Iran warns US any retaliation over rocket attack will draw renewed response

“Americans know now that their bases can be targeted by Iran … Their bases will be targeted if the United States responds to Iran’s missile attacks in Iraq,” state TV cited the Guards as saying on Wednesday.

A senior official in Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s office said Iran’s response to the killing of its top commander Qassem Soleimani so far had been the “weakest” of the Iranian revenge scenarios, state TV reported.

Iran struck back at the US for the killing of a top Iranian general, firing a series of surface-to-surface missiles at an Iraqi air base housing US troops and warning the United States and its allies in the region not to retaliate.

US officials confirmed the air strikes at the air base and the Pentagon said Iran launched over a dozen ballistic missiles targeting at least two military bases in Iraq where US and coalition troops were based.

US Defence Department spokesman Jonathan Hoffman said the attacks “targeted at least two Iraqi military bases” at Ain Assad and Irbil.

Australian troops are located close to where the attacks took place, but Prime Minister Scott Morrison said all Australian military personnel and staff in Iraq were safe.

Read the article in The Canberra Times (AP).