​​​​​​​Trump: Any attack by Iran on America will be confronted strongly

The US President tweeted on his Twitter account on Monday, "Any attack by Iran, whatever its form, against the United States will be met with a response that will be a thousand times stronger."

Trump's tweet came after press reports stated that Iran had devised a plot to assassinate the US ambassador to South Africa, Lana Marks, who is close to the US president.

In the same context, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that he takes "very seriously" the talk about the plan to assassinate the ambassador. "We take this type of report very seriously," Pompeo said in a televised interview, details of which were reported by AFP.

He added, "We know that Iran is the first country supporting terrorism in the world and that they (the Iranians) have previously carried out this type of assassination" in "Europe and elsewhere."

He continued, "We will do everything we can to protect every official in the Foreign Ministry," warning Tehran that "attacking any American, regardless of place or time, whether he is a diplomat, ambassador or military, is absolutely unacceptable."

In addition, the US "Politico" news site had quoted two American officials, whose identities were not disclosed, as saying that the intelligence services believed that the Iranian government was planning to assassinate the US ambassador in South Africa.

The Iranian Foreign Ministry had earlier responded to the Politico report by saying that what was reported by the American news site was merely "false information" and "baseless."

Tensions escalated between Tehran and Washington after Trump withdrew from the nuclear agreement concluded by the major powers with Iran in May 2018 and re-imposed severe US economic sanctions on Iran, in implementation of the policy of "maximum pressure" that he wants to force Iran to agree to a "better agreement." ".

Tension between the two countries escalated with the assassination of Soleimani near Baghdad Airport on January 3 in a raid by an American drone.

T/S

ANHA