AP
Dubai
Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, a force which was key in putting down recent nationwide protests in a crackdown that left thousands dead, is “more ready than ever, finger on the trigger,” its commander said Saturday, as US warships headed toward
the Middle East.
Nournews, a news outlet close to Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, reported on its Telegram channel that the commander, Gen Mohammad Pakpour, warned the United States and Israel “to avoid any miscalculation.”
“The Islamic Revolutionary Guards and dear Iran stand more ready than ever, finger on the trigger, to execute the orders and directives of the Commander-in-Chief,” Nournews quoted Pakpour as saying.
Tension remains high between Iran and the US in the wake of a bloody crackdown on protests that began on December 28, triggered by the collapse of Iran’s currency, the rial, and swept the country for about two weeks.
US President Donald Trump has repeatedly warned Tehran, setting two red lines for the use of military force: the killing of peaceful demonstrators and the mass execution of people arrested in
the protests.
Trump has repeatedly said Iran halted the execution of 800 people detained in the protests. He has not elaborated on the source of the claim, which Iran’s top prosecutor, Mohammad Movahedi, strongly denied on Friday in comments carried by the judiciary’s Mizan news agency.
On Thursday, Trump said aboard Air Force One that the US was moving warships toward Iran “just in case” he wants to take action.
“We have a massive fleet heading in that direction, and maybe we won’t have to use it,” Trump said.
A US Navy official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss military movements, said on Thursday that the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln and other warships travelling with it were in the Indian Ocean.
Trump also mentioned the multiple rounds of talks American officials had with Iran over its nuclear programme before Israel launched a 12-day war against the Islamic Republic in June, which also saw US warplanes bomb Iranian nuclear sites. He threatened Iran with military action that would make earlier US strikes against Iranian uranium enrichment sites “look like peanuts.”
“They should have made a deal before we hit them,” Trump said.
The tension has led at least one European airline to cancel some flights to the wider region, with Air France saying it had decided to temporarily suspend its service to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates.
The airline cancelled two return flights from Paris to Dubai over the weekend, saying, without elaborating, that it was due to the current situation in the Middle East. It said it would resume its service to Dubai later on Saturday.
The US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency on Saturday put the death toll at 5,137, with the number expected to increase. More than 27,700 people have been arrested, it said.
