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Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard said on Saturday that it was on high alert as US warships move toward the Middle East amid rising tensions. According
to Nournews, a local outlet cited by AP, Revolutionary Guard 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.
'A massive fleet heading'
The warning comes as US President Donald Trump sharpens his rhetoric. Speaking aboard Air Force One on Thursday, Trump said the US was deploying naval power closer to Iran “just in case” he decides to act.
Trump claimed he intervened to stop Iran from executing 837 people, after previously warning that Washington would take military action if demonstrators were killed.
“I said if you hang those people, you’re going to be hit harder than you’ve ever been hit,” Trump said on Thursday. “They actually said they canceled it. They didn’t postpone it, they canceled it. So that was a good sign. But we have an armada. We have a massive fleet heading in that direction and maybe we won’t have to use it, we’ll see.”
US naval movements have continued in the region. The aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln and three other destroyers began heading west from the South China Sea earlier this week, and a Navy official said the strike group reached the Indian Ocean on Friday.
“Time to look for new leadership”
Trump has repeatedly questioned Iran’s leadership amid weeks of unrest. He earlier said it was “time to look for new leadership” in Iran and told Politico that Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was “guilty” of “the complete destruction of the country and the use of violence at levels never seen before.”
“In order to keep the country functioning, even though that function is a very low level, the leadership should focus on running his country properly, like I do with the United States, and not killing people by the thousands in order to keep control,” Trump said. He later called Khamenei “a sick man” who should “stop killing people.”
Khamenei, meanwhile, has accused the United States and Israel of backing the protests, claiming they are part of a foreign plot to “devour Iran.” In a series of posts on X, the Iranian leader said Iran “extinguished the fire of the sedition, but that isn’t enough. The US must be held accountable.”
“We do not intend to lead the country toward war,” Khamenei wrote in another post. “However, we will not just let go of the criminals inside the country either. Worse than the internal criminals are the international criminals! We will not let go of them either.”
