Iran ex-Guards chief vows to turn Tel Aviv ‘to dust’

A former head of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards threatened on Sunday to turn the Israeli cities of Haifa and Tel Aviv “to dust” if the US attacks targets in Iran.

“If America takes any measures after our military response, we will turn Tel Aviv and Haifa to dust,” Mohsen Rezai, who currently heads the Expediency Council, a top state body, said in a Tweet.

His warning came after President Donald Trump warned on Saturday that the US would target 52 sites “important to Iran & Iranian culture” and hit them “very fast and very hard” if the Islamic republic attacked American personnel or assets.

In a saber-rattling tweet that defended Friday’s US drone strike assassination of top Iranian military commander Qasem Soleimani in Iraq, Trump said 52 represents the number of Americans held hostage at the US embassy in Tehran for more than a year starting in late 1979.