Mennatallah Ahmed
January 08, 2020•Update: January 09, 2020
TEHRAN, Iran
Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Wednesday that his country's attack was "a slap in the face of the U.S.," and said the military action is still "not enough."
Khamenei made these statements in a televised interview, hours after the Iranian missile strike on two Iraqi military bases that host U.S. forces.
Khamenei described the attack on the military bases as "successful", and that "our enemy is the U.S. and the Zionist entity [Israel], and last night we slapped the U.S.".
He also reiterated his country's refusal to renew nuclear talks with the U.S.
Earlier Wednesday, Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) launched more than a dozen ballistic missiles against U.S. military and coalition forces in Iraq.
The missiles were launched from Iran and targeted at least two Iraqi military bases where U.S. military and coalition personnel are stationed in response to the killing of Iranian Gen. Qasem Soleimani.
Last Friday, Soleimani, the head of the IRGC's elite Quds Force, was killed in a U.S. drone strike in Baghdad.
His death marked a dramatic escalation in tensions between the U.S. and Iran, which have often been at a fever pitch since President Donald Trump chose in 2018 to unilaterally withdraw Washington from a 2015 nuclear pact the world powers struck with Tehran.
Khamenei, who bestowed the country's highest honor on Soleimani last year, had vowed "severe retaliation" in response to his killing.
Today’s attacks continued a series of tit-for-tat recriminations between the U.S. and Iranian-backed forces that began with the killing of an American contractor at a U.S. base in Iraq late last month.
*Ahmed Asmar contributed to this report from Ankara
