U.S. President Donald Trump warned on Monday that Iran would "suffer greatly" if it targeted U.S. interests after Washington deployed an aircraft carrier and more jet fighters at a time of rising tensions with Tehran.
"We'll see what happens with Iran. If they do anything, it will be a very bad mistake," Trump told reporters at the White House. "If they do anything they will suffer greatly."
"It's going to be a bad problem for Iran if something happens. I can tell you that," said Trump. "They're not going to be happy. They're not going to be happy people."
The president did not elaborate on the threat, saying, "You can figure it out yourself. They know what I mean by it."
Trump's comments came after the United Arab Emirates reported four commercial vessels had been sabotaged on Sunday near Fujairah emirate just outside the Strait of Hormuz. Iran sought to distance itself from the incident.
An American military team's initial assessment, however, was that Iranian or Iranian-backed proxies used explosives to blow large holes in the four ships anchored off the coast of the United Arab Emirates, a U.S. official said Monday.
The official said each ship has a five- to 10-foot hole in it, near or just below the water line, and the team's early belief is that the holes were caused by explosive charges. The team of U.S. military experts was sent to investigate the damages at the request of the UAE, but American officials have not provided any details about what exactly happened or any proof as yet about the possible Iranian involvement in the explosions.
The official was not authorized to discuss the investigation publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
Gulf officials have characterized the damage to the tankers as sabotage. Two Saudi oil tankers, a Norwegian-flagged vessel, and a bunkering tanker flagged in Sharjah, one of the UAE's seven emirates, all suffered similar damage Sunday.
The U.S. has warned ships that "Iran or its proxies" could be targeting maritime traffic in the region, and America has moved additional ships and aircraft into the region.
The incident comes after months of increasing diplomatic and economic pressure on Iran, which the U.S. accuses of threatening American interests and allies in the region, including Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
Washington withdrew last year from a 2015 pact between Iran and global powers aimed at reining in Tehran's nuclear plans. Since then, the United States has also ratcheted up sanctions on Iran, saying it wanted to reduce its oil exports to zero.
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo canceled a trip to Moscow on Monday and instead stopped in Brussels to share information on "escalating" threats from Iran with European allies and NATO officials, the U.S. special representative for Iran said.
