Iran to make Zionist criminals and vile Americans regret their actions: Security chief

Iran’s top security official has vowed that the country will make the Israeli regime and the United States regret their deadly acts of aggression on Saturday.

Ali Larijani, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council (SNSC), made the remarks in a post on X on Saturday in reference to the unprovoked war of aggression against the Iranian nation by Tel Aviv and Washington.

“We will make the Zionist criminals and the vile Americans regret their actions,” he wrote in the social media post.

“The brave soldiers and the great nation of Iran will deliver an unforgettable lesson to the hellish oppressors of the international order.”

His comments came following the latest Israeli-American aggression that started early on Saturday and targeted mostly civilian areas in multiple cities across the country.

According to Iran’s Red Crescent Society, more than 200 people have been killed in the strikes, including more than 100 children, who were killed in an attack on an elementary school in the southern province of Hormozgan.

In response, the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) has so far launched three large-scale waves of retaliatory strikes against military targets across the occupied territories, including Tel Aviv, Haifa and other cities, forcing settlers to slip underground.

IRGC also targeted American bases in the West Asia region, including the US Fifth Fleet in Bahrain, as well as other prominent bases in Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, for their involvement in the aggression against the Islamic Republic.

The aggression again came in the middle of indirect nuclear talks between Tehran and Washington, mediated by the Omani government, with the latest round held in Geneva on Thursday, which ended with both sides noting significant progress.

Earlier on Saturday, in an interview with an American broadcaster, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, who was leading the Iranian negotiating team, said the Islamic Republic is a “great nation with a magnificent civilization” that has endured for thousands of years.

“We know how to defend ourselves and we will survive,” he told the US news channel, adding that the moment the aggression stops, Iran will also stop defending itself.

“We could not simply sit back and watch,” Iran’s foreign minister asserted.

Iran had previously warned the Persian Gulf countries not to allow their soil to be used in any act of aggression against the country.

He dismissed the rumors about the assassination of top Iranian government officials or military commanders, saying they are all “safe and alive.”