Don't seek escalation or war, took proportionate measures in self-defence: Iran on missile attacks

Hours after Tehran launched retaliatory short-range ballistic missiles at two military bases in Iraq that house American troops, Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif on Wednesday said that his country took 'proportionate measures in self-defence' and that it does not seek any escalation or war.

"Iran took and concluded proportionate measures in self-defence under Article 51 of UN Charter targeting base from which cowardly armed attack against our citizens and senior officials were launched. We do not seek escalation or war, but will defend ourselves against any aggression," Zarif said in a tweet.

Meanwhile, Iran's telecommunications minister Mohammad Javad Azari Jahromi launched a scathing attack on the US, following the missile attack on American targets in Iraq. "Get the hell out of our region!" he tweeted.

Iran launched a series of attacks on US targets in Iraq including the targetting of two bases at Al-Asad and Abril with over a dozen ballistic missiles amid rising tensions following the killing of senior Iranian general Qassem Soleimani in a US airstrike last week.

Soleimani, the head of Iran's Revolutionary Guards' elite Quds Force, was killed in a US drone strike ordered by US President Donald Trump near Baghdad International Airport in Iraq last Friday.

His death marked a dramatic escalation in tensions between the US and Iran, that have often been at a fever pitch since Trump, in 2018, chose to unilaterally withdraw Washington from the 2015 nuclear pact world powers struck with Tehran.

Iran has threatened to strike inside America if the US responds to the missile attacks.

Meanwhile, Soleimani was laid to rest in his hometown of Kerman as thousand of Iranians bid an emotional adieu to the country's top military general.