18/07/2026
Statement by the Iranian Armed Forces:
Countries hosting the American aggressors should be prepared to receive a matching response.
The treacherous U.S. regime, at the beginning of last week—amid ongoing negotiations and the illusion of Iran's weakening—once again officially resumed the war they had never truly ended. Yet after several days of combat with the Armed Forces, and after receiving crushing responses to their acts of aggression, they came to realize that the Iranian Armed Forces have grown far stronger since the first day of the war on February 28. Instead of honorably accepting defeat and admitting their repeated miscalculations, they adopted a new approach the day before yesterday: fleeing from direct confrontation and attempting to conceal their battlefield defeat through the commission of war crimes. Rather than fight, they sought to preserve their standing through criminality and cowardice—launching destructive attacks on hospitals, bridges, railways, airports, ports, telecommunications centers, and similar civilian infrastructure, and killing civilians.
Since no international institution exists to prevent these barbarities by the U.S. military, no path remains but the Quranic command:
"Therefore, if they transgress the prohibition
'Gainst you, attack them as they have attacked you;"
Accordingly, it is only fitting that those countries hosting the aggressor U.S. military—countries that have placed their territory at the disposal of these criminal aggressors to strike Iran—be prepared to receive a matching response. They should activate their civil defense units to protect the lives of their citizens and keep them away from potential targets.
That said, in order to grant the American enemy an opportunity to change this cowardly approach, we deliberately confined our response last night to military targets.
