Iranian official tweets link listing Trump’s properties after US president threatens attacks on cultural sites
- Message from Hesameddin Ashena, adviser to President Hassan Rowhani, did not contain overt threat or call anyone to commit specific action
- Tensions continue to mount after US killing of General Qassem Soleimani, whose successor has vowed to expel American forces from Middle East
Following US President Donald Trump’s Twitter threat to target cultural sites in Iran, an official in Tehran has disseminated a link to a webpage listing the Trump Organisation’s global real estate holdings, including the Mar-a-Lago club on Palm Beach.
The Sunday morning tweet was from the account of Hesameddin Ashena, an Iranian politician who serves as an adviser to President Hassan Rowhani. It included a decades-old quote from the late Ayatollah Khomeini, plus a link to a Forbes.com webpage, updated in September 2019, with the headline “What’s Donald Trump really worth?”
Ashena’s tweets followed Trump’s threats to attack Iranian cultural sites if Tehran retaliates against Americans for the air strike that killed Iran’s top military commander, General Qassem Soleimani, last week.
That warning from Trump came in the third of a trio of tweets the president fired off from Mar-a-Lago on Saturday evening in which he said he had a list of “52 Iranian sites” including “some at a very high level & important to Iran & the Iranian culture”.
On Sunday night, aboard the return flight to Washington, Trump reiterated his threat to strike Iranian cultural sites.
“They’re allowed to kill our people. They’re allowed to torture and maim our people. They’re allowed to use roadside bombs and blow up our people,” he said. “And we’re not allowed to touch their cultural sites. It doesn’t work that way.”
The social media missive from Ashena did not contain an overt threat, or call anyone to commit a specific action.
The tweet contained a quote attributed to Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who was the spiritual leader of the 1979 revolution in Iran and ran the country until his death in 1989.
The quote read: “I tell the whole world that if the world wants to stand up to our religion, we will stand up against their whole world.”
Trump’s properties around world are major terror targets
It also included a link to the Forbes.com webpage that calculated the worth of Trump’s financial empire at US$3.1 billion, and listed under various categories the Trump Organisation’s real estate holdings. Those include Mar-a-Lago and the Doral golf club and resort west of Miami, where Trump previously sought to hold this year’s global G7 summit.
An hour after the tweet with the Forbes.com link, Ashena tweeted that the Tehran government does not seek a conflict with the American people. Instead, the tweet said, Trump “will bear full responsibility” for the recent air strikes.
The tweet read: “We have ZERO problems with the American people. We even achieved deals with previous US administrations. Our sole problem is Trump. In the event of war, it is he who will bear full responsibility.”
As for potential threats to Trump’s South Florida properties, local and federal law enforcement agencies declined to comment specifically on the tweets on Monday.
“While the agency does not discuss the specifics of our protective operations, the US Secret Service continuously assesses the threat environment surrounding all protectees and will adjust postures as necessary as part of the robust execution of our zero-fail mission,” the Secret Service said in a statement.
The Federal Aviation Administration directed a reporter to law enforcement. The Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office deferred comment to Palm Beach Police and the Secret Service. The coastguard deferred to its parent, the Department of Homeland Security, which did not immediately respond.
Norad, which manages the flight restrictions around Mar-a-Lago when the president is there, referred a reporter to the Defence Department, which referred to the White House, which did not immediately respond.
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Iran’s President Hassan Rowhani also took to social media on Monday to respond to Trump’s comments, writing pointedly on Twitter: “Never threaten the Iranian nation.”
“Those who refer to the number 52 should also remember the number 290. #IR655,” Rowhani wrote, referring to the 1988 shooting down of an Iranian airline by a US warship in which 290 were killed.
His remarks came as hundreds of thousands of mourners thronged Tehran’s streets for Soleimani’s funeral.
The coffins of the late general and Iraqi militia leader Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, who also died in Friday’s attack in Baghdad, were draped in their national flags and passed from hand to hand over the heads of mourners in central Tehran.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, 80, led prayers at the funeral, pausing as his voice cracked with emotion. Soleimani, 62, was a national hero in Iran, even to many who do not consider themselves supporters of Iran’s clerical rulers.
Aerial footage showed people, many clad in black, packing thoroughfares and side streets in the Iranian capital, chanting “Death to America!” – a show of national unity after anti-government protests in November in which many demonstrators were killed.
The funeral moves to Soleimani’s southern home city of Kerman on Tuesday. Zeinab Soleimani, his daughter, told mourners in Tehran that the United States would face a “dark day” for her father’s death, adding, “Crazy Trump, don’t think that everything is over with my father’s martyrdom”.
General Esmail Ghaani, Soleimani’s successor as commander of the Quds Force, the elite unit of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards charged with overseas operations, promised to “continue martyr Soleimani’s cause as firmly as before with the help of God, and in return for his martyrdom we aim to rid the region of America”.
Iran’s options for revenge on Trump aren’t limited to its military
“God the Almighty has promised to take martyr Soleimani’s revenge,” he told state television. “Certainly, actions will be taken.”
Other political and military leaders have made similar, unspecific threats. Iran, which lies at the mouth of the key Gulf oil shipping route, has a range of proxy forces in the region through which it could act.
Iran’s demand for US forces to withdraw from the region gained traction on Sunday when Iraq’s parliament passed a resolution calling for all foreign troops to leave the country.
Iraqi caretaker Prime Minister Abdel Abdul Mahdi told the US ambassador to Baghdad on Monday that both nations needed to implement the resolution, the premier’s office said in a statement. It did not give a timeline.
The United States has about 5,000 troops in Iraq.
US Defence Secretary Mark Esper denied on Monday that US forces would pull out of Iraq, after a US general’s letter told the Iraqi government that troops were preparing to depart “in due deference to the sovereignty” of the country.
“There is no decision whatsoever to leave Iraq … There has been no decision made to leave Iraq. Period,” Esper said. “That letter is inconsistent with where we are right now,” he added.
US Army General Mark Milley, chairman of the military’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, later told reporters the letter was a poorly worded draft document meant only to underscore increased movement by US forces.
Iran stoked tensions on Sunday by dropping all limitations on its uranium enrichment, another step back from commitments under a landmark deal with major powers in 2015 to curtail its nuclear programme that Trump abandoned in 2018.
In response, European signatories may launch a dispute resolution process against Iran this week that could lead to a renewal of the United Nations sanctions that were lifted as part of the deal, European diplomats said on Monday.
Diplomats said France, Britain and Germany could make a decision ahead of an EU foreign ministers’ meeting on Friday that would assess whether there were any ways to salvage the deal.
Trump warns US could strike 52 Iranian targets after general’s assassination
After quitting the deal, the United States imposed new sanctions on Iran, saying it wanted to halt Iranian oil exports, the main source of government revenues. Iran’s economy has been in free fall as the currency has plunged.
Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway said on Monday that the president was still confident he could renegotiate a new nuclear agreement “if Iran wants to start behaving like a normal country”.
Tehran has said Washington must return to the existing nuclear pact and lift sanctions before any talks can take place.
The United States advised American citizens in Israel and the Palestinian territories to be vigilant, citing the risk of rocket fire amid heightened tensions. As a US ally against Iran, Israel is concerned about possible rocket attacks from Gaza, ruled by Iranian-backed Palestinian Islamists, or major Iran proxy Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Democratic critics of Trump have said the Republican president was reckless in authorising the strike, with some saying his threat to hit cultural sites amounted to a vow to commit war crimes. Trump also threatened sanctions against Iraq and said Baghdad would have to pay Washington for an airbase in Iraq if US troops were required to leave.
Additional reporting by Reuters and Agence France-Presse
