Mohammad Mokhber, assistant to Mojtaba Khamenei, described attacks on Popular Mobilization Forces as “an invasion of Iraq’s territorial integrity, a clear violation of the United Nations Charter, an obvious example of the nature of evil, and a disruption of regional order,” and said: “Iraq’s sovereignty and its armed forces are part of the deterrence framework of the Islamic ummah, and any incursion into this structure will change the strategic balance to the detriment of the orchestrators.”

Earlier, CENTCOM reported that U.S. and Saudi forces carried out precise attacks against “terrorist forces aligned with the Islamic Republic” that had been directing the IRGC to target American forces and Saudi Arabia’s energy infrastructure.