‘We warned you,’ says Iran’s national security chief after Israel-US attacks


Asia Pacific Report

“We warned you,” says Iran’s national security commission head after Israel-US missiles attacks on the capital Tehran and other cities.

Al Jazeera reports comments from Ebrahim Azizi, the head of the national security commission of the Iranian Parliament.

“We warned you!” he wrote on social media.

“Now you have started down a path which end is no longer in your control,” he added.

Explosions were also reported in the cities of Kermanshah, Lorestan, Tabriz, Isfahan and Karaj, according to local news media.

Al Jazeera’s chief US correspondent Alan Fisher reports that people were expecting that there may well be an attack by the United States.

US President Donald Trump had been talking about it.

‘Some US action expected’
“Most people expected some sort of United States action. So there is surprise that Israel has gone first.

“But there will be speculation here in the United States — inevitably — that this is [Israeli Prime Minister] Benjamin Netanyahu once again trying to force the United States to take action against Iran.

“And the reason he has done this is to try and force their hand.”

News media report US President Donald Trump as stating that the joint Israel-US attacks were aimed at “eliminating imminent threats from the Iranian regime”.

In an eight-minute video message shared on Truth Social, he said: “Short time ago, US military began major combat operation in Iran. Our objective is to defend the American people by eliminating threats from the Iranian regime.”

Mehran Kamrava, director of the Iranian studies unit at the Arab Centre for Research and Policy Studies and professor at Georgetown University in Qatar, said Israel appeared to have “launched an attack designed to derail the [nuclear] negotiations” between the US and Iran. A new round of talks had been scheduled for next week.


This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.