Washington: Donald Trump has warned Iran that the country will be obliterated if it dares assassinate him.
The US President said he has already given his advisers necessary instructions.
“If they did that they would be obliterated,” Trump told reporters on Tuesday while signing an executive order calling for the US government to impose maximum pressure on Tehran.
“I’ve left instructions if they do it, they get obliterated, there won’t be anything left.”
If Trump were assassinated, Vice President JD Vance would become president and would not necessarily be bound by any instructions left by his predecessor.
There have been multiple Iranian threats against Trump and other senior officials over the years, which American authorities have been tracking.
One of those threats on Trump’s life came from Iran during last year’s Presidential campaign, just days before a July campaign rally in Pennsylvania, where Trump was shot in the ear.
The Joe Biden administration arranged for additional security for Trump, but officials said at that time they did not believe the Iranian government was connected to the Pennyylvania assassination attempt.
The US Justice Department said in November that an Iranian plot to kill Trump before the Presidential election had been thwarted.
Iranian officials had allegedly instructed one Farhad Shakeri, 51, to focus on surveilling and ultimately assassinating Trump. Shakeri is still at large in Iran.
Iranian officials had dismissed the allegation, calling it a plot by Israel-linked circles to make Iran-US relations more complicated.
Trump had ordered the 2020 killing of Qassem Soleimani, who led the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Quds Force.
