Ali Abdollahi threatens US and Israel with a harsher response

Ali Abdollahi, chief of the General Staff of the Islamic Republic's armed forces, threatened the United States and Israel in a message published on Monday, 19 October 2026, saying any new attack would be met with a response harsher than before. Addressing Washington and Tel Aviv, he said: "We are counting the moments until your foolish decisions."

The threat came a day after Donald Trump warned that if the Islamic Republic does not change course, America will finish the job and Israel Katz, Israel's defense minister, announced readiness to resume attacks with full force. In August this year, Abdollahi replaced Abdolrahim Mousavi on the orders of Mojtaba Khamenei, the Islamic Republic's leader; Mousavi was killed on the first day of the war, 28 February 2026.

Mohammad-Reza Naghdi's claims in Babol

Mohammad-Reza Naghdi, an adviser to the commander-in-chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), claimed on Sunday, 18 October, at a government rally in Babol that the Islamic Republic's missile sites had not been damaged despite heavy bombing and that its strategic stockpiles remained intact. He also claimed that more than 240 American aircraft had been destroyed in the war and called the withdrawal of the US Fifth Fleet from Bahrain a sign of Washington's fear.

No independent source has confirmed these claims, and Naghdi offered no evidence for them. This comes as satellite images had earlier shown that the entrances to the Kolang Mountain tunnels near Natanz remain blocked two months after the strikes.

Threats alongside claims of economic stability

At the same time, Mohammad Rashidi, a member of the presiding board of the Islamic Republic's parliament, said the negative picture of the future of Iran's economy is a target of American pressure and does not match reality, a statement that contradicts the Central Bank's Monetary and Banking Research Institute's estimate of a 5.9 percent contraction of the economy this summer.

The repeated threats by the Islamic Republic's commanders come as Abbas Araghchi had also spoken of "unfinished business" with the United States and US embassies in the region have warned of the possibility of an attack by the Islamic Republic and allied groups on American interests.

Faced with a US and Israeli warning, the Islamic Republic's commanders have replaced a clear answer with a new threat and unsubstantiated claims about military strength.