Iran's New Security Chief Says Neighbours Joining U.S. Economic War Will Be Considered 'Enemies'

AP

Mohsen Rezaei, leader of Iran’s supreme national security council.

The new leader of Iran’s top security body has warned its neighbours against joining new U.S. efforts to squeeze Tehran’s economy, and threatened U.S. commercial interests in the region.

“If (Trump) wants to do something, we will retaliate in a seismic manner,” he said in an interview with the state broadcaster that aired Saturday.

Mohsen Rezaei, the hardline new leader of Iran’s supreme national security council, told state television that Iran would target oil-shipping routes out the Gulf – alternatives to the strait of Hormuz – if its neighbours joined what he called the “economic war” waged by the US. Those neighbours would be “considered an enemy” and “we will target their interests”, he said.

His interview with IRIB is his most extensive public statement since then.

U.S. President Donald Trump in the past week has vowed to increase Iran’s pain by imposing an “unprecedented” level of economic warfare and isolation. Iran has lived under sanctions for years.

Rezaei said discussions with Oman, located on the other side of the strait, over management of it were ongoing, and said fees would be imposed. Iran asserted control over what was seen as an international waterway shortly after the U.S. and Israel attacked on 28 February.

Rezaei also claimed the Islamic republic had more cards to play in the war, saying “we have not yet attacked any American economic interests”.

“So far, we have only targeted military bases, but if they want to impose economic sanctions on us, the United States has oil and economic companies around Iran and elsewhere, and we will strike them,” Rezai said in the interview, broadcast on Saturday.

Rezaei was a commander-in-chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) for most of the 1980-88 war with Iraq and was named this month in a series of senior appointments widely seen as hardening Tehran’s political and military stance.



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