US fleet can be destroyed with one missile, Iran says
A senior Iranian cleric said in a Friday prayers
sermon that the United States’ navy fleet could be “destroyed with one
missile,” as a US aircraft carrier headed to the Gulf, the semi-official news
agency ISNA reported.
The carrier Abraham Lincoln, deployed by US
President Donald Trump’s administration to the Middle East as a warning to
Iran, passed through Egypt’s Suez Canal on Thursday, the Suez Canal Authority
said.
“Ayatollah Yousef Tabatabai-Nejad,... referring to
the Abraham Lincoln warship heading to the Gulf, said: ‘Their billion (-dollar)
fleet can be destroyed with one missile,’” ISNA reported from the central city
of Isfahan.
On Thursday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo
threatened a “swift and decisive” US response to any attack by Iran, in the
latest of a series of escalating statements and actions.
“The regime in Tehran should understand that any
attacks by them or their proxies of any identity against US interests or
citizens will be answered with a swift and decisive US response,” Pompeo said
in a statement.
