Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned Friday that the U.S. could receive “severe slaps” if they act “with malice” following President Donald Trump’s threats to Yemen’s Houthis, a report said.
Americans “make a big mistake and call regional resistance centers Iranian proxies. What does proxy mean?” Khamenei said, according to Reuters. “The Yemeni nation has its own motivation and the resistance groups in the region have their own motivations. Iran doesn’t need proxies.”
“They issue threats,” Khamenei reportedly added, claiming that “we have never started a confrontation or conflict with anyone.”
“However, if anyone acts with malice and initiates it, they will receive severe slaps,” he was quoted by Reuters as saying.
IRAN’S REACTION TO TRUMP’S HOUTHI THREATS, EXPLAINED
Trump said Monday that “every shot fired by the Houthis will be looked upon, from this point forward, as being a shot fired from the weapons and leadership of IRAN, and IRAN will be held responsible, and suffer the consequences, and those consequences will be dire!”
“Let nobody be fooled! The hundreds of attacks being made by Houthi, the sinister mobsters and thugs based in Yemen, who are hated by the Yemeni people, all emanate from, and are created by, IRAN,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “Any further attack or retaliation by the ‘Houthis’ will be met with great force, and there is no guarantee that that force will stop there.
“Iran has played ‘the innocent victim’ of rogue terrorists from which they’ve lost control, but they haven’t lost control,” he continued. “They’re dictating every move, giving them the weapons, supplying them with money and highly sophisticated Military equipment, and even, so-called, “Intelligence.'”
U.S. Central Command said Saturday it had “initiated a series of operations consisting of precision strikes against Iran-backed Houthi targets across Yemen to defend American interests, deter enemies, and restore freedom of navigation.”
Trump wrote on Truth Social Saturday that he “ordered the United States Military to launch decisive and powerful Military action against the Houthi terrorists in Yemen.”
Fox News’ Taylor Penley, Andrea Margolis and Lucas Y. Tomlinson contributed to this report.
