Middle East & North Africa
Iran: “Under no circumstances” will we let US warships enter the Persian Gulf, says armed forces chief Abdollahi
Major General Abdollahi, chief of Iran’s General Staff and commander of the Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters, said Iran will never allow US warships into the Persian Gulf. CENTCOM presents the other side: 100 days of blockade.
Tehran has answered Donald Trump with new threats. Major General Abdollahi, Chief of the General Staff of Iran’s Armed Forces and commander of the Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters, said the country will not allow US warships into the Persian Gulf “under any circumstances and at any time”. The statement was published by Iranian state broadcaster IRIB on the morning of Saturday, October 24.
Abdollahi claimed Iranian forces have rendered the US Navy, which he said Trump regards as the “pinnacle of American power”, “ineffective”, to the point that it can no longer approach the seas around the Gulf and Iranian territorial waters. “Let the US president see it in his sleep that his military will re-enter the Persian Gulf. They will take this wish to their graves,” he said.
He also took aim at Trump’s rhetoric on nuclear issues. According to Abdollahi, the American president repeatedly says that Iran’s nuclear facilities were destroyed and, at the same time, that Tehran must not obtain a nuclear weapon, a contradiction that, he said, has no end. “If you destroyed everything, what is the point of repeating this delirium?” he asked, and wondered why, if Washington is sure it neutralised all of Tehran’s military capabilities, the “rusty” American ships do not dare approach the Strait of Hormuz and Iran’s sea and land borders. He concluded that Iran’s “strong Iran” strategy is for the US and Israel to sink deeper and deeper into the “swamp” which, he said, they made themselves, the longer the confrontation drags on.
CENTCOM’s version
The statement came a few hours after Trump told a campaign rally in Florida that the US “may do another little Epic Fury”, unless Tehran accepts a deal. And while Iran speaks of a US Navy that does not dare approach, CENTCOM presents the other side: on October 22 it announced that 100 days had passed since the naval blockade of Iranian ports resumed, which it says has blocked crude exports worth at least $25 billion, and that no exports or imports now reach Iran by sea, apart from humanitarian aid permitted by US forces.
The same day CENTCOM published photographs from the aircraft carrier USS George Washington (CVN 73), noting that the ship supports blockade enforcement missions against Iranian ports and coasts. The George Washington arrived in the region in August, when it replaced USS Abraham Lincoln.
