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Iran would strike US military bases in Europe and on distant islands if the United States attacks it again, the country’s top security official said, warning that any host country whose territory is used in an assault would be treated as a target.
“If the Americans make a mistake and attack us, we will not limit ourselves to nearby bases,” Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, told Al Mayadeen, the Beirut-based channel aligned with Hezbollah and Tehran.
He said Iran “may even target some American military bases in European countries” and could also hit “some islands they think our missiles cannot reach.”
Rezaei urged every country hosting US forces not to cooperate with an attack. “Wherever American planes take off from, we will regard it as a threat against us,” he said.
He also said Russian President Vladimir Putin told him, during a meeting at the Kremlin, that he had informed the Americans that the Islamic Republic “is not a system that can be toppled.”
The warning is the latest expansion of what Tehran says it is willing to hit. Rezaei said Iran confined its strikes to Israel during the 12-day war of June 2025, but fired on US bases across the region in the war that began on February 28. Iranian officials are now naming Europe.
Last month, Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei ordered the armed forces to prepare for retaliation without geographic limits, according to a statement attributed to him. The army’s spokesman said a new war could spread “beyond West Asia.”
The hardline daily Kayhan listed US and NATO facilities in Greek Cyprus, Greece, Romania, Albania, Italy and Britain, along with the joint US-British base on Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean.
Whether Iran could reach such targets is less clear. The Center for Strategic and International Studies lists Iran’s main ballistic missiles as having ranges of about 2,000 kilometers, with some variants perhaps reaching 3,000.
Britain’s Royal United Services Institute has said a strike as far as the United Kingdom is theoretically possible, but would involve smaller and less accurate warheads flying through defended airspace.
The threat comes days after the US military moved tankers and aircraft out of RAF Mildenhall in eastern England over a threat from Iran, and weeks after it withdrew bombers from RAF Fairford following a suspected Iran-linked plot.
Rezaei denied that Tehran is talking to Washington, contradicting reports this week of progress in Qatari mediation. “We are not negotiating with the Americans at present, and there are no negotiations between us and the United States,” he said.
He called reports of a meeting in Qatar, or of plans for him to meet Vice President JD Vance, “lies” meant to ease economic pressure and bring down oil prices. Asked directly about meeting Vance, he replied: “Absolutely not.”
Iran has set seven conditions, Rezaei said, and the Strait of Hormuz will stay closed until they are met. He described Washington’s first reply as “deceptive.” The first condition is an end to the war on all fronts, especially in Lebanon.
On the nuclear issue, he said it was not on the table and that “not even a particle” of Iran’s enriched uranium would leave the country. He said Tehran had told Moscow the same. Iran, he added, is designing nuclear-powered ships and submarines and may build small modular reactors, and needs the material for them.
Rezaei also said the two sides signed an agreement during an earlier round of talks in Islamabad, and that President Donald Trump tore it up within a month. Washington has not confirmed that account.
He further claimed that Iran recently took control of US drones in flight through electronic warfare and brought seven down intact, and that it captured two underwater craft able to dive to 6,000 meters. He gave no details, and none of the claims could be independently verified.
Asked about the health of Mojtaba Khamenei, who has not appeared in public since succeeding his father in March, Rezaei did not answer directly. He said that when they last met, and he prayed behind him, he found the leader better informed about the country “even than me,” and that he issues instructions to military commanders.
Rezaei said he carried a message from Khamenei to Putin, mostly about continuing cooperation. The two also discussed the North-South trade corridor and piping Russian gas, which is no longer sold to Europe, into Iran for its own use and for resale to its neighbors.
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