Iran’s top security official has issued a direct warning to President Donald Trump after the U.S. leader threatened a far heavier military response if Tehran interfered with oil traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, sharply escalating already dangerous tensions between Washington and Iran as the conflict in the Middle East enters a new phase.
The warning was delivered by Ali Larijani, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, who said Iran would not be intimidated by Trump’s language. In remarks reported by multiple outlets and reflected in the article linked from the Facebook post, Larijani said: “The Ashura nation of Iran is not afraid of your empty threats. Even those greater than you could not eliminate the Iranian nation. Be careful not to be eliminated!” The message was presented as coming from Tehran 10 days after the death of Iran’s supreme leader, underlining how closely the threat is tied to the current war and the upheaval inside Iran’s leadership.
Larijani’s intervention came after Trump publicly warned that if Iran did anything to stop the flow of oil through the Strait of Hormuz, the United States would hit back “TWENTY TIMES HARDER” than it already had. Reuters reported on Tuesday that the Pentagon was already considering options to escort ships through the strait, while U.S. forces were striking Iranian mine-laying vessels and storage facilities as Washington accused Tehran of threatening one of the most important energy chokepoints in the world. U.S. Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth said the day would mark the most intense strikes inside Iran so far, and repeated that “death, fire, and fury” would rain down if Iran shut the waterway.
The Strait of Hormuz is not a side issue in this crisis. Roughly a fifth of global oil and liquefied natural gas trade normally passes through the narrow channel off Iran’s coast, making any threat to shipping there a matter of immediate international concern. Reuters said the war had already effectively halted shipments through the route, while reporting from other outlets cited oil prices jumping sharply as markets reacted to the risk of a prolonged disruption. The economic stakes have therefore become entwined with the military and political confrontation, turning Trump’s threat and Larijani’s reply into more than just a war of words.
The exchange also comes against a long and violent backdrop. Trump has been a recurring target of alleged Iranian plots since his first term, when he ordered the 2020 U.S. strike that killed Qassem Soleimani, the powerful commander of Iran’s Quds Force. That killing was hailed by Trump’s supporters as a decisive blow against a key architect of Iranian regional operations, but it also triggered years of threats and revenge rhetoric from Tehran and from figures aligned with the Islamic Republic. Reuters reported in 2024 that U.S. authorities had received intelligence about an Iranian plot to assassinate Trump, prompting increased security measures.
Those concerns were later reinforced by criminal cases brought by the U.S. Justice Department. In November 2024, federal prosecutors announced charges against Farhad Shakeri, who they said had been tasked by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards with surveilling and plotting to assassinate President-elect Donald J. Trump. The department said Shakeri remained at large in Iran. Then, on 6 March 2026, the Justice Department announced that a federal jury had convicted Asif Merchant, described by prosecutors as a trained operative of the IRGC, of murder for hire and attempting to commit an act of terrorism transcending national boundaries in connection with a foiled plot to assassinate U.S. politicians and government officials.
The Justice Department’s language in those cases was unusually stark. In the 2024 case, then Attorney General Merrick Garland said Iran had directed assassination plots against its targets, “including President-elect Donald Trump.” In the 2026 case, prosecutors said Merchant was part of a foiled plot tied to the IRGC, the same force that has long been accused by the United States of orchestrating operations well beyond Iran’s borders. The official record therefore gives fresh weight to Larijani’s latest remarks, even if Tehran has historically denied many such allegations and framed U.S. accusations as politically motivated.
Larijani himself is not a marginal figure making an offhand remark. Reuters identified him this month as Iran’s security chief and secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, placing him at the heart of decision-making during a period of extraordinary instability. Reuters also reported that he was present at a secure meeting with Iran’s top leadership shortly before the strikes that killed the country’s supreme leader and other senior figures. His public threat to Trump therefore carries the authority of someone deeply embedded in the state’s command structure at a moment when Iran is trying to project resilience after major military and political losses.
The present conflict has radically altered the context in which these threats are being made. Reuters reported that the United States has now carried out strikes against more than 5,000 targets since the war began on 28 February, destroying or damaging more than 50 Iranian naval vessels. Iran, meanwhile, has launched retaliatory attacks against U.S. military bases and diplomatic missions in Gulf states and has also struck hotels, damaged oil infrastructure and contributed to airport closures, according to the Pentagon account reported by Reuters. Trump has pressed Iran over its leadership transition and the administration has signalled that it will keep up military pressure rather than scale back.
That broader pressure is central to understanding why the threat to Trump matters politically as well as personally. For Trump, the confrontation with Iran is bound up with his long-running image as a leader willing to use overwhelming force and issue maximal warnings in public. For Iran, especially after the death of top leaders and amid heavy bombing, the rhetoric serves a different purpose: to show that the country is still prepared to threaten its enemies directly and to present itself as defiant rather than cornered. Larijani’s choice of words, particularly the phrase “be careful not to be eliminated,” echoed that message of retaliation and survival.
There is, at this stage, no public evidence that Larijani’s latest words were tied to a specific operational plot. But in light of the previous U.S. intelligence warnings, the criminal prosecutions tied to alleged Iran-backed schemes, and the sharp military escalation now under way, the remark is likely to be taken seriously in Washington. What might once have been dismissed as familiar hostile rhetoric now lands in an environment shaped by active war, a leadership vacuum in Tehran, disrupted oil routes and a documented history of alleged threats against Trump linked to Iran’s security apparatus.
The result is that a single sentence from Tehran has become part of a much larger and more dangerous confrontation. Trump has threatened to hit Iran with devastating force if it escalates further in the Gulf. Iran’s top security official has warned Trump not to be “eliminated.” Between those two messages lies a war that is already widening, a global energy market on edge, and a history of vengeance that has haunted U.S.-Iran relations ever since Soleimani was killed.
