WAAHINGTON – The United States is not planning air strikes on Iran and anysuch reports are fictitious, its Defence Secretary James Mattis has said.
“I have no idea where the Australian news people got that information. I’mconfident it is not something that’s being considered right now,” he toldreporters during a press gaggle.
He was responding to a news report in the Australian media that the US isplanning an air strike on Iran.
Mattis trashed the report as “fiction”.
Tensions between the US and Iran have been brewing for the past a fewmonths since America announced withdrawal from the historic nuclear deal,signed during the previous Obama administration.
The deal was meant to curb Tehran’s sensitive nuclear activities in returnfor lifting of crippling sanctions.
US President Donald Trump on Sunday had sent out a tweet to IranianPresident Hassan Rouhani, saying “Never, ever threaten the united statesagain or you will suffer consequences the likes of which few throughouthistory have ever suffered before.”