A top US politician has threatened Cuban leaders days after the assassination of Iran’s head of state.
Lindsey Graham, a Republican senator from South Carolina and an ally of President Donald Trump, hinted that the US could target the communist regime in Havana next.
He appeared on Fox News’ Sunday Night in America to discuss the weekend attacks against Iran, which sparked further bombings and reprisal attacks across the Middle East.
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei Killed in his compound by a joint US-Israeli airstrike on Saturday morning. The IDF has expanded its military operations into Lebanon, hitting Hezbollah targets.
Iran latest: US warns of ‘harder hits yet to come’
Iran fired missiles at US military sites and Gulf allies, including the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain and Britain’s Akrotiri air base in Cyprus.
“The Iranian regime, the mother ship of international terrorism, is about to collapse,” Mr Graham said. “The captain of the ship, the Ayatollah, is stone cold.”
However, the senator also said “of Cuba Next”, adding: “They are going to fall. This communist dictatorship in Cuba, whose days are numbered.
It’s unclear if any military action is planned, but Cuba has come under increased pressure from the Trump administration to deploy US forces. Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro was kidnapped At the beginning of the year.
The US has maintained a strict trade embargo on Cuba since 1962, following a failed, CIA-sponsored invasion of the island in the Bay of Pigs.
In February, the Trump administration increased the blockade with an energy embargo, which has caused oil shortages and, according to international charities, a humanitarian crisis.
United Nations human rights experts have condemned it Donald Trump’s An executive order last month imposing trade tariffs on countries that export oil to Cuba is a “serious violation of international law and a serious threat to democracy and an equitable international order,” it said.
Mexico and Canada have also sent aid to the Caribbean nation in the wake of the embargo.
Mexican ships provided humanitarian aid to Cuba after the US oil embargo. Image: Reuters
It comes after Trump said Friday that an amicable annexation of Cuba was possible, without giving details on what he meant.
Speaking to reporters outside the White House, Trump said US Secretary of State Marco Rubio was in discussions with Cuban leaders at a “very high level.”
“The Cuban government is talking to us,” the president said. “They don’t have money. They don’t have anything right now. But they’re talking to us, and maybe we can get a friendly takeover of Cuba.”
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Havana said last week Its forces shot and killed four Cuban nationals entered its waters in a US-registered speedboat and opened fire on the patrol vessel.
Six other Cuban citizens on the boat were wounded and arrested in the shootout just a mile off the island’s coast, the country’s interior ministry said.
Mr Rubio said no US government personnel were involved but insisted: “We’re going to have our own information on this, we’re going to figure out exactly what happened.”
