U.S. not expecting further retaliatory attacks from Iran, Secretary of Defence Mark Esper says
“You can see the Iranian people are standing up and asserting their rights, their aspirations for a better government - a different regime,” Esper said.
Iranians have expressed anger over the downing of the Ukrainian flight on Wednesday and the misleading explanations from senior officials in the immediate aftermath. Later the government took the blame for the shootdown, saying it was a tragic accident caused by human error. The plane crash killed all 176 people on board, mostly Iranians and Iranian-Canadians.“To the leaders of Iran - DO NOT KILL YOUR PROTESTERS,” Trump wrote on Twitter.
Esper also said the administration's offer to negotiate a new nuclear deal with Iran without precondition still stands. Esper said Iran's paramilitary Quds Force still presents a threat across the Mideast, but the specific attacks he said were being planned by the late Quds Force leader, Gen. Qassem Soleimani, have been “disrupted.”
Esper was pressed to comment on Trump's statement in a Fox News interview that the president believed Soleimani had been plotting to attack four U.S. embassies. Esper said he shared the belief that Soleimani was planning attacks on multiple U.S. facilities, but Esper did not say these included four embassies.
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