Iran’s central military command has rejected US President Donald Trump’s “desperate” ultimatum, which threatened to destroy the country’s vital infrastructure if Iran does not accept a peace deal and reopen the Strait of Hormuz by Monday.
General Ali Abdollahi Aliabadi, in a statement released from Khatam al-Anbiya central headquarters, called Trump’s threat “a desperate, nervous, unbalanced and stupid action”, we read on Al Jazeera. The general warned that “the simple meaning of this message is that the gates of hell will open for you”, in response to the message in which Trump warned that he would unleash “hell” on the Islamic Republic if Tehran did not accept the ultimatum.
The United States and Iran, meanwhile, are closing ranks in the frantic search for the missing American pilot, following the shooting down of his F-15E. While President Donald Trump threatens an escalation of the war by reminding the Tehran leadership, with a post on Truth, that he still has 48 hours to sign an agreement or open the Strait of Hormuz, otherwise he will have to face “hell”. The US Air Force employs highly trained teams for the recovery of airmen and sensitive equipment who have ended up in enemy territory: “mission impossible” specialists.
For the USA it is a vital issue (Trump said in his message to the nation on Wednesday that Iran has “no anti-aircraft equipment” and that its radars are “100% destroyed”) to recover the second pilot after the unexpected shooting down of the jet, the first in Operation Epic Fury.
And for Iran, his capture would increase its negotiating power with Washington on the consolidated experience of hostage politics. The Tehran media have released videos of many armed people heading to the mountains of Khuzestan, in the south of the country, in an inaccessible area to “capture the American”, also enticed by the “valuable” reward for capturing the enemy alive.
The Mehr agency quoted the deputy governor of Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad province, Fattah Mohammadi, as saying that the search for the missing pilot had mobilized “popular forces and tribesmen alongside the military forces, and is still ongoing”, denying initial rumors of the aviator’s capture.
The two destroyed fighters were targeted by new nationally produced defense systems, claimed Iranian military spokesman Ebrahim Zolfaghari, in the IRNA agency report. While suspicions have returned about China both for its aid in reconstituting Tehran’s missile program and for the support of Dragon companies in providing intelligence information that exposes US forces.
According to the Washington Post, these are “private companies” and, in fact, the Chinese Communist Party is trying to “keep its distance”. 365 American soldiers have been injured since the start of Operation Epic Fury, almost five weeks ago, in the latest Pentagon bulletin updated on Friday, with the confirmation of 13 deaths and 7 planes destroyed. While financial burdens, always very unpopular in the United States, are continually growing.
In an attempt to increase pressure on the Islamic Republic, the State Department revoked the permanent residence status of two Iranian women, niece and great-niece of the former Pasdaran general, Qasem Soleimani, killed by a US raid in Baghdad in January 2020. The two women, considered “supporters of the regime”, were taken into custody by Ice to be later expelled.