Aletho News

Iran pledges to ‘respect sovereignty of neighbors’, declares US-Israel assets ‘primary targets’

The Cradle | March 7, 2026

The Iranian armed forces warned that US and Israeli military installations across the region remain legitimate targets, as officials seek to ease tensions with neighboring countries.

“Should the previous hostile actions continue, all military bases and interests of criminal America and the fake Zionist regime on land, at sea, and in the air across the region will be considered primary targets and will come under the powerful and crushing strikes of the mighty armed forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran,” the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said in a statement on Saturday.

The warning came alongside a declaration by Iran’s Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters that Iranian forces “respect the national interests and sovereignty of neighboring countries” and “have not carried out any act of aggression against them.”

Nevertheless, military officials emphasized that installations used by the US or Israel to launch attacks against Iran remain fair game. Lieutenant Colonel Ibrahim Zolfaghari said that at least 21 US personnel have been killed and many more injured in attacks on the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet infrastructure, while additional casualties occurred during strikes on Al-Dhafra Air Base.

He also said Iranian forces targeted a US-owned oil tanker in the northern Persian Gulf.

Earlier in the day, President Masoud Pezeshkian announced that Iran’s interim leadership council had ordered the armed forces to cease striking neighboring countries unless attacks originate from their territory.

“The temporary leadership council approved yesterday that neighboring countries should no longer be targeted and missiles should not be fired unless an attack on Iran originates from those countries,” Pezeshkian said in a pre-recorded address.

Pezeshkian’s statement was made amid increasing tensions over regional airspace with Iran’s neighboring countries.

Turkish authorities claimed this week that NATO missile defenses intercepted a ballistic projectile allegedly launched from Iran that crossed Iraqi and Syrian airspace before approaching the northwestern Syria-Turkiye border.

In Azerbaijan, officials accused Tehran of launching a drone attack that struck the Nakhchivan airport terminal, prompting President Ilham Aliyev to warn Iran “will regret it,” while Iranian authorities denied involvement.

Tehran vehemently denied involvement in either of these attacks.

Saudi journalist Adhwan al-Ahmari said in a recent interview with Asharq News that “not all attacks” targeting Gulf states come from Iran, warning the war could be “an American-Israeli trap to implicate the Gulf countries and draw them into a confrontation with Iran.”

Iranian officials told Middle East Eye (MEE) that some recent drone strikes on Gulf energy infrastructure were not carried out by Tehran, with one official describing the attack on Saudi Aramco’s Ras Tanura facility as “an Israeli effort to sabotage regional peace and alliances between neighbours.”

“I can categorically say that some of the attacks were not carried out by us [Iran],” the anonymous official told MEE.

Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Bahrain, and Oman have all sustained strikes within their territories due to the presence of US assets within their borders.

March 7, 2026 - Posted by aletho | Wars for Israel | Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Iran, Israel, Kuwait, Middle East, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, UAE, United States