Iran has decided to avoid a major retaliation over the alleged foreign attacks on its nuclear installations in the hopes that this will hurt President Donald Trump's re-election prospects, The New York Times reported on Friday.
According to several US officials cited in the report, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has vetoed any attack that could trigger a confrontation with the Trump administration. The officials said Iran is convinced that the recent explosion in a Natanz centrifuge facility crucial for its nuclear program was designed to trigger a response that would give the Trump administration a pretext to wage a full-fledged attack on Tehran.
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According to the report, Iranian officials devised plans to attack naval vessels in the Persian Gulf or oil installations in the region in order to hurt the global oil market and thus hurt Trump electorally, but the recent coronavirus crisis made them rethink the impact such steps would have in light of the slump in energy prices.
However, according to the report, the supreme leader has given a green light for continued cyberattacks against the US.
The chief of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps threatened Saturday to go after everyone who had a role in the assassination of its Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani in January.
IRGC commander Gen. Hossein Salami was quoted as saying, "Mr. Trump! Our revenge for martyrdom of our great general is obvious, serious and real."
US President Donald Trump warned that Washington would harshly respond to any Iranian attempts to take revenge for the death of Soleimani, tweeting that "if they hit us in any way, any form, written instructions already done we're going to hit them 1000 times harder."
The president's warning came in response to a report that Iran was plotting to assassinate the US ambassador to South Africa in retaliation for Soleimani's killing at Baghdad's airport at the beginning of the year.
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