Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned Thursday that the US “will definitely pay a heavy price” should it attack Iran again.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei claimed victory over Israel and said his country had “delivered a hand slap to America’s face.”
Khamenei spoke in a video broadcast on Iranian state television, his first appearance since June 19.
He told viewers that the US had only intervened in the war because “it felt that if it did not intervene, the Zionist regime would be utterly destroyed.”
But he said, however, that the US “achieved no gains from this war.”
“The Islamic Republic was victorious and, in retaliation, delivered a hand slap to America’s face,” he said, in apparent reference to an Iranian missile attack on an American base in Qatar on Monday, which caused no casualties.
The comments came in the wake of an attack on Sunday in which American forces hit three Iranian nuclear facilities with bunker-buster bombs and cruise missiles.
Iran retaliated on Monday with a missile attack on a US base in nearby Qatar, but caused no casualties.
In an apparent reference to the attack, Khamenei says, “such an action can be repeated in the future, too,” saying that Iran has “access to key US centers in the region and can take action whenever it deems necessary.”
“Should any aggression occur, the enemy will definitely pay a heavy price,” he said.
The 86-year-old Khamenei has not been seen in public since taking shelter in a secret location after the outbreak of the war June 13 when Israel attacked Iranian nuclear facilities and targeted top military commanders and scientists.
Following an American attack on June 22 that hit the nuclear sites with bunker-buster bombs, US President Donald Trump was able to help negotiate a ceasefire that came into effect on Tuesday.