Iran warns U.S. troops will be “set on fire” if Americans launch ground operation
Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, speaker of the Iranian parliament, Sunday warned the United States against a ground invasionthreatening to set American troops “on fire” and intensify attacks against American allies, according to Iranian state media.
Ghalibaf said Iranian forces are “waiting for US troops to arrive on the ground to set it on fire and forever punish their regional partners.”
“Our fire continues. Our missiles are in place. Our determination and our faith have increased,” he added.
The speaker of the Iranian parliament also described the US 15-point plan, which Pakistan moved on to Iran last weekas “their wishes,” and said the Trump administration was trying to do through this plan what it failed to achieve by force.
“As long as the Americans seek Iran’s capitulation, our response is clear: far be it from us to accept humiliation,” Ghalibaf said.
Meanwhile, the Revolutionary Guards threatened to target branches of Israeli and American educational institutions in the region, calling them “legitimate targets” if the United States did not condemn the bombing of Iranian universities.
“If the US government wants its universities in the region to be spared, it should condemn the bombing of (Iranian) universities by noon on Monday, March 30, in an official statement,” the Guard said in a statement, according to state media.
The group called for the evacuation of U.S. and Israeli educational facilities and asked students and staff to stay at least a mile apart.
The Guard also demanded that the United States prevent Israel from striking Iranian universities and research centers, which have been attacked in recent days. The Israeli army has admitted that the strikes against Iranian universities are linked, according to it, to the development of weapons.
American universities, including Georgetown, New York University and Northwestern, have campuses in Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.
The American University of Beirut announced Sunday that it will operate remotely for the next two days. President Fadlo Khouri said in a statement posted on the university’s website that while there is no evidence of direct threats against the university, “out of an abundance of caution” they will move online.
“Our top priority has always been and always will be the safety of our community and the people we serve,” he said, adding, “We remain uniquely committed to teaching, healing and serving those less fortunate, at all times. At AUB, we will not be driven from our mission by threats or violence. Not now, not ever.”
This is the first time that Iran has threatened to strike Israeli and American universities. Many universities in the region have already shifted to online teaching since the US and Israeli attacks on Iran sparked the ongoing war in the Middle East.
In a statement published Sunday on
The statement added that Iran and its affiliated militias have already carried out “widespread attacks against U.S. citizens, U.S.-associated targets throughout Iraq” and that “the Iraqi government has failed to prevent terrorist attacks against the United States and regional countries from Iraqi territory.”
