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Iran has issued a stern warning, threatening to target American educational institutions in the Middle East as a countermeasure to US-Israeli actions against Iranian schools.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard has set a deadline for the US administration to publicly denounce the recent bombings of Iranian universities by noon on Monday, or they vow to retaliate against American students studying in the region.
Officials from the Iranian regime have advised those connected to US universities in the Middle East, including staff, professors, and students, to maintain a distance of at least one kilometer from their respective campuses.
Iran alleges that airstrikes have hit the Tehran University of Science and Technology over the weekend, causing damage to surrounding structures but thankfully resulting in no injuries.
The regime conveyed through Iranian media that if the US wishes to protect its educational facilities in the region from potential retaliation, it must issue an official condemnation of the university bombings by 12 noon on Monday, March 30, Tehran time.
Multiple American universities operate campuses abroad, where thousands of students often study with financial support from host governments.
New York University has a campus in Abu Dhabi, in the United Arab Emirates, while Georgetown, Carnegie Mellon, Northwestern and Texas A&M each have satellite campus’s in Qatar’s Education City, a research hub based in Doha.
Texas A&M said it closed its Qatar campus, moving to remote learning and with most international staff returning home amid the war.
Regime officials warned that employees, professors, and students affiliated with American universities in the region should stay at least one kilometer away from their campuses
Numerous American universities operate campuses abroad, where thousands of students often study with financial support from host governments
Since the start of the war, deadly missile strikes have hit Iranian education facilities, including an elementary school attack on February 28 in the city of Minab that killed 175 people, most of them children
The elementary school attack sparked a US military investigation with preliminary findings concluded that American forces were likely responsible due to outdated intelligence.
Around 5,000 Americans studied in the Middle East and North Africa in the last academic year, with around half in Israel and roughly 1,000 in the UAE, according to the State Department.
Since the start of the war, deadly missile strikes have hit Iranian education facilities, including an elementary school attack on February 28 in the city of Minab that killed 175 people, most of them children.
The attack sparked a US military investigation with preliminary findings concluded that American forces were likely responsible due to outdated intelligence. The building was once part of a regime naval base.
Reports have also emerged suggesting that a newly made US missile was used in an attack on a sports hall and a nearby elementary school in southern Iran, according to The New York Times.
Local officials have told Iranian media that the strike in the city of Lamerd killed approximately 21 people.
The recent threats to attack US schools in the region comes as Trump weighs greenlighting a highly complex and potentially explosive military operation to send US special operations forces deep inside Iran to seize its stockpile of enriched uranium.
The move could drag American troops into hostile territory for days – or even a week – and risk a dramatic escalation of the war. It was reportedly one of many being proposed by the Pentagon.
US officials say the stealth plan would target nearly 1,000 pounds of uranium at either one or two nuclear sites in Natanz and Isfahan.
Smoke and flames rise at the site of airstrikes on an oil depot in Tehran on March 7
Iran has responded to US-Israeli strikes by launching suicide drone and ballistic missile assaults against oil infrastructure and civilian areas in the Middle East
Israeli strikes in Gaza earlier last week
The objective would be to remove the radioactive substance entirely from Iranian control, eliminating any pathway to a nuclear weapon.
The proposal remains under review, and Trump has not signed off on it. But officials told The Wall Street Journal he is seriously considering the option, even as advisers warn of the dangers to American forces and the possibility of a broader conflict.
Military experts say the operation would be among the most difficult missions the US could undertake.
American forces would likely need to fly into heavily defended territory, potentially under fire from Iranian air defenses and drones, before securing the nuclear sites believed to house the material.
Once on the ground, combat troops would be tasked with locking down the perimeter while specialist teams locate, secure and prepare the uranium for transport.
‘This is not a quick in and out kind of deal,’ retired Gen. Joseph Votel, a former commander of U.S. Central Command and U.S. Special Operations Command, told the Journal about the potential mission.