Iran warns US against making ‘strategic mistake’ after Trump’s new threat

15 Sep, 2020
Tehran has said the United States may make a “strategic mistake” after President Donald Trump threatened Iran over reports it planned to avenge the killing of its top general, Qassem Soleimani.
“We hope that they do not make a new strategic mistake. Certainly in the case of any strategic mistake, they will witness Iran’s decisive response,” government spokesman Ali Rabiei told reporters on Tuesday.
The previous day, Trump vowed that any attack by Iran would be met with a response “1,000 times greater in magnitude.” The statement came after a US media report cited unnamed officials as saying that an alleged Iranian plot to assassinate the US ambassador to South Africa was planned before the presidential election in November.
Read more at https://www.rt.com/news/500740-iran-us-mistake-trump/

‘Iran plot’ to assassinate US ambassador to South Africa met with scepticism

By Peter Fabricius
14 September 2020
South African intelligence does not think there is a ‘discernible threat’ by Iran to assassinate the US ambassador to South Africa, as US intelligence agencies are reported to believe. Some analysts say that the news of the alleged plot is a ploy by US President Donald Trump to help him win re-election on 3 November.
According to a report in the US journal Politico, quoting two anonymous US officials, Tehran has contemplated killing ambassador Lana Marks to avenge America’s assassination in January of top Iranian General Qassem Soleimani, head of the country’s crack Quds Force — a unit of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.
“If carried out, it could dramatically ratchet up already serious tensions between the US and Iran and create enormous pressure on (US President Donald) Trump to strike back — possibly in the middle of a tense election season,” Politico says.
Read more at https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2020-09-14-iran-plot-to-assassinate-us-ambassador-to-south-africa-met-with-scepticism/