Soleimani Killing: Trump Threatens To Hit 52 Iranian Sites ‘Very Fast & Very Hard’ If Tehran Attempts Reprisal Attack

US President Donald Trump on Saturday issued stern warnings to Iran as tensions soared following the US killing of Iranian general Qasem Soleimani, threatening to his dozens of sites should Tehran attempt to take revenge.

Trump blamed Soleimani for recent attacks on Americans in his response to threats from Iranian officials, who have vowed retribution for the killing.

“Iran is talking very boldly about targeting certain USA assets as revenge for our ridding the world of their terrorist leader who had just killed an American,” Trump wrote on Twitter.

“If Iran strikes any Americans, or American assets, we have targeted 52 Iranian sites,” Trump wrote. “Some at a very high level & important to Iran & the Iranian culture, and those targets, and Iran itself, WILL BE HIT VERY FAST AND VERY HARD.”

….targeted 52 Iranian sites (representing the 52 American hostages taken by Iran many years ago), some at a very high level & important to Iran & the Iranian culture, and those targets, and Iran itself, WILL BE HIT VERY FAST AND VERY HARD. The USA wants no more threats!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 4, 2020

He said the number of sites represented “the 52 American hostages taken by Iran many years ago,” apparently referring to the 1979 Tehran embassy crisis.

Late Saturday night, the president tweeted again, this time warning Iran that the US will hit Iran “harder than they have ever been hit before!”

Trump followed up with another tweet, saying the US would use its “brand new beautiful” military equipment “without hesitation” if the Iranians retaliate.

They attacked us, & we hit back. If they attack again, which I would strongly advise them not to do, we will hit them harder than they have ever been hit before! https://t.co/qI5RfWsSCH

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 5, 2020

Iran has vowed harsh retaliation for the death of Soleimani, the mastermind of its regional military strategy. He was killed early Friday near the Baghdad international airport along with senior Iraqi militants in a targeted US airstrike ordered by Trump.

The strike has raised fears of an all-out war, but it’s unclear how or when Iran might respond. Any retaliation was likely to come after three days of mourning declared in both Iran and Iraq. All eyes were on Iraq, where America and Iran have competed for influence since the 2003 US-led invasion.

Trump said he ordered the strike, a high-risk decision that was made without consulting Congress or US allies, to prevent a conflict. US officials say Soleimani was plotting a series of attacks that endangered American troops and officials, without providing evidence.

In his Saturday Twitter thread, Trump said that Soleimani “badly wounded many” Americans, and killed many people in his lifetime, including recently “hundreds of Iranian protesters.”

He blamed Soleimani for attacks on the US embassy in Baghdad earlier this week and said the Iranian was was “preparing for additional hits in other locations.”

Iranian revolutionary students stormed the American embassy in Tehran in 1979 and took 52 US staffers hostage for 444 days, less than nine months after the toppling of Iran’s American-backed shah. The US broke off diplomatic relations with Iran in 1980 and ties have been frozen ever since.

On Friday, Trump said “Soleimani was plotting imminent and sinister attacks on American diplomats and military personnel, but we caught him in the act and terminated him.”

“We took action last night to stop a war. We did not take action to start a war,” he said, adding: “We do not seek regime change.”

Before deciding on the strike, Trump was reportedly angered for days about the killing of a US contractor in Iraq on December 27, and ordered the airstrike on the Iranian general’s convoy as a response to the contractor’s killing and the storming of the US embassy by pro-Iranian protesters.

The US is seeing indications that Iran has stepped up its readiness to launch short- and medium-range ballistic missiles, according to a Saturday CNN report. US intelligence is conducting surveillance by various means to assess when the missiles could be ready to launch, the report said, citing an unnamed US official with direct knowledge of the issue.