Iran received a message from U.S. President Donald Trump through Oman overnight warning that a U.S. attack was imminent, Reuters reported on June 21 citing “Iranian officials”.
Reuters reported the following:
They spoke shortly after the New York Times reported that Trump had approved military strikes against Iran on Friday in retaliation for the downing of a U.S. surveillance drone, but called off the attacks at the last minute.
“In his message, Trump said he was against any war with Iran and wanted to talk to Tehran about various issues…He gave a short period of time to get our response but Iran’s immediate response was that it is up to Supreme Leader (Ayatollah Ali) Khamenei to decide about this issue,” one of the officials told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity.A second Iranian official said: “We made it clear that the leader is against any talks, but the message will be conveyed to him to make a decision…However, we told the Omani official that any attack against Iran will have regional and international consequences.”
The New Times quoted a senior administration official as saying, U.S. warplanes took to the air and ships were put in position for a retaliatory attack only for an order to come to stand down, without any weapons being fired.
Targets had included Iranian radar and missile batteries, the paper cited senior administration officials involved in, or briefed on, the deliberations, as saying.
The strikes were set for early in the day to minimize risk to the Iranian military or to civilians, the Times added.
On June 20, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps shot down a RQ-4A Global Hawk of the US military with a Khordad-3 air defense system. The Iranian side said that the spy drone had entered Iranian airspace. The US declines this describing Iranian actions as an act of agression.