This handout picture from the U.S. Navy reveals an EA-18G Growler touchdown on the flight deck of the Nimitz-class plane provider USS Abraham Lincoln within the Indian Ocean on Jan. 23, 2026.
Seaman Daniel Kimmelman/US Navy/AP
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Seaman Daniel Kimmelman/US Navy/AP
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Iran’s supreme chief warned Sunday that any assault by the USA would spark a “regional war” within the Mideast, additional escalating tensions as President Donald Trump has threatened to militarily strike the Islamic Republic.
The feedback from the 86-year-old Ayatollah Ali Khamenei are the most-direct risk he is made as far as the plane provider USS Abraham Lincoln and related American warships are within the Arabian Sea, despatched by Trump there after Tehran’s bloody crackdown on nationwide protests.
It stays unclear whether or not Trump will use pressure. He is repeatedly mentioned Iran needs to barter and has introduced up Tehran’s nuclear program as one other difficulty he needs to see resolved.
However Khamenei additionally referred to the nationwide protests as “a coup,” hardening the federal government’s place as tens of hundreds of individuals reportedly have been detained for the reason that begin of the demonstrations. Seditious expenses in Iran can carry the demise penalty, which once more renews issues about Tehran finishing up mass executions for these arrested — a crimson line for Trump.
Iran had additionally deliberate a live-fire navy drill for Sunday and Monday within the strategic Strait of Hormuz, the slim mouth of the Persian Gulf by way of which a fifth of all oil traded passes. The U.S. navy’s Central Command had warned in opposition to threatening American warships or plane in the course of the drill or disrupting industrial visitors.
Khamenei warns US
Iranian state tv reported Khamenei’s feedback on-line earlier than airing any footage of his remarks.
“The Americans should know that if they start a war, this time it will be a regional war,” Khamenei was quoted as saying.
A lady walks by way of the Shiite Saints Abdulazim and Taher shrine in Shahr-e-Ray, south of Tehran, Iran, Thursday, Jan. 29, 2026.
Vahid Salemi/AP
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Vahid Salemi/AP
It added that Khamenei mentioned: “We are not the instigators and we do not seek to attack any country. But the Iranian nation will deliver a firm blow to anyone who attacks or harasses it.”
Khamenei additionally hardened his place on the demonstrations after earlier acknowledging some individuals had respectable financial grievances that sparked their protests. The demonstrations started Dec. 28, initially over the collapse of Iran’s rial foreign money. It quickly grew right into a direct problem to Khamenei’s rule.
“The recent sedition was similar to a coup. Of course, the coup was suppressed,” he mentioned. “Their goal was to destroy sensitive and effective centers involved in running the country, and for this reason they attacked the police, government centers, (Revolutionary Guard) facilities, banks and mosques — and burned copies of the Quran. They targeted centers that run the country.”
Parliament speaker says EU militaries thought-about terrorist teams.
The speaker of Iran’s parliament, in the meantime, mentioned that the Islamic Republic now considers all European Union militaries to be terrorist teams, lashing out after the bloc declared the nation’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard a terror group over its bloody crackdown on nationwide protests.
Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, a former Guard commander, introduced the phobia designation, which can probably be largely symbolic. Iran has used a 2019 regulation to reciprocally declare different nations’ militaries terror teams following the USA declaration of the Guard a terror group that 12 months.
Qalibaf made the announcement as he and others in parliament wore Guard uniforms in help of the pressure. The Guard, which additionally controls Iran’s ballistic missile arsenal and has huge financial pursuits in Iran, solutions solely to Iran’s 86-year-old Khamenei.
“By seeking to strike at the (Guard), which itself has been the greatest barrier to the spread of terrorism to Europe, Europeans have in fact shot themselves in the foot and, once again, through blind obedience to the Americans, decided against the interests of their own people,” Qalibaf mentioned.
Lawmakers on the session later chanted: “Death to America!” and “Death to Israel!” on the session.
Trump says Iran is ‘critically speaking’ to US
Trump has laid out two crimson strains for navy motion: the killing of peaceable protesters or the attainable mass execution of these detained in a serious crackdown over the demonstrations. He is more and more begun discussing Iran’s nuclear program as effectively, which the U.S. negotiated over with Tehran in a number of classes earlier than Israel launched a 12-day conflict with Iran again in June.
The U.S. bombed three Iranian nuclear websites in the course of the conflict. Exercise at two of the websites suggests Iran could also be making an attempt to obscure the view of satellites because it tries to salvage what stays there.
Trump on Saturday night time declined to say whether or not he’d decided on what he wished to do relating to Iran.
Chatting with reporters as he flew to Florida, Trump sidestepped a query about whether or not Tehran can be emboldened if the U.S. backed away from launching strikes on Iran, saying, “Some people think that. Some people don’t.”
Trump mentioned Iran ought to negotiate a “satisfactory” deal to stop the Center Japanese nation from getting any nuclear weapons, however mentioned, “I don’t know that they will. But they are talking to us. Seriously talking to us.”
Ali Larijani, a prime safety official in Iran, wrote on X late Saturday that “structural arrangements for negotiations are progressing.” Nonetheless, there is no such thing as a public signal of any direct talks with the USA, one thing Khamenei has repeatedly dominated out.
