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The Iranian Embassy in South Africa threatened two U.S. Navy officers with an online message “We will find you” as their warship returned to San Diego on Friday after a historic 357-day deployment that included fighting against Iranian forces.
The warning, published on
The embassy identified Cmdr. Leigh R. Tate, commanding officer of the Spruance, and Lt. Cmdr. Jeffrey E. York, the ship’s general manager.
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“We will find you,” the embassy wrote on X.
The embassy had already singled out these officers in a March 28 article, accusing them of ordering the launch of Tomahawk missiles that killed 168 children at a primary school in Minab, Iran.
“Remember these two criminals,” the previous message began. “Don’t they have their own children?” » asked the embassy at the time.
Behnam Ben Taleblu, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, warned that the rhetoric coming from Tehran should be taken seriously given Iran’s history of plotting attacks against U.S. officials.
“This should ring alarm bells in Washington, in the White House, in the Pentagon and even within CENTCOM,” Taleblu told Fox News Digital. “The Islamic Republic has literally identified people it accuses of being involved in strikes against the regime, and it is talking about reprisals.”
“If there is indeed a plot to pursue these individuals, it is essential that they are detected, that they are disrupted, that they are defeated,” warned Taleblu.
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The Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Spruance fires a Tomahawk land-attack missile in support of Operation Epic Fury. (US Navy/handout via REUTERS)
The Iranian threat came a day after President Donald Trump warned Tehran against assassinating senior U.S. officials.
During a Nov. 12 interview with radio host Hugh Hewitt, Trump was asked what would happen if Iran killed a senior U.S. official.
“They won’t be around much longer,” Trump responded.
His warning also followed reports that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent had left his Washington-area residence for a military base amid Iranian threats to his life.
Bessent confirmed the decision during an interview Friday on CNBC, saying he was following instructions from the Secret Service.
“Why will I be afraid when the brave Gulf military, President Trump, constantly receives death threats?” » asked Bessent.
Bessent described Iran as behaving “like a cornered dangerous animal” and insisted that the threats would not derail the administration’s economic pressure campaign against Tehran.
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Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent gestures during a speech at the gala dinner on U.S.-China Relations, November 10, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)
Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and senior White House official Stephen Miller have also reportedly moved into military or other sheltered housing due to security concerns.
In another article on X, the Iranian embassy in South Africa mocked senior administration officials over their security arrangements.
“Rubio, Bessent, Hegseth and other US officials live in constant fear, haunted by crimes committed, and now confined to military bunkers for their own protection,” the embassy wrote, suggesting they should occasionally appear in public.
The threats come as federal authorities announced developments in alleged Iranian-backed plots targeting Americans.
On November 10, the FBI added Shahram Poursafi, a member of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, to its list of most wanted terrorists due to an alleged assassination plot targeting former senior U.S. officials, including former national security adviser John Bolton.
The same day, the Justice Department announced terrorism charges against three men accused of involvement in nearly 20 attacks and attempted attacks across Europe and the United States, including an alleged plot to target a British air base housing U.S. forces.
These developments follow an Oct. 23 warning from U.S. intelligence that Iranian efforts to target U.S. personnel abroad had increased significantly, with some plots reaching advanced stages.
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The Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer departed San Diego on November 21, 2025, alongside the USS Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group. Its deployment was expanded when US forces carried out Operation Epic Fury against Iran. (Sandy HUFFAKER / AFP via Getty Images)
The embassy warning coincided with the Spruance’s return to Naval Base San Diego on Nov. 13, ending the longest deployment of a U.S. Navy destroyer since World War II.
The Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer departed San Diego on November 21, 2025, alongside the USS Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group. Its deployment was expanded when US forces carried out Operation Epic Fury against Iran.
The Spruance traveled more than 88,000 nautical miles during deployment and launched dozens of Tomahawk land-attack cruise missiles against Iranian military targets between February and August 2026, according to a statement released by the Navy.
The ship also destroyed 12 unmanned aerial vehicles and four anti-ship cruise missiles while operating under persistent threat from Iranian drones and missiles.
“Spruance, in particular, as the alternate air defense commander, was, I would say, instrumental in defending the carrier, defending the force against these incoming threats,” Tate said Friday in the release.
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The destroyer also participated in the American blockade of Iranian ports. In April, it intercepted the Iranian-flagged cargo ship Touska after the ship failed to heed repeated U.S. warnings. (CENTCOM/handout via REUTERS)
The destroyer also participated in the American blockade of Iranian ports. In April, it intercepted the Iranian-flagged cargo ship Touska after the ship failed to heed repeated U.S. warnings.
U.S. Central Command said at the time that the Spruance ordered the evacuation of the ship’s engine room before firing shells that disabled the ship.
Tate called commanding the ship during the extended deployment the “honor of his life.”
“The Spruance Sailors made the difference,” Tate also said in a statement Friday. “They represented their families, their ship and the United States Navy with distinction.”
At the same time, Iranian officials are also threatening U.S. military installations abroad.
On November 11, Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council Mohsen Rezaei warned that Tehran could strike US bases in Europe if the United States resumed attacks on Iran.
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Mohsen Rezaei was appointed secretary of the Supreme National Security Council. A former general of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and member of the Expediency Discernment Council, along with the secretary of the Supreme Economic Coordination Council and the Economic Committee of the Iranian government, attend a ceremony at the shrine of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in southern Tehran, Iran, June 4, 2026. (Morteza Nikoubazl/NurPhoto)
“If the Americans make a mistake and attack us, we will not limit ourselves to nearby bases,” Rezaei told Al Mayadeen.
Taleblu described the embassy’s latest statements as part of a growing trend of threats against U.S. personnel.
“This is an escalation in the path we have been on,” he said, pointing to the threatening rhetoric from Iranian diplomatic accounts and radical commentators during and after the war.
“So this is essentially incitement and invective from the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism, a state that unfortunately has a track record of doing these things, albeit with delay.”
He cited threats against U.S. military personnel following the Americans’ accidental shooting down of an Iranian civilian airliner in 1988.
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“Something like this is not unprecedented in the 47-year-old shadow war between the Islamic Republic and America,” Taleblu said, warning that the conflict has increasingly shifted from covert operations to open warfare and growing public threats on social media.
Fox News Digital has contacted the Pentagon and the White House for comment.
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