Iran warns US military intervention would bring ‘irreparable damage’
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, said Wednesday that Iran is not frightened by threats from President Donald Trump, as Israel and Iran continue to trade airstrikes.
Trump is weighing whether to strike Iran, and the Pentagon has built up U.S. military forces in the Middle East in recent days.
On social media Tuesday, Trump demanded “UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER” from Tehran without detailing what that would mean, and he described the supreme leader as an “easy target.”
“The US President threatens us. With his absurd rhetoric, he demands that the Iranian people surrender to him. They should make threats against those who are afraid of being threatened. The Iranian nation isn’t frightened by such threats,” Khamenei said in a post on X.
In a separate television address Wednesday, he praised Iranians for their “steadfast” courage, saying: “The Iranian nation stands firm against an imposed war, just as it will stand firm against an imposed peace, and this nation will not surrender to anyone in the face of imposition.”
It was his first televised address since Friday and came as Trump weighed whether the United States should enter the conflict.
Israel and Iran continued to trade fire on Wednesday, the sixth day of the direct conflict.
Explosions were heard in Tehran early Wednesday as Israeli warplanes continued to hammer Iran. The Israeli military issued evacuation warnings for another district as the exodus from the Iranian capital continued. Israel said it attacked a centrifuge production site and several weapons manufacturing sites overnight. Iran launched two waves of missiles at Israel overnight and said it used its hypersonic Fattah-1 missile for the first time. There have been no reports of casualties in Israel Wednesday.
The number of missiles Israel has faced in each retaliation barrage appears to have decreased over the past two days. Iran has not explained the decline, but Israel said it has destroyed more than a third of Iran’s missile launchers.
“The battle begins,” Khamenei posted on social media early Wednesday.
As Trump mulls U.S. involvement, Esmail Baghaei, a spokesman for Iran’s Foreign Ministry, said in an interview with Al Jazeera that “any American intervention would be a recipe for an all-out war in the region.”
The Israel Defense Forces said Wednesday it has struck over 1,100 targets in Iran since its surprise offensive launched Friday. Israel targeted five AH-1 helicopters at Kermanshah Airport in western Iran, saying they had been set to strike Israeli aircraft, according to a statement from IDF spokesman Effie Defrin. Videos on Iranian Telegram accounts, which could not be immediately verified, showed large plumes of smoke and described “continuous explosions.”
Iran has launched over 400 missiles and hundreds more drones at Israel since the conflict broke out Friday, according to Wednesday morning data from the Israeli prime minister’s office. In that time, they have penetrated air defenses and hit more than 40 sites, the office said, adding that tax authorities have received more than 18,000 claims for damage, mostly to properties and buildings.