U.S. President Donald Trump issued a hardline warning to Iran, threatening to destroy the entire country if it attempts to assassinate him. The remarks came on the same day he officially declared the end of a ceasefire with Iran.
On his social media platform Truth Social on the 10th, Trump wrote that "if the Iranian government, in keeping with the threats it has repeatedly voiced, assassinates or attempts to assassinate a sitting U.S. President — namely me — 1,000 missiles are already loaded and aimed at Iran, and thousands more will immediately follow."
He described the readiness of a retaliatory operation in specific detail. "The orders have already been given, and the U.S. military is ready, willing, and able to completely decimate and totally destroy all of Iran for a period of one year, extendable if necessary," Trump wrote. He ended the post with the phrase "PRAISE BE TO ALLAH!"
This is not the first time Trump has publicly raised Iran's assassination threats. On the 8th, he also claimed to be "number one on Iran's assassination target list." Earlier, when it emerged that he had switched aircraft while returning from Turkey after a North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) summit, some interpreted the move as a measure against the Iranian threat.
Relations between the two countries are rapidly cooling. Trump officially declared on the 10th that the ceasefire with Iran had ended. With merchant ships repeatedly coming under attack in the Strait of Hormuz and the United States responding with retaliatory airstrikes, the barely maintained ceasefire regime is now on the verge of collapse.
