In the hours after a US drone strike killed a top Iranian general, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei instructed that a revenge attack on US interests be openly carried out by Iranian forces rather than the country’s regional proxies, the New York Times reported Monday.
Khamenei showed up at a meeting of Iran’s National Security Council and laid down the conditions for a response to the slaying of Qassem Soeimani, the report said.
It must be direct, proportional, on American interests and carried out openly by Iranian forces, Khamenei declared, three Iranian sources familiar with the meeting told the newspaper.
The airstrike on Soleimani, a general who headed Iran’s elite Quds Force and mastermind of its regional security strategy, has caused regional tensions to soar.
Khamenei has publicly vowed “severe revenge” for Soleimani’s death.
Open action by Iran against the US would be a significant departure from the usual methods of the Islamic Republic, which in that past has preferred to use regional proxies to see through its plans.
Analysts quoted in the report said Iran could target American troops in Syria or Iraq, as well as US bases in the Persian Gulf or American embassies or diplomats anywhere in the world.
However, Iran expert Afshon Ostovar, of the Naval Postgraduate School, noted to the Times that in the past Iran-backed terror groups, frustrated at not being able to inflict military damage, have instead targeted civilians.
One such case was the 2012 Lebanese Hezbollah terror group attack on Israeli tourists in Bulgaria in revenge for the killing by Israel of one of the Iran-backed group’s leaders.
“We are in uncharted territory, and the truth of the matter is nobody knows how Iran is going to respond. I don’t think even Iran knows,” Ostovar said. “But I think there is a blood lust right now in the Revolutionary Guards.” READ MORE
