(Screenshots: X@CENTCOM)
US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth issued a stark warning on social media, saying there would be deadly consequences for anyone targeting US citizens.The letter, which US Central Command shared on X, read: “If you kill Americans, if you threaten Americans anywhere on Earth, we will pursue you without apology and without hesitation, and we will kill you.
“Alongside the message, a 21-second video was posted showing what the military described as its current deployment range. The footage included “unclassified” video clips of vehicles and buildings being bombed and destroyed by American forces during recent operations.
This warning comes amid escalating tensions following the February 28 joint US-Israeli military strike on Iranian territory. The raid resulted in the killing of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, along with other prominent figures, sparking a violent response from Tehran.
In response, Iran launched ballistic missiles and drones targeting US and allied assets across the region, including Israel, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Jordan, expanding the conflict in West Asia.Read also | ‘They annihilated their entire evil empire’: Is the US responsible for the Iranian school bombing that killed 160 people? What did Trump say?US President Donald Trump also claimed that the United States had succeeded in neutralizing the entire Iranian leadership, describing the military action as removing a major “cancer” from the global arena.
Trump made the remarks aboard Air Force One while on his way to Miami, “We won the war by a lot. We destroyed their entire evil empire. I’m sure it’s going to go on for a while… The war itself is going incredibly well. It’s as good as it can be.” He added: “We destroyed their (Iranian) navy and 44 ships. We destroyed their air force, every plane. We destroyed most of their missiles. As you can see, the missiles don’t come very often anymore. We also hit their manufacturing areas where they make missiles very hard. Their drone capability has been greatly reduced and we hurt them where it hurts, including every form of leadership that we could have eliminated.”Meanwhile, the humanitarian toll in Iran continues to rise more than a week after the conflict began. According to Al Jazeera, official figures show that “more than 1,300 people have been killed” since the violence began.