Tehran [Iran], September 9: Iran's Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf has warned of strikes against US energy companies following a threat from US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to "destroy" Iranian tankers.
"It's simple: the oil and gas production chain here is sprawling, accessible, and exposed. American oil and gas companies across these waters and facilities share that exposure," he posted on the X platform.
"Strike our assets, and you get struck." Ghalibaf paired the message with a seemingly AI-generated image of oil infrastructure with text reading: "The lost decade of the US economy is coming".
Iran considers its "defensive" actions "completely legal", including strikes against US military bases in the Middle East, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei has said.
"The Islamic Republic of Iran is in a position of legitimate self-defence and defence of national interests because of the continuation of the naval blockade and full-scale economic war," he said.
Baghaei told reporters that Tehran considers its actions legal "within the framework of the inherent right of self-defence based on Article 51 of the United Nations Charter".
"The United States' resort to attacks against civilians and the killing of children in an attempt to pressure the Islamic Republic of Iran completely invalidates their claims," he added.
Iran said it has used a new anti-ship missile against the US Navy in the Persian Gulf and warned Washington that its naval blockade of the key waterway is not foolproof.
In an interview on Sunday evening with state broadcaster, the secretary-general of the National Security Council, Mohsen Rezaee, spoke of the first use of a new type of anti-ship cruise missile. "This is an important warning to the enemy and means that the naval blockade is vulnerable," the general said. The US military said it attacked three Iranian oil tankers on Saturday and put them out of action. Earlier, Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) fired ballistic missiles at two US warships, according to CENTCOM, the US regional command.
In the interview, Rezaee rejected the US account that the Strait of Hormuz was open again for international shipping. "The Strait of Hormuz is completely closed and the US claim that ships and oil tankers are passing through it is a lie," he said.
Source: Qatar Tribune
