Iran Responds to Trump by Telling U.S. to Remove Mideast Forces
U.S. should do all they can to save their forces who have the coronavirus instead of bullying others, Iran defence official said
(Bloomberg) -- The U.S. should withdraw its forces from the Middle East and focus on Covid-19 cases among its military, an Iranian defense official said, in the country’s first response to a tweeted threat from President Donald Trump to target any Iranian ships confronting the U.S. Navy.
“Americans should do all they can to save their forces who have the coronavirus instead of bullying others,” Abolfazl Shekarchi, senior spokesman for Iran’s armed forces, was quoted as saying by the semi-official Iranian Students News Agency.
The USS Theodore Roosevelt aircraft carrier was hit by a high-profile outbreak of the virus that left hundreds of sailors sick and led to the dismissal of its captain. Iran, meanwhile, has the worst epidemic in the Middle East, having reported 85,996 cases and 5,391 deaths.
Trump on Wednesday said he’s ordered the Navy to destroy any Iranian vessels that harass American ships at sea after 11 gunboats from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps crossed the bows and sterns of American ships at close range in the Persian Gulf last week.
U.S. Central Command called the Iranian maneuvers “dangerous and provocative” in a statement, and said at the time that that American commanders on the scene “retain the inherent right to act in self-defense.”
Iran and the U.S. have exchanged military blows in recent months, the culmination of escalating tensions following the Trump administration’s decision to leave the 2015 nuclear deal and reimpose sanctions on the Iranian economy. Early this year, the U.S. killed Iranian general Qassem Soleimani. An Iranian counter attack on a U.S. base in Iraq didn’t kill anyone, but left American soldiers with head injuries, which Trump downplayed the severity of.
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