Pete Hegseth, the United States Secretary of Defence, has declared that anyone who kills or threatens Americans will be pursued relentlessly and without delay.
Hegseth delivered the warning on Monday while speaking at a press briefing in Washington, DC.
His remarks came in response to the escalating tensions between the United States and Iran, a conflict he said resulted in the death of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
“Their goal is to hold us hostage, threatening to strike our forces. Well, President Trump doesn’t play those games.
“President Trump puts America and Americans first. He doesn’t hesitate and neither do our troops.
“If you take the lives of Americans, threaten Americans anywhere on earth, we will hunt you down without apology and without hesitation.
“To this day, the Iranian leadership has built nothing except proxies and missiles and drones and deeply buried nuclear factories and facilities. Peaceful nuclear ambitions do not need to be buried underneath mountains.
“Last June, Operation midnight hammer obliterated their nuclear program to rubble. They arrogantly refused. We said, rebuild it and we’ll stop you again, this time far worse. Well, President Trump, Secretary Rubio, Steve Witkoff, Jared Kushner, they bent over backwards for real diplomacy, offering pathway after pathway to peace.
“I watched it. I was there. They tried, over and over and over again, earnest attempts at peace. The former regime had every chance to make a peaceful and sensible deal, but Tehran was not negotiating. They were stalling, buying time to reload their missiles,” he said.