“If this action is repeated, the US military will face a firm response,” the Guards said in a statement on their Sepah News website.

“The enemy’s blind plan, after the imposed war, the economic pressure, and the political and propaganda siege, is to create divisions and disintegration in order to compensate for military defeats and bring the nation to its knees,” said Khamenei, who has not appeared in public since before he took office in March.

The United States Treasury announced sanctions Wednesday against Iran’s Persian Gulf Strait Authority, Tehran’s new agency that collects fees for traveling through the strategic Strait of Hormuz.

The move reverses a previous policy of relying on video creators to self-report if they had used generative AI tools.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said on Wednesday that a return to war with the United States was unlikely, but warned the Islamic republic stood ready to respond to any attack.