Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf warned the United States on Monday that striking Tehran’s assets would provoke retaliation, responding to remarks made by US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth.
On the social media platform X, Ghalibaf said the country’s oil and gas production chain is sprawling, accessible and exposed, and that American companies operating in these waters share that risk. He warned that if the US were to strike Iranian assets, the country would retaliate, citing the “bases that are no longer viable” as evidence of past responses.
Hegseth, in a separate X post, warned that the United States would destroy Iranian oil tankers if they were fired upon by Iranian forces. He shared a CENTCOM video of an attack on Iranian tankers and noted that Iran has no navy or air force, making its oil fleet defenseless. Hegseth said US aircraft, ships and submarines could strike the tankers from both the Central Command and the US Pacific Command.
CENTCOM confirmed that on September 5 it struck three Iranian crude oil carriers after the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps launched ballistic missiles at two US Navy warships. No American personnel were harmed. The US disabled the M/T Downy off Kharg Island, M/T Stark 1 near Jask, and destroyed the unladen M/T Kylo (also known as the “Noxen”) in the Gulf of Oman, rendering the vessel inoperable after the crew abandoned ship.
