Iran’s military has issued a sweeping threat against American civilians worldwide, warning that tourist sites, resorts, and entertainment centers will “not be safe” for Americans following a series of Israeli strikes that dismantled the regime’s top leadership.
Gen. Abolfazl Shekarchi, spokesperson for Iran’s armed forces, made the threat through state-run media Friday.
“We are watching your cowardly officials and commanders, pilots and wicked soldiers,” Shekarchi said, as per The Times of Israel. “From now on, based on the information we have on you, the promenades, resorts and tourist and entertainment centres in the world will not be safe for you either.”
The warning marks a significant escalation in Iran’s public rhetoric against the United States and comes in the wake of devastating Israeli operations that have gutted the Islamic Republic’s command structure.
The latest round of threats extends the targeting to ordinary Americans traveling abroad. The U.S. Embassy in Bahrain has already issued an urgent security alert, urging American citizens to vacate hotels and avoid tourist locations that “might be a target for future attacks.” Embassy personnel have been moved out of hotels in the region.
Iran has also struck religious sites in Jerusalem in recent months, with debris from Iranian missiles raining down near the Temple Mount and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
The threat puts American civilians traveling in the Middle East, and potentially anywhere else in the world, in the crosshairs of a regime that has already demonstrated its willingness to carry out overseas assassination plots. U.S. officials have repeatedly warned in recent years that Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps runs foreign assassination networks that operate well beyond the Middle East.
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed in an Israeli strike on February 28. In the weeks since, Israeli forces have also eliminated senior Iranian officials including Ali Larijani, Gholamreza Soleimani, and IRGC spokesperson Ali Mohammad Naini.
