Trump warns Iran after rocket fired in Baghdad

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump warned Sunday that threats from Iran against the United States would mark that nation’s “official end.”

Trump’s sharply more aggressive tone about Tehran followed news of a rocket landing inside Baghdad’s fortified Green Zone near the U.S. Embassy.

The apparent attack, which Iraq’s state-run news agency said did not cause casualties, came amid heightened tensions across the Persian Gulf. The White House ordered warships and bombers to the region earlier this month to counter an alleged, unexplained threat from Iran, and the U.S. also has ordered nonessential staff out of its diplomatic posts in Iraq.

The rocket fire was the first such attack since September, when three mortar shells landed in an abandoned lot in the Green Zone.

No one has claimed responsibility for Sunday’s launch, but suspicion among Iraqi officials and Western diplomats fell on one of the Shiite militias that draw their strength from Iranian support.

“If Iran wants to fight, that will be the official end of Iran,” Trump tweeted Sunday afternoon. “Never threaten the United States again!”

In brief remarks at the White House on Thursday, Trump had responded “I hope not” when asked whether the United States and Iran are headed toward war.

Trump, who announced last year that he would withdraw the United States from a landmark 2015 deal aimed at curbing Tehran’s nuclear ambitions, has indicated privately in recent days that he prefers a diplomatic approach to defuse tensions.

For its part, U.S. ally Saudi Arabia said Sunday it does not want war but will not hesitate to defend itself against Iran. Adel al-jubeir, the Saudi minister of state for foreign affairs, spoke a week after four oil tankers — two of them Saudi — were targeted in an alleged act of sabotage off the coast of the United Arab Emirates and days after Iran-allied Yemeni rebels claimed a drone attack on a Saudi oil pipeline.