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US President Donald Trump has claimed that Washington has the capability to liquidate the surviving Iranian leadership with "one shot" if it desired, pointing to the congregation of top Iranian officials attending the week-long state funeral for the late Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who lost his life in joint US-Israeli air strikes on February 28.
The US President, however, noted that Washington is not prepared to take such a step, maintaining that it intends to keep the diplomatic channels open with Tehran. "They are all there. One shot [and we can take them all out], but we are not going to do that because then we would have nobody to negotiate with," Trump said in an interview with Axios. Meanwhile, Iran's new Supreme Leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, will not be attending the funeral ceremonies of his father, Ali Khamenei, due to severe security concerns, his representative in India told ANI. Ayatollah Hakim Elahi stated that persistent Israeli threats and heightened surveillance risks would render Mojtaba's public attendance "dangerous." During his conversation with the news portal, Trump also voiced astonishment at the sight of Iranians weeping at the funeral procession, stating that he was under the impression that the public hated Ali Khamenei. "Maybe it's fake tears," he remarked. The comments drew a sharp rebuke from the Iranian embassy in Armenia, which posted a stinging response on the social media platform X. "You don't understand these things because you have neither civilisation, nor history, nor honour," the embassy stated. Previously, in the run-up to the Independence Day celebrations, the US President had taken a swipe at Tehran over the security situation. "We knocked the hell out of Iran. They're dying to settle. They want to settle so badly. We gave them a week off for a funeral because we're nice," Trump said. Prior to the start of the state funeral ceremony, a senior Iranian military commander had issued a stern warning to both Washington and Tel Aviv against executing any military operations targeting the Islamic Republic. "We warn the enemies of Iran, especially the US and the Zionist regime (Israel), to avoid any miscalculation and to think about the harsh retaliation our armed forces would make to any threat and aggression against our country," Ali Abdollahi, commander of the Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters, stated in an official release broadcast by Iranian state media. The funeral processions for Khamenei commenced on Friday, July 3, in the capital city of Tehran, with further ceremonial events scheduled to take place in the holy city of Qom as well as in neighbouring Iraq. The state ceremonies are slated to end on July 9, with the final burial taking place in his north-eastern hometown of Mashhad. Earlier on Wednesday, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi had sounded a similar note of warning, affirming that Tehran would initiate an instantaneous and robust response to any threat directed at its populace or its ruling hierarchy. The statement followed high-profile comments from Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz, who publicly declared that Iran's incoming Supreme Leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, was "marked for death". (ANI)
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