A senior Iranian security official issued a chilling warning to President Donald Trump on Tuesday, telling the U.S. leader to “be careful not to get eliminated yourself” as tensions rise over control of an important oil route.
Ali Larijani, Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, posted the veiled assassination warning on X after Trump said he would hit Iran “twenty times harder” if Tehran disrupted oil shipments through the Strait of Hormuz. Larijani’s message came two days after Trump’s March 8, 2026 post on Truth Social, which threatened “Death, Fire, and Fury” if Iran interfered with the strategic waterway that handles about 20% of the world’s oil.
“The sacrificial nation of Iran doesn’t fear your empty threats. Even those bigger than you couldn’t eliminate Iran. Be careful not to get eliminated yourself,” Larijani wrote in his Tuesday, March 10 post, according to TIME Magazine.
The warning represents a sharp escalation in the verbal confrontation between Washington and Tehran, arriving after Israel killed Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei on Feb. 28 during the opening of a joint U.S.-Israeli operation. Larijani, who has coordinated Iran’s retaliatory strikes against Israel and Gulf Arab states, previously said on television he would hold Trump personally responsible for Khamenei’s death.
The United States has accused Iran of planning several assassination attempts against Trump in recent years, allegations Tehran has denied. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said last week that U.S. forces killed the head of a covert Iranian unit that was allegedly plotting to assassinate the president during recent strikes inside Iran. “Iran tried to kill President Trump, and President Trump got the last laugh,” Hegseth said at a briefing.
The assassination threats are more than rhetoric. On March 13, a New York jury convicted a Pakistani man who tried to hire hit men on behalf of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard to carry out political killings in the United States. Prosecutors said the intended targets included Trump, former President Joe Biden, and former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley.
In 2024, the Justice Department unsealed a criminal complaint against an Afghan man who was allegedly approached by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard and asked to design a plan to surveil and ultimately kill Trump. The threats became so serious that after the second assassination attempt in Florida that year—which was not linked to Iran—Trump’s security detail had him travel to an event on a decoy plane owned by Steve Witkoff.
Trump has said he left instructions with his team about possible Iranian assassination plots. He told reporters last year that if Iran managed to kill him, “they get obliterated, there won’t be anything left.”
The rising threats coincide with Iran launching new attacks Tuesday against Israel and Gulf Arab states, firing missiles and drones at Israeli targets and U.S. bases across the region. Iran has also targeted energy infrastructure and shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, driving oil prices sharply higher since the conflict began.
Brent crude has climbed further, reaching nearly $105 per barrel as of March 16, remaining well above levels from before the war began on February 28, with one Iranian official warning prices could surge beyond $200 a barrel. The strikes appear intended to inflict enough global economic pain to pressure the U.S. and Israel to stop their military campaign.
At a Tuesday news conference, Defense Secretary Hegseth reiterated Trump’s warning about the Strait of Hormuz, while Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, did not rule out U.S. military escorts for vessels transiting the strategic waterway.
Trump escalated further on Saturday, March 14, calling on China, France, Japan, South Korea, the United Kingdom, and others to send warships to secure the strait, saying the effort should “always have been a team effort.” As of March 16, no country has publicly agreed to participate. U.S. intelligence sources also reported that Iran had begun laying dozens of mines in the waterway in recent days, with CNN citing officials saying Iranian forces were capable of laying hundreds more.
The CEOs of ExxonMobil, Chevron, and ConocoPhillips have warned the Trump administration that the Hormuz disruption is likely to worsen the global energy crisis, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Despite rising tensions and economic disruption, Trump downplayed the prospect of a prolonged conflict, calling the operation “going to be a short-term excursion.” Oil prices fell sharply in early Tuesday trading after the president said the war would end “very soon.”
The direct threat to Trump from a senior Iranian official marks an unprecedented point in U.S.-Iran relations, with TIME reporting Larijani’s post as the most explicit warning yet from Tehran’s leadership toward the American president.