AFP :
Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei vowed on Saturday to retaliate against attacks by Israel and its ally the United States targeting Tehran and groups it supports in the region.
“The enemies, both the USA and the Zionist regime, should know that they will definitely receive a tooth-breaking response to what they are doing against Iran, the Iranian nation, and the resistance front,” Khamenei said in a speech to students in Tehran.
He was referring to the alliance of Tehran-backed armed groups that include Yemen’s Huthi rebels, Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas.
Regional tensions have soared since the outbreak in October last year of the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, drawing in those Iran-aligned groups and others from Iraq and Syria.
Hezbollah and Israel exchanged cross-border fire for nearly a year after Hamas’s unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, before Israel ramped up the conflict on September 23.
