Trump dares Iran to attack

RESPONSE: WILL BE 1 000 TIMES GREATER, PRES WARNS

↣ ‘They have assassinated people in Europe and in other parts of the world.’

US President Donald Trump on Monday vowed that any attack by Iran would be met with a response “1 000 times greater in magnitude,” after reports that Iran planned to avenge the killing of top general Qasem Soleimani.

A US media report, quoting unnamed officials, said that an alleged Iranian plot to assassinate the US ambassador to South Africa was planned before the presidential election in November.

“According to press reports, Iran may be planning an assassination, or other attack, against the United States in retaliation for the killing of terrorist leader Soleimani,” Trump tweeted.

“Any attack by Iran, in any form, against the United States will be met with an attack on Iran that will be 1 000 times greater in magnitude!”

Relations between Washington and Tehran have been tense since the Iranian revolution and have spiralled since Trump unilaterally pulled out of a landmark international nuclear deal with Iran in May 2018.

In January, a US drone strike killed Soleimani in Baghdad, and Washington is pushing to extend an arms embargo on Iran that starts to progressively expire in October as well as reimposing UN sanctions on the Islamic republic.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Monday declined to comment directly on the reported threat to Lana Marks, the US ambassador to South Africa who is a close ally of Trump.

But Pompeo told Fox News that “the Islamic Republic of Iran has engaged in assassination efforts all across the world. They have assassinated people in Europe and in other parts of the world. We take these... allegations seriously.

The Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson on Monday dismissed the report of an assassination plot as “baseless”.

He said it was part of “repetitive and rotten methods to create an anti-Iranian atmosphere on the international stage.”