Staff in a US military base in Qatar have been advised to leave, after Tehran warned it would strike American targets in the region if Donald Trump orders strikes on Iran.
Iran has told countries in the region that it would attack, if the US engages in military action in Iran in response to the regime’s deadly repression of ongoing protests – a measure Donald Trump has been threatening for days.
Some staff in Al Udeid, the Middle East’s largest US base housing around 10,000 troops, have now been advised to leave.
In June, some personnel were moved off bases in the Middle East before the US carried out air strikes in Iran.
President Donald Trump threatened to take “very strong action” if the Iranian government starts executing protesters. According to a rights group, 26-year-old Erfan Soltani is scheduled to become the first person executed in relation to the protests.
Meanwhile, US-based HRANA rights group said it verified the deaths of 2,571 people during Iran’s protests, including 2,403 protesters and 147 government-affiliated individuals.
Family of Erfan Soltani protests for his release outside prison – report
The family of Erfan Soltani, who a rights group says will become the first person to be executed in Iran in connection with the latest protests, made a desperate bid to save him, according to a report.
Mr Soltani, 26, is one of the nearly 20,000 people who have been arrested, according to HRANA. But according to the Hengaw Organisation for Human Rights, he will be first to face execution.
Last night, his family protested outside the Ghezel Hesar prison where he is being held in solitary confinement, a member of the Hengaw Organisation for Human Rights told the Daily Mail.
Latest images coming out of Iran
Senior Iranian commander warns Tehran at ‘highest level of readiness’
A senior commander in Iran’s Revolutionary Guards has warned that Tehran is at the “peak of our readiness” to respond to any attack by US forces.
Brigadier General Seyyed Majid Mousavi also said Iran’s missile stockpile has increased since June – when the Twelve-Day war saw Iran, Israel and the UStrade blows
Personnal advised to leave US base in Qatar amid threat of Iran strike
Some personnel were advised to leave the U.S. military’s Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar by Wednesday evening, three diplomats told Reuters.
Iran has warned countries in the region that it will strike US bases if Washington decides to carry out attacks in Iran – something which Donald Trump has been threatening for days.
The US embassy in Doha has not commented.
Al Udeid is the Middle East’s largest US base housing around 10,000 troops. Ahead of the US air strikes on Iran in June some personnel were moved off US bases in the Middle East.
Turkey in contacts with US and Iran
Turkish foreign minister Hakan Fidan has spoken over the phone to Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi, according to a Turkish Foreign Ministry source.
Mr Fidan stressed the need for talks to resolve current regional tensions in a call with his Iranian counterpart Abbas Araghchi on Wednesday.
A Turkish diplomatic source separately said Turkey was also in touch with US officials, following Donald Trump’s threats to strike Iran.
Iran state TV offers first official acknowledgement of high protester death toll
Direct US-Iranian communications cut after Trump threats, says Tehran
Direct communications between Iran’s foreign minister Abbas Araghchi and U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff have been suspended, Reuters news agency is reporting.
It comes in response to Donald Trump’s threats to intervene amid nationwide protests in Iran.
A senior Iranian official told the news agency that US threats undermine diplomatic efforts and that potential meetings between the two officials to find a diplomatic solution to a decades-long nuclear dispute have been cancelled.
Iran warns neighbours it will strike US bases if attacked
Iran has warned regional countries that it will strike US military bases in those countries in case of an American attack on its soil, a senior Iranian official told Reuters on Wednesday.
The remarks follow President Donald Trump’s threats to intervene amid nationwide anti-government protests.
“Tehran has told regional countries, from Saudi Arabia and UAE to Turkey, that U.S. bases in those countries will be attacked if U.S. targets Iran… asking these countries to prevent Washington from attacking Iran,” the official told Reuters.
Comment | Trump has finally stumbled on a target for his ugly tariff war
I say that with some hesitancy, given the fact that, in my opinion, his behaviour and policies represent a working definition of modern fascism, but the imposition of penal secondary tariffs of 25 per cent for countries that do business with Iran is one such.
At this critical juncture in Iran’s counter-revolution, any peaceful assistance that can be supplied to the Iranian people must, on balance, be the right thing to do. The move will add indirect pressure onto the regime in Iran via the effects on exports, principally oil, which fund the country’s leadership, security infrastructure and, of course, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the only people to do well out of theocratic rule.
The Independent’s associate editor Sean O’Grady writes:
Ongoing crackdown is the worst in recent history, warns human rights expert
A human rights expert has described the ongoing crackdown in Iran as one of the most severe in recent memory.
Asked on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme how the speed and scale of the crackdown compares to previous protests, Awyer Shekhi, from Kurdish human rights organisation Hengaw, said such measures have been seen before but “not as severe as this time”.
“We have never witnessed this scale of mass killings in the big cities like Tehran,” she said.
“We believe that Iranian government is doing all of this to spread more fear among the people, to kind of use this to control the population, to not allow any more protests to happen.”
