.
Trump says he plans to meet with Iran amid rising tensions.
“We have a lot of very large, very powerful ships heading to Iran right now, and it would be great if we didn’t have to use them,” Trump told reporters in Washington.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has previously threatened Iran with a pre-emptive military strike if the leadership in Tehran plans to attack US military facilities.
At a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing Wednesday local time, Rubio said the United States has deployed 30,000 to 40,000 troops at eight or nine facilities in the Gulf region, all of which are within range of thousands of Iranian drones and short-range ballistic missiles.
He justified this structure by protecting his allies, such as Israel, from potential Iranian attacks.
The US administration has repeatedly threatened military intervention against Iran over its nuclear program and the violent suppression of mass protests in early 2026.
On Wednesday, Trump said “another” US military fleet was headed for Iran. It was not immediately clear whether Trump was referring to the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln and its accompanying warships, which arrived in the Middle East on Monday, or to other US military forces.
The United States and Israel attacked Iran’s nuclear facilities last June.
This comes after EU foreign ministers agreed to designate Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organisation.
The bloc also imposed asset freezes and travel bans on nearly 30 Iranian individuals and organizations in response to a brutal crackdown on anti-government protests.
EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said foreign ministers in the 27-nation bloc unanimously agreed on the appointment, which she said would put the regime “on the same footing” as Al Qaeda, Hamas and the Islamic State group.
Kallas said, “Those who operate through terrorism should be treated as terrorists.”
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi described this appointment as a “public relations stunt” and said that Europe would be affected if energy prices increased as a result of sanctions.
“Many countries are currently trying to prevent all-out war from breaking out in our region. None of them are European,” he wrote on social media platform X.
Meanwhile, doctors and hospitals in Iran have been attacked during violent unrest sweeping the country, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
“In recent days, there have been reports that healthcare workers have been attacked and at least five doctors have been detained while treating injured patients,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the organization’s chief, said on X.
“I call for the release of every detained healthcare worker. Healthcare staff should never face threats.”
Thousands of people have been killed in Iran’s recent wave of violent unrest, according to estimates by human rights organizations.
The trigger for the protests was the bad economic situation. However, the protests later turned openly against the authoritarian system of rule in the Islamic Republic.
with AP
