DUBAI, February 2. /TASS/. Tehran will firmly respond in the event of any attempts to intimidate it, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi said during a visit to the city of Minab in Hormozgan Province.

"In the past, whenever they wanted to talk to Iran, they used the language of threats such as the military option is on the table but now we don’t hear those words, rather they say even that they are not seeking war," the IRNA news agency quoted him as saying. "We have often clarified that Iran will not initiate a war but will answer bullies firmly and authoritatively," Raisi cautioned.

On January 27, a drone attack on the Western coalition’s military base in the Al-Tanf area on the Syrian-Jordanian border killed three US troops and left another 40 wounded. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg blamed Tehran for the strike during a visit to the US on January 29. He claimed that Iran continued "to destabilize the region," and that it also bore "the responsibility for backing terrorists who attack ships in the Red Sea." Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Nasser Kanaani condemned those statements.

US President Joe Biden said on January 30 that he had decided how to respond to the strike on the US military base. Politico wrote, citing sources, that options for retaliation, which was likely to begin in the next couple of days, included a strike on Iranian troops in Iraq and Syria. According to ABC News, the US president does not consider it necessary to carry out direct strikes against Iran because an expanded conflict in the Middle East could have a major impact on his re-election bid.