Iran Guards vow to retaliate against any attack after Trump warning

TEHRAN: Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Sunday threatened a “decisive” response to any attack, after US President Donald Trump ordered a wave of air strikes against Yemen’s Houthi rebels and warned Tehran to stop backing the group.

On Saturday, Trump said the United States had launched “decisive and powerful military action” to end the Houthi threat to Red Sea shipping and warned Iran’s support for the rebels “must end immediately”. A Houthi health official said the strikes had killed 31 people.

Iranian Guards chief Hossein Salami denounced Trump’s threats in a televised speech on Sunday, adding that “Iran will not wage war, but if anyone threatens, it will give appropriate, decisive and conclusive response”.

The commander called the Houthis “the representative of the Yemenis”, adding the group made its “strategic and operational decisions” independently.

In January 2020, during Trump’s first term, the US killed the commander of the Guards’ foreign operations arms, Qassem Soleimani, in a drone strike in Baghdad.

Days later, Iran retaliated by firing missiles at bases in Iraq housing American and other coalition troops. No US personnel were killed but Washington said dozens suffered traumatic brain injuries.

Earlier Sunday Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei “strongly condemned the brutal air strikes by the US” in a statement, denouncing them a “gross violation of the principles of the UN Charter”.

Iran’s top diplomat Abbas Araghchi said afterwards that Washington had “no authority” to dictate the Islamic republic’s foreign policy.

“The United States Government has no authority, or business, dictating Iranian foreign policy,” the foreign minister said on X, while urging the US to stop the “killing of Yemeni people”.

Araghchi said the time when Washington could dictate Tehran’s foreign policy ended in 1979, when the Islamic revolution ousted the Western-backed shah.

The Houthis, who have controlled much of Yemen for more than a decade, are part of the “axis of resistance” of pro-Iran groups staunchly opposed to Israel and the United States.

The Yemeni rebels have attacked Israel and Red Sea shipping throughout the Gaza war in solidarity with Palestinians.

The US strikes on the Houthis are the first since Trump’s return to the White House in January.